The comments section on your blog is where your readers can share their thoughts on the words you wrote. They can agree, disagree or even add to your piece. Earning comments shows that your blog is reaching an audience and that the audience is engaged with what you have to say.
As a blogger, you want comments. Not only does it prove readership and engage your audience, but the organic content driven to your blog though comments also helps improve your SEO.
If the comment section on your blog hasn’t seen any action, here are a few little tidbits to help you change that.
1. Write quality material.
Before you can earn comments on your blog, you must have readers, and the only way you’re going to get readers is to write about topics that are interesting to others. People like to learn something from blogs, so rather than blog about what you ate for dinner last night, share the recipe.
People also enjoy blogs that take a stand or are controversial, and these topics are a great way to earn comments on your blog. People also love emotional stories that tug at the heartstrings. So when you write your blogs, ask yourself if what you’re writing is interesting enough to generate comments from your readers.
2. Spread the word.
Now that you’ve written something magical, make sure you let everyone know. You can spend hours writing the perfect blog, but if nobody knows your blog exists, nobody will read or comment on it. Send out emails to your friends, family, colleagues and customers. Post a link to your blog on all your social media accounts as well as your website. The more people that know about your blog, the better chance you’ll have of earning comments.
3. Ask for them.
At the end of your post, ask a question (or two) that you want the readers to answer. People are more willing to share their thoughts by answering a question than simply posting a random comment.
You can also ask certain people to comment on your blog. For example, if you wrote a post about education, reach out to your teacher friends and ask them to comment on it. People are more willing to leave comments on topics they feel they’re knowledgeable about, and once you get that initial comment on your blog, more people will fall in line. Some of us are just scared to be first.
4. Respond to comments.
When someone comments on your blog, comment back. This not only thanks them for taking the time, but it also continues the conversation. Others can now read the conversation and get involved too.
5. Make it easy.
If readers have to sign up to leave a comment, fill out a giant questionnaire and then go through a long process just to post a comment, it will deter them from doing so. Make the comment-leaving process easy for your readers, and you’ll see more people jumping on board.
How do you get comments on your blog? Do you have any other tips or tricks that weren’t mentioned? Please share them below.
Kristi Munno
Copywriter | Content Management Specialist
With over six years of professional writing experience, Kristi is a published author who expertly communicates on the importance of content in business and marketing.
The tips given by above article is far enough for Getting More Comments On Your Blog.
My experience is that if you comment on a regular basis on other people's blog and form a community, these same people will always come back and comment when you post something. An online community of 20-30 people will stimulate a discussion on your blog and if you keep on writing on a regular basis they will get used to coming back. You do not need to have a high traffic site to receive 50 comments on your blog - It is all about building online social relationship through social conversations
@abdallahalhakim Interesting -- Do you have a good example? I always want to think that's true, but when I really look I find that most blogs with high comment counts have a lot of traffic.
@blfarris Read this post from yesterday and pay attention to William Mougayar's reply http://www.thebookdesigner.com/2012/07/secrets-of-blog-posts-that-get-tons-of-comments/#comment-25119 - William is a good example of someone who is a solid member of AVC community and actually first launched his startup, Engagio, on that community.
@kathysteele @engagio thanks for checking it out. Let me know how you like using it
@abdallahalhakim @engagio looks very cool. Thanks for sharing.
@kathysteele In my opinion, if you are after broadcasting to a wide audience then metrics such as facebook likes and RT are important. However, if your goal is to better engage and build online real online relationships then you have to get involved in social conversations. The process of writing a comment is a much better social signal and implies a degree of commitment to the post. The difficult part in this process is the discovery process. One of the companies trying to tackle the discovery process is Engagio which I highly recommend you try (full disclosure: I work there!!). I hope this helps
@abdallahalhakim I think it is truly a mix of things - popular/trendy topics, interesting headlines, reach of your twitter / facebook following. When I am looking for some good discussion I like to call out to experts or my opinionated friends to chime in.
I've seen that the number of comments is highly correlated to just one thing -- traffic. If you get more traffic you will get more comments. Good content, & spreading it around bring in the eyeballs and some % of them will comment. Commenting back and making it easy increase the conversion -- but traffic is the key.
When you see someone's blog with 50 comments you know they got a lot of vistors.
@blfarris I see blogs with great content good number of Tweets, or high profile people and they must have lots of visitors but little comments. Why, because the content is complete. There is no reason to comment.I see 2 types of posts on my site, one that attracts a lot of Likes and Tweets but hardly nobody comments. Then there are posts that get a lot of comments but are hardly shared (so traffic is lower).