7 Ways to Increase Your Blog Comments
When you have really good posts on your blog, it probably bothers you when you don’t get as much feedback as you’d hoped. Sometimes, there are no comments at all when what you really want is to feel appreciated buy your readers. I’ve identified seven ways to increase the comments you receive on your blog posts.
1. Incentivize.
Give people a reason to comment. The classic way method is to hold a contest and give away prizes for the best comments on your blog within a specific period of time. This will spike up comments because, obviously, people always want to win something.
Unfortunately, it probably isn’t the most long term solution because once the prizes are gone, people won’t be motivated to comment any more.
2. Keep The Conversation Going.
The writers and owners of the blog have to step in to respond to comments. In general, people are often very guilty of looking at their posts but not responding even when people write nice things about them because they are simply too busy.
But, according to Yaro Starak, the minute you stop responding to the comments left on your blog, all the comments will stop flowing because to the reader, it shows that you, the blogger, don’t care. The converse side is that when people see you actually taking the time to respond, they’ll care because you care too.
3. Kiss Ass. Strategically.
If you want to get the attention of other bloggers, write about them. For example, you could write about Seth Godin in your post and hopefully, either through track back or through a search engine, he’ll find your post and leave a comment on your blog.
I think you’d agree that it’s cool to have Seth Godin leave a note in your comment box. We’ve had pretty impressive people comment on our blog lately – Jack Humphrey and Paulie Sabol, among others, so it’s a pretty neat way to attract their attention.
4. Be Controversial.
Write on a topic you can’t be neutral about. Write about something such that you’re either on one side of the fence or the other. You could give your take on Hilary and Obama, or other current issues. In Internet marketing, a popular one is, "All Gurus Suck." You just need to keep the conversation going.
5. Be Relevant.
Use the USA Today Secret about which I spoke earlier, which is basically finding the most relevant things in the prospects’ heads, be it through USAToday.com or CNN – and blog about it, connecting it to your story.
You will probably get more comments because that’s at the top of the prospects’ minds.
6. Email Them Nicely.
Use your auto responder to email them and say, "Hey, the blog’s a bit lonely, why don’t you join the conversation?" which has been proven to boost responses.
7. Ask Specific Questions.
I think this is the most powerful. On the blog itself, ask specifically, "Now tell us, what can this technique do for your business?" Be sure to ask specific questions, and not to just say, "Tell us what you think". Email your readers, or ask them on your blog.
Ask questions that draw them out, for example, by asking how the content of that particular blog post will benefit them.
Blog comments do help with the search engine optimization of your blog, and increasing the number of comments on your blog is to your advantage. On a more personal level, once your blog community becomes more active and engaged, you will get to know your readers and that you will feel that no effort you put into writing your posts goes unnoticed.
I would like to advance the point you’re making about
comments from key people. And I hope I can comment on
this while still remaining humble since I was an example.
Many key people have set Google Alerts to their name.
Likewise, I’m a friend of Seth G’s publicist, Amal, and
I know she also uses a service to monitor “talk”.
What this means is your strategy is a solid one because
there’s a technology that can allow a reader to become
aware…
…visit…
…and respond.
Now, this again has the limits of giving an activity
spike followed by a drop in activity as the “key”
person moves on to the new area where his/her name
next appears.
However, there’s a next step.
If you reply to the email of the poster and invite
them to join your blog community so all your posts
are emailed and specifically invite them to comment
as a guest / recognized expert.
You increase the frequency of comment.
Finally, as a counter balance, too many posts from
the same expert(s) can “reduce” the “WOW-FACTOR” of
their being there. So it is up to you to find your
balance.
Cheers,
Paulie
PS One nice element of finding an expert is often
(though not always) experts in the industry know
how to “play nice”
That is, they won’t make ugly posts in all caps
calling your or another poster a @#$@% BLAH #$!@#$%.
They also will have some of the more pithy ways to
say things. That is, they have sound bites and
thus a more journalistic quality.
Hey Paulie – thanks for the excellent comment. It’s great to have you as a reader.
I’d like to take your advice and invite you to join my private community for free. Do let me know if you’d be interested. Visit my website mindvalley.com/contact and you’ll find my email address. Drop me a line.
To do anything truly worth doing, I must not stand back shivering and thinking of the cold and danger, but jump in with gusto and scramble through as well as I can.
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Additional tips try to comment on others blogs as frequent as you want others to visit your blogs and leave a comment too:-)
It’s my email list that attracts recurring visitors. I send out a notice about once a week notifying my subscribers of the new posts.
On the day I send the email out my stats go straight up.
Great tips! I agree that if the blogger doesn’t chip in and get the conversation rolling it tend to get lost!
Very nice post.
I will have to try out these methods on my blog and see if I can get more responses.
Thanks.
John Dufresne
The Bloggers eStore
I’ll be putting your tipsto use in a very few minutes. You’ve answered some questions I’ve had and I must start taking time to respond to comments and make more posts.
Hi,
Thanks for the information,just found this post my technorati news feed section! I was searching for this since past 3 months and i am glad to see it here. Thanking you much
Martin
I like the bit about giving people an Incentivize to comment on your site. This is what I will be trying to do to get more comments as it is also fresh content added for free.
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