How To Get More Comments On Your Blog
I've read a study that 90% of Internet users are just lurkers, people who float around from site to site and don't really participate with comments on blogs or posts on forums. Out of the rest, 9% interact only a little, while just 1% of all users are active participants in the Internet community. This means that if you run a small blog and aren't getting very many comments from your readers then you shouldn't find it all that unusual. However, there are ways to increase the interaction between yourself and your readers with just a few simple tips.
Write About Controversial Topics
If you write about topics that everyone has an opinion about then your readers are more likely to voice theirs. If you write about a controversial topic and voice your opinion a little too strongly you can put off a lot of readers, so use this method with caution.
Posting Frequency
If you write fewer articles then you are going to get more discussion on each one that you do write. If you post 3-5 times a day then readers are less likely to read every article and will think that any comment they do post will go unnoticed with new visitors reading the newer posts. Posting frequently has a lot of other benefits, but generating discussion isn't one of them.
Comment Yourself
If you aren't posting your own comments in the comment section, then why would your readers? If they ask a question, answer it. If they make a good point, make sure to give them a thank you. Another related item is to comment on other sites. You won't see all of the other blog owners visiting your site and posting comments, but some of them do and you can get a lot of traffic from cross promoting each other via the comment section.
Ask Questions
If you ask a question then you are going to get some readers who feel compelled to answer them. Using the questions in your headline seems to be particularly effective. Even if you just add a "what do you think" to the end of your post, it tends to encourage discussion.
Link Out
When you link to other blogs it shows up on their dashboards. If you link out and visitors are clicking through it will show up in their stats. A lot of those webmasters will stop by your blog wondering what you said about their site and why people are clicking through. If you say something negative, they might decide to try and defend themselves in the comments section and if it's something positive, they might want to give you their thanks. This is also a good practice if you are referring your visitors to other worthwhile posts, they'll love it and won't leave your site for good, but come back and look at you as an authority. Plus, if you link to other sites then there is a good chance they will link back at some point.
WordPress Comment Hacks & Plugins
One of the things I love about having a blog over a traditional website is the feedback that you can receive via comments. I get comments on my blogs from readers on how helpful they have found an article, if I've made a mistake, or about just anything else. Yes, there are a few bad apples out there who want to bash you any chance they can get, but engagement with your readers is worth the slight pains the few can cause.
I've talked about a few tricks I use in the how to get more comments post, but it does help to optimally set your site up to increase discussion. Let's take a look at a few helpful hacks and plugins I've used in the past.
Comment Link
I often see the plain "No Comments" text at the bottom of posts, but what if instead you put "No Comments yet, but what are your thoughts on this article?" If you ask your readers their opinion then they are more likely to give it to you. This is an easy fix. Open up your index.php template and search for the comments_popup_link() and change the value from the one above to something more engaging.
Thank Your First Time Commentors
A great way to get people to keep doing something is to praise them, so how about after they finally post their thoughts on one of your articles you redirect them to a page that thanks the reader for taking the time to comment on your post. For this you can use the comment redirect plugin, or if you just want to send an email instead of a redirect us the comment relish plugin. Both of these will only effect first time commentors, so you won't be bugging your every day readers.
Keep the Conversation Going
A great way to keep the conversation going is to display the most recent comments first. This way the user doesn't have to scroll down to the bottom of a long list to see if there are any updates. Also, if you have a long lasting post recent comments can be valuable to let a new reader know the post is still valid.
Once people actually start discussing something on your blog, you will want to keep them in the conversation and a great way to do that is with the subscribe to comments plugin. This plugin will send the commentor an email when there is an update to the comments, getting them to come back and keep the conversation alive.
Also, by allowing readers to subscribe to your comments via an RSS feed you can help them stay up to date on what others are saying.
I also like to style the author comments, so people know when I'm responding to comments or have anything extra I would like to add.
Are there any other hacks or plugins you use to increase reader comments? If so I would love to hear about them.