I have been blogging for a while and I’m reading hundreds of blog posts a day. I have come to realize that one of the hardest things when it comes to blogging is to get comments on what I write. It’s not hard to lose readers, not at all.
I don’t measure my success in comments, but I really appreciate them, no matter if they’re short and all they say is “great post”. Well, I even appreciate spam (but I don’t publish them).
I have discovered a secret
I don’t know why I say that this is a secret, because it’s fairly obvious, but it seems that a lot of people don’t know this (that’s why I’m saying that it’s a secret).
I’m not saying that I get a lot of comments, because I don’t. But I believe that I have discovered a secret, actually I’ve discovered three secrets to get more blog comments (in a way, it’s all about building a community).
I never did this, that’s why I didn’t receive almost any in the past. But now I do, well, not on all of my blog posts, but most of them.
Don’t look at the professionals
At first I was only reading the blogs where the professional bloggers shared their thoughts. Then, I discovered that they didn’t do anything to receive comments, they wrote awesome content, that’s it. That’s all I experienced when I looked at all the different blogs.
I’m not saying that you shouldn’t read the blogs from professional blogs like problogger, copyblogger, entrepreneurs-journey and more. You’ll learn a lot from them, but when it comes to how to receive more blog comments on your own blog, that’s not where you should be looking.
I assume that you’re already writing awesome content.
Look at the semi professional bloggers. They’re doing the stuff that the professionals did a while ago, stuff that they don’t need to do anymore, and don’t have the time to do.
The 3 Secrets to receive more blog comments
If you add value to other blog posts, you’ll get traffic as well, but if you want more blog comments, you should not use software like comment kahuna and you shouldn’t buy your blog comments.
What you should do is this:
Comment on blogs regularly
If you comment on other blogs, you will receive some in return. If you comment on the same blogs over and over again, the chances are even bigger that you’ll get some in return. You should, depending on how much time you have every day, comment on 10 blogs (keep adding to the same blogs, don’t just throw your comment all over the place).
Think of it as building a community. You want to hang out with people you like, and people you admire, people you can learn a lot from.
Reply to comments
When you get a comment on your own blog posts, or the blog posts you’ve commented on, always think about leaving a reply (there’s not always a reason for you to reply, but if there is, add a reply).
You want to communicate, you want to add value to the conversation. You want to be personal. If you interact and leave replies they feel appreciated. In the end, they’ll be visiting your blog and they’ll be leaving comments, over and over again.
Notifications
When people comment on your blog posts, you should make sure that they’ll get notifications when a new comment arrives. Almost nobody will visit your blog post again to check if there are any replies. They need to receive an e-mail if there is a new comment, and especially if someone replies to their comment.
You want the conversation to continue, you want them to visit and leave new comments to the same blog posts.
This is it
The 3 secrets can be summed up like this; do to others what you would have them do to you. That’s it. Actually, this is a lot like the pizza delivery guy.
Image: flickr
This is a nice article, i do follow these steps. Replying to comments also increase the chances of getting returning visitors because it also sends an automated mail to the commentator when subscribed.
Twitter: berget
That’s true. But I find it even harder to get replies to comment. It helps if I ask questions.
Twitter: technarycom
Not only commenting helps to get comments back but it also gets some descent traffic. Which is the best output. thanks for the secrets
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it’s funny, that sometimes the most simple tips are often the best!
I have no trouble getting people to sign up to my newsletters, but I struggle to get them commenting on my blogs! ARGH!
I will take these tips on board and see how I go. Thanks for this post!
Twitter: berget
Hey Sahil,
My experience is that if you build a relationship with a blog (and its author), you’ll get some “love” in return
I find that by leaving a not on blogs, keeps in the know as to what is going on, it gives me fresh ideas, and has built some killer relationships.
Twitter: berget
Hi Eddie,
That’s exactly how I feel
Hi Jens,
Notifications are very important but most of the bloggers forget about them. The first thing I did after installing WP was to install “Comment Reply Notification” plugin so that people can be notified easily.
Twitter: berget
Exactly. I would have installed it, but I’m using Disqus for my comments (and they handle the notifications as well).
