5 Ways to Increase Comments on Your Blog

Most people that visit blogs say that a blog without comments is like forums without posts. In my opinion that ain’t true, you can keep on blogging even if you don’t have any comments at all. Yes, posts that receive comments tend to be well written and of use but, looking at the fact of not blogging or writing new posts because you don’t get any comments is outrageous.

I know Creativeoverflow has only recently been launched but, we have seen a significant result of useful thinking and posting. We have 270 Comments to date with the site being 1 Month and 12 days old. These comments are results of successfully promoting and advertising the site. My honest opinion is that I would rather see a shorter list of comments below a post with decent replies than a long list of unethical replies, reading “Nice post, Nice Tutorial, Keep it up.” That is my view though but, seeing you guys want to have a long list of comments below each of your posts, here is a few basic tips to achieve that.

1. Leave Appropriate, Useful Comments on other Blogs

Usually people starting new blogs are waiting for their dream to come true and have millions of readers and comments streaming in daily but, the actual fact is that you first have to get off of your behind and do something to generate some readers. The best way to start out is to leave useful comments on other blogs, 99.9% of blogs have a field in the comments area where you link to your website. You might think how is this going to help you attract visitors that comment? The thing is, if you leave them a reply to their post pointing out some tips or useful info towards that post they will most likely respond to your comment. You don’t always have to point out some tips or info, you can debate about the subject, point out mistakes or your thoughts on the subject. Their are so many ways you can attract their attention but, what I am trying to say is don’t just leave a comment on a post and expect people to check out your site if you haven’t left any useful information or guidelines.

If I were to leave you a comment on your blog stating, “Nice post man.” Would you infact reply to my comment or visit my website? I think not. You have to give them something to ponder on and to make them think or want more. Nowadays a lot of blogs are using CommentLuv – A Wordpress plugin that will display the last Blog post of the user commenting, therefore giving back some credit for the person that just commented on the post. Their are other similar plugins out their that are currently being used but, that is the most popular one that I know of and use. One more thing that I want to mention is that don’t leave comments on blogs if you don’t have anything to say that will be useful or appropriate towards the subject at hand.

2. Write Unique Content and Ask Questions

The title of this second tip should be self explanatory in my opinion. Don’t be a Copy Artist, write Unique, useful content that others would appreciate and use for furthering there learning and creative explorations. You could ask some questions in your posts that you would like to have answered by the readers, make sure that you ask interesting questions that really attracts the attention of the reader and that makes him/her want to leave a comment on your post.  The best way to implement asking a question in a post is to draw the readers attention to it from the start. You can do this by Asking the Question in the Title of the post, this usually draws the readers attention to the topic at hand and makes them leave you a comment.

3. Deactivate the “nofollow” ref.

This is probably the fastest and easiest way to get comments from a big amount of readers (including accidental guests) daily without any hassle. All you need to do is download the Nofollow Case by Case plug-in, install it, Basically, this plug-in removes the default “nofollow” ref from each external link in the comment, and therefore allows every commentator to get some link love off your blog. I have only recently incorporated this feature, so we will see what the results are from here on out.

4. Make Commenting Easy

One thing that really annoys me when I want to leave a comment is the fact that it requires me to log in. That’s about the time that I leave the post and the blog immediately. I understand their that it is protection from spam and what not but, it really contributes to your site negatively. The reason why I say that is because I know for a fact that I’m not the only one that wanted to leave a comment but, got stopped by the fact that I had to login to gain some ground. I have listed a resume on Don’t for Managing your comments.

• Don’t use captchas for comment forms.
• Don’t moderate comments or force registration for commenting.
• People commenting on your blog is an incentive, don’t make them go through hoops for doing so.

5. Setup a Commenting Contest

This is definitely one straight forward way to generate a lot of comments from readers. Start your own contest with some awesome, useful prizes and state that there’s a really simple way to win. They have to leave a comment below stating why they need the product more than others and what their primary use for it will be. The best reason wins.
OR
You could setup the contest that they leave you a comment below and then in a weeks time you use a random number generator to pick the winner. Their are a few ways that you could determine the winner but, the fact of the matter is that either way you will receive quite a few comments relating to the contest.

Hope you enjoyed the post and embrace the tips that I mentioned here.
Go out their and roundup some commentators.