Every blogger wants their blog to be interactive. The more a blog is interactive, the more success to the blogger and hence more earnings to the blogger. Also it leads to a big fan base to the blogger. Whenever I write about interactivity, few of the probloggers who come to my mind are Liz Strauss, Chris Garrett and a couple more. They have their own community. It is not tough to create interactivity in your blog. It just takes a few actions from your side. You have to kick start the interactivity.
1. Reply To Every Comment
This is something which most bloggers don’t do. When readers care to comment in your blog, you have to reply to their efforts. If you have a blog with that receives many comments on every post, then you can just reply to the best comments. If you care to reply to every comment, the commentator will feel comfortable and will also comment in your next post. This also increases the number of comments on your blog.
Image Source: _Zeta_
2. Organize A Competition
People like competitions and everyone would love to participate. Organize a competition in your blog. Start a group writing project or maybe a small game. You can give cash award or even a back link from your blog. That’s all it takes. But the result of a competition will be worth.
3. Reward Your Regular Commentators
It is a good idea to reward your regular commentator. Though this could lead to few useless comments, this is a good idea o improve interactivity. Link to the top 3 commentators Sunday back links. You can give a text link in the side bar to the top commentator of the month. You can also offer them a link at the footer of your feed. (Thanks Shankar for the feed link idea).
4. Offer Your Service
Offer your service to your blog readers. Give them something special which other can’t get. Make your service special to only the readers of your blog. The services you offer maybe anything like a guest post or blog review or theme design. You can also get something in return for it. You can even give an e-book only to your blog readers.
5. Mail Them
Don’t do this often as you maybe ignored. When people leave a comment, mail them to say ‘Thank You’. You can comment on their blog in return. Commenting on others blog in return not only increases your blog’s interactivity but also gets you more readers. You can also mail your readers appreciating their work or just to wish them something. You can message your blog readers and commentators to wish them “Merry Christmas”.
So what do you do to create interactivity in your blog? Do you reply to every comment? Have you offered your service to any of your commentator? Merry Christmas to you.
It's so nice to see that "reply to every comment" made a list like this. I've been doing this for quite some time and have had many say that it's pretty pointless. However, the result of the many return visitors shows that it's clearly not.
Thanks for the tips, I'll certainly put more of them into motion on my blog.
Interaction between readers in a blog can be great in generating returning visits and also the number of comments.
Nice tips I should say. I am doing most of them other than the competition point. I will try it out, possibly in Year 2008. Now, time to laze around.
One more way to initiate interaction is giving something back that might be of value to the commenter. It doesn't always have to be a competition, sometimes just a give away as a thank you can do wonders.
Wayne, Good to hear you will be trying out the competition in your blog. Good luck. Merry Christmas and a Happy New year to you.
Ritu, Yes a word of thanks will do wonders. Good point. Merry Christmas and Happy New year to you.
they are very true…great post buddy…
I love your ideas and have thought to comment back, or email, but some people I can't seem to find a contact for. If I reply on my blog, do most readers come back to look for a reply? I have tried to write and tell them thank you, as well as comment, but I am not sure they see the reply to their comment. I have not been blogging long, so am still learning the ins and outs and appreciate so much hints like yours.