How to Get More Comments for your Blog

This is a guest post by Neil Jones. If you want to guest post on this blog, check out the guidelines here.

Blogs are found in their thousands and bloggers find an outlet for their innermost thoughts and views. Often blogs are written to invite comments and a more conversational style of exchange of ideas. But disappointingly, no comments appear and what could have been an interesting dialogue over the net, fizzles out as a post and nothing more.

This is frustrating, but instead of being de-motivated and stopping the blog posts, perhaps it is time to think of ways to invite comments and get readers more involved in the topic of discussion. There are many changes that can be made to the blog posts to ensure that some comments appear. Some of these include:

1. Questions will get answers- Most readers spend very little time reading a blog post, absorb the information and move on. Posting a thank you or providing feedback does not seem to happen. However, if a valid and relevant question was to be part of the blog, it would surely get answers in the comment section. Serious readers will try to find the right answer or give their own perspective on the issue, and thus get more involved. It is one great way to start an intelligent discussion.
2. The occasional comment must be replied to- While getting comments may not be easy, but the few comments that do appear, must get replies. A response is another way of carrying the discussion forward and can also be used to give the reader more food for thought. This is a good tactic to engage the readers and carry on the thread of discussion.
3. Missing a point- On a well known subject, if a critical point is left out in the blog post, it is sure to be spotted by the discerning reader and he will not hesitate to point it out. Acknowledging the slip up and adding some more gets the conversation going through comments.
4. Comments must be easy to post- It must be very easy for a reader to post a comment since a complicated procedure with many steps will put off every person who is in a hurry, which inevitably all web surfers are.
5. Allow readers to edit comments- It has been found by many that editing comments makes readers more amenable to commenting, since they have the option of cutting out a part or deleting the comment altogether.
6. Add blogging widgets and plug-ins since these allow a reader to subscribe to the comments of a blog post without necessarily staying on the blog page.
7. Check out preferred topics that invite comments- It is easy to find which topics are preferred by people from their comments, and it is a good idea to explore those topics further.
8. Allow profile creation and linking to website- This can work for mutual benefit since other website owners can be tempted to comment since it gives them an opportunity to create a profile and link it to their website, which then can generate traffic to their advantage.

Blogs take time to become popular and even longer to cultivate a fan following or even a loyal readership. Once a target audience is identified, it is ideal to post blog updates on topics that will interest them and elicit comments.

This is a Guest post by Neil Jones, who Specializes in launching ecommerce sites, he is currently plying his trade as head of marketing for eMobileScan. With 18 websites based all around Europe they are on course to be one of Europe’s largest online retailers of Industrial handheld computers like the Datalogic Memor and the Motorola MC75. Neil has been an online marketer for the past 6 years and in that time he has owned and run a range of sites all built around the ecommerce platform.