I always have trouble convincing my readers (that's you) to leave comments, no doubt other bloggers do too. It is one of those things that shows to other readers that your blog is active and in some cases, popular. Yet many readers do not leave comments after reading through an article they liked. I believe this is mostly down to the blogger, not the readers.
The readers have the choice of leaving a comment or not, but the bloggers are the ones who should be convincing them to do so. You cannot force them to leave a comment – actually, you can force them, through some sort of JavaScript coding, but that wouldn't be very user-friendly and most readers who are forced to leave a comment will more than likely never return to your blog, here is a list outlining the things that I think encourage readers to leave comments:
- Make it easy to comment: One of the best things you can do to encourage comments is to make it easy for readers to do so; remove barriers and make the comment form easy to use. When I say barriers, I mean anything that will force a commenter to do something extra before their post can be shown on the blog. This includes making a user register before they can leave comments, it really annoys me to see "you must register to comment on this post", when I am trying to leave a comment, just makes me less likely to leave it.
Think about it this way: a reader has just written a lengthy reply – of which he/she is quite proud – they hit the submit button and a message pops up saying: "you must register to comment on this blog", the reader screams, vows never to return to the blog, closes their web browser and runs off to watch some television. Why would anyone in their right mind want to register to a blog anyway? It makes your blog more like a forum.
- Reward your readers: Using a simple reward system to reward your readers for leaving a comment is extremely effective. This is the easiest way to increase the number of comments on your blog. The first way you can reward your readers for leaving comments is by downloading and installing the Show Top Commentators plugin, for WordPress (see below for more information).
The second way is by joining the "You Comment, I Follow" movement. This movement was created in favour of removing the 'nofollow' place upon all links and author websites from comments. This 'nofollow' is automatically placed in every single WordPress comment to stop Search Engines from following the link. This was originally supposed to surpress spam, but doesn't work. The movement encourages people to install a single-line piece of PHP code (available as a WordPress plugin) that removes this now redundant link relative.
If you then add the "I Follow" image to your blog with a link to the location of the website that you found out about the movement (or to an explanation page inside of your blog), readers will know what it is about and will also know that they will get link love to their websites just by leaving a comment.
- Invite readers to post comments: It is always a good idea to invite your readers to post comments by asking questions or just adding "comments are welcome" or "let me know what you think" at the end of a few posts. This invites the readers to leave a comment and they then have a question to answer. It can help, even if it is just a single line telling them that comments are appreciated.
- Respond to comments to keep the discussion going: Everytime I receive a comment on my blog I reply to it. This keeps the discussion going and they are more likely to post a few more comments, because they know that they will be read. If you are not prepared to use your own blog's commenting system, why should others? It also encourages readers to subscribe to your RSS feed as a response to their comment – whether that be by email or by replying to their comment – should keep them on your website longer (or make them come back and visit).
- Give your users the option to subscribe to new comments on each post: There is a nifty little WordPress plugin, called Subscribe To Comments, which allows your readers to subscribe to a mailing list which will notify them, through their email address of new comments posted on that particular article. This is very helpful if they have asked a question as it lets them know when they get a reply. They can easily unsubscribe simply by re-visiting the post and clicking the link underneath the post text area.
- Set a commenting policy: Many bloggers are writing their very own commenting policy for their blogs, this helps readers know what is and isn't appreciated in comments – it also makes them aware of the commenting system and how your blog is protected from certain things (such as spam), so they will more likely leave a comment, knowing that it will get read and will not get lost in a cloud of spam. I would advise you to set your blog it's own comment policy, don't make it too harsh and make sure you state that your really appreciate comments on your blog.
I have recently installed a few new plugins to my blog, which also help to increase the number of comments on your blog, these include:
After you have gotten over the name of the first plugin, I will explain them a little. The 'What Would Seth Godin Do' plugin is a very helpful plugin which enables you to show a welcome message to your readers, which is displayed to the reader if it is his/her first time on the blog. The idea is to encourage your new visitors to subscribe to your RSS feed and post a comment. I have currently set my message to the following:
Welcome, guest! If you are new here and like what you see, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. This is the homepage of Bull3t's Blog, if none of the following posts appeal to you personally, you could always view a random article.
The meaning of this message is to encourage people, such as yourself to leave a comment or two on some of my posts. I would also like to bring your attention to the underused 5-star rating system above each post's content, please do click on one of the stars on a few posts, it doesn't cost anything.
