For a new blogger few things are more exciting than a new comment on their blog. Comments offer a form of validation, they help grow your blog, and most importantly it shows to others that people read your blog.
Building comments is no easy task, but by taking a few keys steps, you can help the process along.
Comment on Other Blogs
When you comment on other blogs in the same field as you, you’ll find that often the blogger will comment on yours. You’ve joined the blogging community and created interaction between your blog and theirs. As an extra, your comments, also, help brand you and your blog.
The hard part in this technique is finding the right blogs and making the time to comment consistently.
Thanks to technorati, finding blogs is easy. Technorati is a blog directory, that is searcheable by tags and authority. Look for blogs that have about the same or more authority than yours, and have tags similar to your own.
The second trouble, finding time. I can’t help you find the time to comment, but I can make it quicker.
If you’re continually checking each blog to see if there’s anything worth leaving a comment you’re wasting a lot of time. Instead you should be using a RSS Feed.
With a RSS Reader subscribe to the blogs you want to comment on and check the reader daily. From here you can see all new posts, and decide which you want to leave comments on.
Ask Readers to Comment
The easiest way to build blog comments is by simply asking your readers to leave a comment. Ask them what they think, or if they have something to add.
This simple addition is extremely effective, and if you want an example, just check the bottom of this post.
Write Controversial Posts
Taking one side of a debate is just asking for a deluge of comments. If it’s an especially viral post, be prepared for comments, for better and worst.
The reason why I say worst, is because controversial posts can garner comments on par with digg comments. You’ll have to monitor and delete any comments that you feel may be offensive, but be careful not to seem as if you’re censuring people that disagree with you.
Comments follow the snowball effect. Respond and be engaging in your comments and they’ll build off each other.
Incentivize Comments
If you’ve got a large readership, yet a low comment count, consider holding a contest for people who leave comments. Write a small script that chooses a random comment to win a prize.
Don’t have the cash to spring for a large prize? Offer something you have already, for example give away free advertising on your blog or write a post about the commentator’s blog or site.
With these tips you should be able to take your blog from a barren ghost town to a lively engaging blog. Have any other tips or maybe a contest of your own? Leave a comment and let us know!
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James Duthie 07.21.08 at 8:10 pm
Agree with you on most points aside from the comment for prizes idea. It’s sort of like the subscribe for a chance to win a prize idea. It may get you short term results, but I suspect it attracts prize chasers rather than truly engaged readers (who will comment regularly).
Samir Balwani 07.21.08 at 9:53 pm
Delicious | Digg | StumbleUpon | Technorati | TwitterIt does attract prize chasers but for some readers they just need an initial bump. It’s usually the first comment that’s difficult for people. Once they get used to commenting, they’ll do it more frequently. The price can be that incentive to try leaving a comment.
Brad 07.22.08 at 10:16 am
Going nofollow free on all your permalink pages, using commentluv and keywordluv really helps, but it doesn’t go far enough. You have to let other bloggers, the people who will not only be interested in what you say, but have something to gain by it know you have done it.
Samir Balwani 07.22.08 at 11:31 am
Delicious | Digg | StumbleUpon | Technorati | TwitterCommentluv and keywordluv are great, but nofollow free is an issue with me. If you have a pagerank of 0 or 1 going nofollow free doesn’t matter. To most people leaving comments, the back link is not worth it. Nofollow free also opens up a lot of spam comments.
Brad 07.25.08 at 1:58 pm
The decision to go nofollow free can be a controversial one and yes you can get spam. You get spam regardless of whether or not you are nofollow free or not though. Keeping a blog nofollow says to a lot of people, me included, that you don’t want to work for your comments. If you moderate new commentators it only takes a few minutes to scan through hundreds of potential comments looking for spam.
Most reactionaries always say people are just using you for the link when they come in and post “this was great!” That may be true, but so what. They stopped by looked around long enough to make the comment and left. Maybe they read it and meant it, maybe they didn’t, but so what. They are foot traffic through your blog business. Can you imagine walmart or krogers telling their customers “screw you go away we don’t want you to come in and just buy a pack of gum”? That is essentially what being nofollow all the time does. You can set these plugins to reward repeat commentatos if you want and the bigger you are the better that idea that plan is. The point is never giving anyone the chance to profit from commenting on your blog, especially if you aren’t hugely popular, means you will never turn the gum buyer in the person that buys thousands of dollars worth of crap when the mood strikes them.
There are blogs where they have no reason to reward commentators. Take Darren Rowse for a moment. What he is selling if you pay attention actually is so good that you will even profit from a nofollow link.as much as you will from the information in the post. Some of the comments I have left there are generating me hits more than a year later. That is a fair trade, but for every blog like that there five or ten thousand that still profit from mine and other peoples comments, and we get nothing and have no real reason to go back too them. That isn’t to say some of the big name bloggers couldn’t profit from nofollow free at some level. How much more traffic and profit could be derived from setting a limit of a hundred of five hundred responses to get your nofollow free removed.
It is a personal decision still, but it is one I don’t think very many bloggers that want to be popular or make money will go wrong making.
Samir Balwani 07.25.08 at 3:33 pm
Delicious | Digg | StumbleUpon | Technorati | TwitterI definitely see what you’re saying, and to tell you the truth, you’ve convinced me on the idea of nofollow free. I’ll be considering removing nofollow from this blog, based on your comments. Thanks for the input Brad, I’ve also subscribed to your blog.
Brad 07.25.08 at 6:48 pm
cool I hope can keep saying convincing things once in a while.
tylesiu 07.29.08 at 2:59 pm
thats good.hope…
Mark 09.29.08 at 6:25 am
great article. thank you for sharing