Well first and foremost, I haven’t been into your blog for a while and I just saw you have now a nice refreshing, yet very simple design here so just want to say wow!
Well as far as getting comments, add the fact that you have to be as genuine as you could possibly be. In that way, readers can easily connect with you without thinking that they may screw up commenting in an uber “professional” blog.
Great writeup
Twitter: berget
Thanks. I really like the design as well.
I agree about comments. I usually spend more time on a comment on a very popular blog, although I don’t know why
Thanks
I was in search of such article
… I will try the points give by you above…
Twitter: berget
Thanks.
You should. They work for me
I think this article deserves a new comment
Great advice. I don’t really obsess over comments at all, but it’s nice to receive them. And I definitely don’t comment on other blogs as much as I should (definitely not 10 a day) but I’d like to change that. Usually its just a time issue for me. Anyway, thanks for sharing your “secret” with everyone!
Twitter: berget
It’s definitely a time issue. I comment on three a day, and more if I have time.
Thanks a lot for your comment
commenting on other blogs can really get you comments
The article has served well as this is the 19th comment
Notifications should be done but if overdone, its irritating as a few of the blogger’s notify even when we comment [i.e without any reply]…
Twitter: berget
Yes, that’s true. But usually you can unsubscribe from comments on each blog post. This way you won’t receive any more emails about new comments. I do this on the most popular blogs, the ones that are receiving more than one hundred comments
Twitter: andrewmagnus
Hei Jens!
Jeg skriver på Norsk, håper det er ok
skal jeg bli flinkere til det. Takk for gode tips!
Kjempe fine og egentlig opplagte tips. Jeg har blogget i over tre år og ikke vært så flink til å kommentere og engasjere meg hos andre. Når vi får min nye blogg opp å gå i morgen
Hilsen Magnus
Twitter: berget
Halla Magnus,
Ikke noe problem at du skriver på norsk
Vi skal nok få bloggen din opp i morgen, så da blir det saker. Har begynt å tenke ut litt i forhold til design og oppsett.
Engasjement er utrolig viktig, mye viktigere nå enn tidligere. Du bør forresten lese The Thank You Economy av Gary Vaynerchuck. Det er en link til boka i min “sidebar”.. jeg har akkurat lest den ferdig og den er veldig bra.
Snakkes i morgen.
Jens
When it comes to notifications, I highly suggest using LiveFyre as your comment system. I recently wrote the most in-depth review and feature-for-feature comparison of LiveFyre and Disqus.
Both are great commenting systems, but I prefer the way LiveFyre allows you to notify people you mention in your comment on Twitter and Facebook, merely by using the @ symbol before their name and choosing them from the drop down list that comes up. The drop down list finds the username on twitter and looks through your facebook friends to find the person you’re mentioning. Disqus doesn’t do that.
It’s a great way to bring other people into the conversation on your blog via Facebook and Twitter.
Anyway, just my two cents. You can read a lot more about the two commenting systems in my review.
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Blog comments are important to get traffic on blog through increase new and regular blog commentators. Comment on other blogs, reply to blog commentator and notification for new update are really useful to receive more comments on blog.
Twitter: berget
Absolutely. Blog comments are very important part of marketing a blog, and that’s one of my most important ways of building relationships with other fellow bloggers.
Thank you so much, I am so glad you enjoyed the post. Definitely take advantage of the awesome bloging topics. Thanks for the feedback and good luck with your posts!
I’m so glad you found these ideas helpful and thanks for the information.
Twitter: berget
Thank you so much for your feedback. I really appreciate it
Twitter: sanjibinkiit
CommentLuv Plugin can help a lot in this case. Developing a good relation with bloggers is very important. As you have mentioned commenting on other blogs brings traffic and i am the proof of this. I landed in your page fro Adreinne’s blog and look i could not stop myself from commenting. A Guest Post can increase commentators too. Having a good title can increase it by 2-3x. Sometimes a debatable topic can give you loads of comments.
Sanjib
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Twitter: 1000giftideas
The secret is pretty simple and straight forward even then we often miss these things and end up in a virtually dead blog! Thanks for sharing it would be very helpful for some.
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Twitter: berget
Yes, I agree. But you don’t want to ask people every time you publish a new post