Anyway, thanks for dropping by!
~Bull3t
Admittedly, it is a little long, but it gets the message through without being to formal. I have set it to appear to my visitors for the first 3 times they visit any page or post on my blog. This gives them 3 chances to read it before it disappears and is never shown again until they delete their browser cookies (or the cookie used by the plugin expires), so enjoy it while you can.
The second plugin, Show Top Commentators, enables me to create a sidebar widget containing a list of commenters and their website links. This acts as an incentive to post more than just one comment, it is designed to be used as a little reward system for being in the top 5 commenters list. You get link love and I get comment love, so we are all happy!
The final plugin, Comment Relish does not actually function properly from the original download location and repeatedly kills your blog with an unwelcoming message of "The e-mail could not be sent. Possible reason: your host may have disabled the mail() function…", when actually it has nothing to do with your host at all. It is just a simple coding mistake. Not a big issue though, all you have to do is comment out the line of code which does this, but first I will explain a little.
The Comment Relish plugin is supposed to send an email to a first-time commenter on your blog, encouraging them to come back and leave more comments, at a later date and subscribe to your RSS feed. It works, except that when a trackback is left on your blog it tries to send an email to the owner of the trackback, but of course trackbacks do not have emails attached to them (unlike comments) so the plugin returns the PHP mail function as false (because it failed). When the mail function returns false, the plugin is told to do the following:
' . __('The e-mail could not be sent.') . " ');die('
\n" . __('Possible reason: your host may have disabled the mail() function...') . '
The PHP die function will terminate the current script and output a message, in this case the script terminated is the whole WordPress blog (because the plugin sends the emails through the WordPress init hook which is used to load anything and everything on your blog). As you can imagine the output is pretty painful, and your blog will not be shown to anyone until this is cleared up.
There is a hitch, however; the only way you can clear the message is by deleting the latest trackback (or deactivating the plugin), but of course you cannot access the WordPress administration panel, due to the PHP die function being in action.
Bull3t's Blog is a next generation web log written by me, Philip Hughes (also known as Bull3t), a first-year college student living in England, aged 18. I write this blog for the sake of doing so, posting about anything I see fit. 
So what now?
You've reached the end of this post. Seeing as you made it this far means you might be interested in the following related articles and resources.24 Comments
September 28th, 2007
#1
Those are some excellent plugins i use the first two, the third one is a little spammy.
September 28th, 2007
#2
I thought that the third one only sent an email the first time a user posted a comment, so it shouldn't be too spammy. It should be just a single email, do you get more than one?
September 28th, 2007
#3
You get only one, for the first time you make a comment. But it kinda buggs me, but that's just me.
September 28th, 2007
#4
I like the top commentators plug-in. I don't know how effective the first one would be though, and the third seems a bit spammy.
It seems to me that the best way to get comments is to give the readers some kind of reward for further interaction. The second plug-in does that in one way. Another way would be to respond to comments in some way, and to encourage dialogue between the commentators. joshreads.com and passiveaggressivenotes.com are good examples of that.
September 28th, 2007
#5
Okay, maybe the last plugin is a little spammy then, never really thought about it, but it is just a pointless email really. It is supposed to encourage readers to re-visit your blog and leave more comments – maybe it doesn't work.
I always try to encourage comments here and if you look at all of the posts, they all have an even number of comments. That is because I try to reply to every single comment I receive. Hehe.
September 28th, 2007
#6
Great Tips, I especially like the 'What Would Seth Godin Do' plugin I think I will give that one a try on my own blog.
September 29th, 2007
#7
Yeah, that plugin is really quite helpful. It makes new visitors feel welcomed. As does the WordPress Landing Sites plugin, I may add that to the list and explain it a little. It basically just shows a message to your visitors who have landed on your blog from a search engine. It will then suggest other posts for them to look at, specifically to their search term.
October 1st, 2007
#8
I use CommentRelish to thank first time commenters for taking the time to comment. It's usually met with favorable response.
To manage a LOT of comments I use Better Comments Manager. That's a great tool to let you respond to comments with an AJAX reply window. That keeps you right on the page and eliminates that annoying researching the page to see where you left off when you were last commenting.
