How To Increase Comments On Your Blog

Are you a blogging newbie or an experienced blogger?

Do you like to have loads of people commenting on your blog?

When I first started blogging about 9 months ago, I was wondering why no one read or leave comments on my blog. On a good day, the number of comments would max at 12. On a bad day, there would be zero comments!

Lately, a few bloggers wrote to me asking how I managed to attract so many comments on my blog. Wow! I was really flattered when they asked me this question. It’s not like I have hundreds and hundreds of comments in every one of my posts, so I think I am not really qualified to answer them.

Besides, there are many bloggers out there who receive more comments than me, so they should be the ones answering this question.

However, I do know how frustrating it is when no one reads your blog and every time you post something, there is virtually no one responding. Didn’t you wish someone, anyone would just care to leave an opinion even if it’s a scathing criticism of your post? At least that would be better than zero response!

So today, for the sake of all bloggers out there who are looking for more responses to their beautifully written posts, who have toiled long hours just to come up with a post worth reading, here’s my guide on how to increase comments on your blog.

Now, notice I say how to increase comments. Not readership or traffic. Increasing comments and increasing traffic to your blog are two different things.

You can have lots of traffic to your blog everyday, but no one leaving any comments!

Or you can have over 50 comments a day, but that does not mean there’s a lot of traffic going to your blog, or that your blog is ranked high on Google’s search engine, although the chances are there!

So, let’s be clear about this first.

If you want to make money from your blog, you need lots of traffic. You will need to know about SEO and make full use of them. I have to admit I am still learning about this so please don’t ask me how to increase traffic to your blog. There are many experts on this, and it would be better for you to learn from them.

But if making money is not your priority, and you have the passion to blog, and want the satisfaction to see more people leaving comments, then perhaps this post might be of help. Of course, if you are aiming to make money and also have lots of people commenting at your blog at the same time, this can help too.

OK, so here are the 10 things I do to increase comments on my blog.

1. Write good quality posts.
I think this is a no brainer, however this alone does not guarantee that people will leave comments on your blog. There are a lot of blogs out there with excellent posts, but no one comments on them!

2. Ask a question.
Try to end your post by posing a question to your readers. Or have a question as the title for your post. Readers will be more inclined to leave comments when you ask them a question. You can see an example of this on my post here.

3. Don't tell everything.
Try and make your post open ended. In other words, don't say everything you know. Leave some things unsaid even if you know them just to allow your readers to contribute their knowledge. Give your readers a chance to be experts too. If you say everything there is to say, your readers will be left with nothing to add. They may love your post and even bookmark it or submit it to DIGG but they would not be leaving any comments!

4. Write controversial posts.
When the topic of your post is controversial, it would invite lots of debates and comments from readers. Readers may even end up debating with each other without the need for you to put in any replies. But be careful here - don't overdo it! Controversial topics sometimes put people off!

5. Interact with your commentators.
Always reply to each and every comments on your blog. This will encourage those who left the comments earlier to return and post even more comments. People do like to be acknowledged for their opinions. I personally do not like to leave comments on blogs that do not reply or respond to my comments. In fact, one very effective way of discouraging comments is to ignore all comments left on your blog. The only exception to this is, if you are very popular and have more than 100 comments on each of your posts. In such a case, it's acceptable not to reply to every comment as it takes up too much time.

6. Encourage comments using Top 10 Commentators widget.
Some readers who leave comments like to have their links displayed on this Top 10 Commentators widget. It is also another way to promote themselves. If you do not have this widget on your blog, get it here.

7. Show appreciation for your regular commentators.
You can do this by highlighting your commentators' blogs on your posts. Do mention about them if it is relevant to your post. Or use one of their comments as a topic for your next post. They will surely thank you for it! This post is my way to show appreciation for my regular commentators.

8. Make it easy for readers to leave comments.
Make sure your blog does not require your readers to register first before allowed to make comments. Personally, if I have to register and fill up my details before commenting, I rather not comment. It's just too much of a hassle! Also, do allow anonymous readers to leave comments. In fact, make it easy for anyone and everyone to leave comments on your blog.

9. Do not moderate comments.
Some bloggers may not agree with me on this. Although moderating comments will prevent spam from appearing on your blog, however, if you seriously want to increase comments, you will have to do away with this. People simply do not like to be censored. Furthermore, it feels nicer to see your comment appearing right after you've posted it. Also, do not delete any comments if possible. How do you like it when you leave a comment on someone's blog only to see it gone the next hour?

Now, if you follow all my 9 tips above, there is still a huge possibility that the number of comments on your blog will remain small. You see, you can do all the above and yet see no result. Simply because you did not do the ONE thing that can change it all. The One thing that you must absolutely do to increase the number of comments on your blog.

Which leads me to my last tip .....



10. Leave comments on other people's blogs.
Yes, that's right! Visit other people's blogs (or go blog hopping, as they say) and leave your comments there. Now when you comment on other people's blogs, granted, not everyone will return the favour and comment on your blog, but most do. Logically, the more blogs you visit and leave comments on, the more comments you will get on your own blog. So how did I get over 40 comments on my blog? I simply visited over 60 blogs and left my comments there! So you want 100 comments? Now you know what you must do!

Of course, many of you will think it is too much hard work and time consuming to visit over 60 blogs. Just imagine, if I take 5 minutes to read and leave a comment on one blog, it would take no less than 5 hours to go through 60 blogs! Now you know how much time I spent online!

Well, who says getting what you want is easy? Nothing worth achieving is easy! You want people to leave comments on your blog? You will need to work for it! There's no such thing as writing a post and sit there and wait for the comments to come in. Unless of course, you are a celebrity blogger like Kenny Sia. Now, that's a different story! Even Kenny Sia himself did not start out as a celebrity blogger. He worked himself up. So, if there is a short-cut way, please tell me!

Of course, there will come a time when you would have developed a group of loyal followers of your blog. These followers would visit your blog and leave comments whether or not you visit them in return.

However, to reach that level, you will need to have one important ingredient. That ingredient is PASSION. Yes, you need to have passion to write blogs and to read blogs. Without passion, you would rather do something else like watching TV or reading a book instead of blogging. That is why I can go through more than 60 blogs a day. It's because I simply have the passion for reading other blogs, besides writing my own blog. I don't find it hard work at all - in fact, I enjoy every minute of it!

Now if reading 60 blogs is too much for you, then aim for 30. If 30 is still a lot for you, then go for 15. It all depends on you. Not everyone wants to have 50 or 100 comments on his or her blog everyday. Some are happy with just 10, and that's fine. But this post is about increasing comments on your blog, so I guess if you are reading this, you won't be too satisfied with just 10, right?

In actual fact, I don't read 60 blogs a day. I sometimes read more and sometimes less, but I break them up into 2-3 days. Which means, I only read about an average of 30 blogs a day. Now that's not too difficult, is it?

Well, there you have it! 10 ways to increase comments on your blog! I do hope you benefit from this post. Despite this, I am still far from being an expert on this subject. If you know more ways to increase comments and would like to share with me and all my readers, you are most welcomed to do so.

By the way, if you would like me to drop by your blog and leave my comment, why don't you make the first move and leave a comment here? And if you are a blogger with Blogspot and would like to be a Follower of my blog, you are most welcome to click on "Follow This Blog" under Followers on the tab to the right of this post. Thank you! Let us help each other make our blogs soar to greater heights!