How to make inactive readers to comment?

All of us would agree that the total number of comments on a blog is made up of less than 20-30% of the total number of visitors on the entire blog.
Even the blog which receives the most number of comments(Problogger ,SEOMoz or any other blog), is able to convert only it’s 25% of total traffic into active comenters.
The total unique hits to total number of comments from unique ips is the proof for this.

Comments are one of the most surest ways to calculate the popularity of articles on a blog.Well, the traffic and link backs are also metrics to measure the popularity but active comments sure gives you an idea of how effectively you managed to get your visitors involved on the topic you wrote about.
Sadly, not every visitor/reader of your blog responds to every article.I think the following reasons can be attributed to it.

1. Bad writing skills – well, a very basic point here. If you write in english that not many understand – then obviously, it wouldn’t prompt anyone to comment or even read your articles.If at all it generates any discussions, it would be criticisms on your writing skills.Believe me you don’t have to take a degree in “Bloggerscience” to impress people with your articles. All you need is good industry knowledge and some humour sense with some basic writing skills.(Or you can make it like a average writer like me. )
2. Another more genuine point is not writing on interesting articles. Everybody likes to read about news on Paris Hilton,but not everyone would prefer “How to avoid Chikun gunea”. When the articles on a blog are not interesting to it’s readers, then it leaves them with no opinion.Since every blog has a niche category – the focus should be on how to make the respective topics more interesting and readable.Of course, you need to put in the boring facts now and then – but make it attractive.
3. Deviating from topics – A very common mistake by blogger. Understand that people visit your blog with some expectations already – they know that you write mostly about a topic they like. But when you write about something else they aren’t expecting, it takes time to sink in or they’ll ditch you for what you’ve done.This forms another reason for not responding to your articles.
4. Not being interactive – Don’t get carried away with the traffic you recieve . It just shows how many people found you easily on the search engines.It may not be the exact measure of how many people love you site or your articles.Interact with them, ask them questions, or give them an opportunity to talk to you. It’s always good the build a two way feedback system rather than a monologue.
5. Stop pretending being a “guru” and talk like a common blogger.Stop preaching but write about your experience.People like to read stories rather than the encyclopedia(a few do!).You asked questions in stories to your grandma right? Same principle goes here.

Being interactive is the key to make people talk.But, even then there would be passive visitors to your site, who are comfortable just reading content rather than talking or interacting with the rest of the bunch.Little do they know that they are missing the action – when they remain dormant and isolated.It’s a fact that many of them would be power houses of knowledge, and if you can extract the best out of them, believe me, your comment interaction in the blog would sky rocket!

How do you woo the passive visitors to interact?

If you had noted the previous post from me – If you are reading this on an RSS reader – your’e a loser! You might just have got the answer already.

After posting that article, i told to Kevin, that this article is going to give you a surprise. It will dig out the passive readers from Bloggingtips and get them commenting.
Precisely, that’s what happened. If you notice, there is something interesting in the comments to that article.

Most(excluding the regular commenters) of the comments came from people with a total of 1-3 comments on blogging tips. Which means that that particular article managed to provoke those passive readers who are most unlikely to comment to a popular post.

The keyword there is “Provoked”. Yes, indeed the very title of the article was a provoking one. I even hurt some regular readers – calling them losers.
Through this article I’d like to make clear that it was only an experiment and i didn’t really mean anything – other than to get the guy with the least comment on bloggingtips , take that extra pain to write a few lines.

Interestingly, there were some one line comments too – like “Thanks for calling me a loser.”, “I’m not a loser” and the like. Though, they are of few lines, i think it’s a commendable effort from their side – to having written down at least that much – they don’t usually do that.

Here, what I’ve done is used the “emotional value” first by writing a – provoking title and second – by writing something that compels you to respond.I must admit that the article was not completely right – in the sense that – you can’t really make a decision on whether reading an article on RSS reader is better than reading the site on the actual site or not. But i intentionally, made it a one-sided view. That reading on a RSS reader is stupid and that who ever reads it is a loser.My only idea was to make an impact in your minds and make you write a few lines.

What I’m trying to say is that – If you use the right tone(friendliness),right language(jargon free common language),right angle(just) and right medium to expressing your views, you can directly connect to your readers.

This is because,after some time of regular reading, a reader/subscriber develops an emotional attachment with the blog(not right in all cases though.) This applies to every reader, not just the active commenters(which is only visible) but even the guy who have not commented yet on the blog.

So next time you want to know how many passive visitors are on your site – select the right topic that will affect them, write a provoking article, and leave space for comments. You’ll come to see the shadow areas(unseen traffic) of your traffic respond to you. Wouldn’t that make you happy?

I must admit – no SEO tips can help you get this sort of reader interaction.

Written by Mani Karthik from Daily SEO Blog
Posted on July 29th, 2007 and filed under Blogging
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