Some great ideas here, I would like to incorporate them in a post – of course providing proper reference and linking to you. Well done!
Jon
October 1st, 2007
#9
Thanks Jon! Sure, go ahead and incorporate my ideas into your post – I don't mind so long as I get link-love, heh.
That sounds like a good little plugin, I will give it a shot, cheers.
October 2nd, 2007
#10
Bull3t, some great tips. It's funny how trying to get people to comment is really difficult. It is almost as if once someone has read your post and they have 'got what they wanted', they then can't be bothered contributing back. Oh well, that's life. :)
Jon, that plugin sounds great, I am going to go check it out now. I love waking up to several comments (or a discussion) scattered around different posts, BUT it can be a bit of a nightmare responding to each comment. You've saved the day.
October 2nd, 2007
#11
All, I kind of agree that the email thing could be a bit spammy. That's why I have not used it 'yet', as I am able to reply to all of my commenters personally. I think when a blog grows though, and there are so many comments done each day, it would be better to use an auto message and try to personally reply in the comments section if you can than to give no feedback at all.
November 27th, 2007
#12
Brilliant post – thanks for sharing. Some good constructive comments here that everyone can benefit from. I've been having problems too – although visits are growing steadily. Funnily enough I wrote a post on the same subject today on another plugin that really is ingenious – I think you and your visitors will like it too. Not spammy – just brilliant. Here's the link to my earlier post: Need more exposure for your site?
Your blog has been noted. Thanx
March 8th, 2008
#13
Man, you saved my life!
I had the comment relish problem but I didn't know. My blog had frozen, saying the damn thing about not sending the email. I couldn't do anything, even login to the admin panel! All the bad words crossed my mind, thinking how many hours I have to spend erasing wordpress and building the blog up again (I have over 15 plugins installed and tons of custom php modifications!)
Thanks again. May the coding goddess bless you :)
March 9th, 2008
#14
Glad I could help a fellow WordPresser out with their problems – it is quite a weird problem though.
April 17th, 2008
#15
You get only one, for the first time you make a comment. But it kinda buggs me, but that's just me.
May 1st, 2008
#16
I personally do not like to use the "U comment, I follow" images. Reason being is that anyone can do a Google Image search for that exact phrase and viola, all the dofollow blogs you can get your hands on then guess what….spam city. I know there are many different custom beta searches out there that find dofollow blogs, but why make it any easier than it has to be.
Another good plug in is the "CommentLuv". Check it out…
May 5th, 2008
#17
Another good way to encourage comments is to write interesting or thought provoking blog posts. I like to read real estate related blogs and sometimes I have a hard time getting involved if the poster only talks about subdivisions or things going on in their area.
May 9th, 2008
#18
Finishing your blog post with a comment such as "What kind of word press plug-ins did you find the most useful?" will most likely stir interaction. Also, leaving some link love with NO "nofollow" like you did here definitely gets you more comments ;)
June 24th, 2008
#19
Seems to have worked on this page :)
I like the, what would seth somebody do idea, you could easily make a veiled sales pitch there. Very cool.
December 30th, 2008
#20
Two other methods that can help to encourage comments are allowing DoFollow links (removing default nofollow attributes so that "link juice" is passed to the sites) and installing the KeywordLuv plugin, which significantly helps commenters with SEO because it allows them to choose the anchor text for links.
Overall, it is a good thing to encourage comments because the extra content provided by other people adds more keywords to your posts, which in turn brings in more traffic from the search engines without costing you any more time than it takes to write the original post.
December 31st, 2008
#21
This is very helpful for blog owners who are looking to attract more comments on their blog posts. Some of the best action I have ever received is when I discuss something a little controversial. It seems to get people's opinions going.
January 10th, 2009
#22
Mikenew hit it one the head. Stirring up controversy, taking an alternate or unpopular point of view or taking a very strong opinion gets attention. If you attract too much attention or the wrong attention, can you stand the heat from a flame war that might ensue?
February 6th, 2009
#23
Fantastic information! It's really true what you said and bloggers/webmasters need to take it to heart. Most think that it's as easy as posting a blog post and that the comments will start flooding in. Not so much the case really if they haven't done what you mentioned! Great job.
April 14th, 2009
#24
Nice tips. Keep them coming.
I dislike the way blog software comes nofollow by default. Surely it should be the other way around. Good on the people who change to dofollow.
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