How to Encourage Conversation and Comments on Your Blog

[Maw Books]

Do you ever write the perfect post? The BEST post you've ever written? Hit publish and then anxiously await for the comments to come pouring in? And then you sit and wait and keep refreshing your email inbox? How do you encourage conversation and comments on your blog?

[Michele]

Seems to me that you can write the best review in the world and you still might be waiting a long, long time for someone to notice how scathingly brilliant the review actually is. Sometimes a great review might not encourage conversation. A post needs to have something in it that makes it easy for people to comment. Sometimes it might be just a question posed to your readers. Or it might be a funny observation.

For whatever it's worth, though, post length also has something to do with it....too short (just a book synopsis, for example) and you haven't caught their attention and too long (dissertation on your favorite book) and who has time to read it? There seems to be a fine line, I guess.

'Course, it helps to have the best blogging friends in the whole world who will comment even if you wrote the silliest thing in the whole world. I *heart* my blogging friends for that!

[Paperback Traveler]

I think this is a really good point. Something I've read on "professional blogging" blogs is to not be too complete. If you cover every single angle and subtopic in your post then you haven't left the door open for anyone to pipe in with their own insights. Another common suggestion I've seen is to ask a question or ask for advice to entice readers to comment...people want to be needed I guess. :-)

[chrisbookarama]

Yes! I sometimes think "Oh this is controversial! It will get people talking " only to have no one comment.

[Amy]

I don't think there's an exact science to it. It's a bit like best-selling books...you never know what's going to catch people's attention.

It helps to have a discussion question at the end, but that doesn't guarantee people are going to bother to comment. :)

[Framed]

Have you ever visited Semicolon's Saturday Review where bloggers list their reviews of books read that week? I usually list a couple of reviews on that site and have people visit and make comments. Plus it's a great place to read reviews of books you like, dislike or that just sound interesting. You can find the link to that site on my sidebar. (I know, it's a shameless attempt to get more visits to my own blog.) I also join a lot of reading challenges and those reviews get listed on the challenge site and encourage visits.

[chrisbookarama]

Semicolon has gotten huge since I started going there.

[Maw Books]

I was doing really well earlier in the year going through these reviews but have slacked off. I'm going to be better in 2009.

[Maw Books]

Something that I have oh so guiltily been letting slip the past couple of months (but oh my goals for 2009!) is to make sure that you also visit other people's blogs and comment. When you build up a group of bloggers who always visit each other, you are sure to enjoy the conversation! We have a awesome community!

End the post with a discussion question, ask for something from your reader, and try to respond to comments. I always enjoy it when I know the blogger has taken time to read and acknowledge the comment that I've left.

Have a way to subscribe to comments. Keep your reader in the conversation.

And then another huge one that many people don't think about is - is it easy to actually leave a comment on your blog? If I have to log in to leave a comment, then I probably won't leave a comment. This is true of many Blogger blogs which are set up to allow comments only from users with a Blogger account. Is there a specific reason you excluding users from other blogging platforms? I have to admit that when I started blogging I was forced to create a Blogger account because I came across so many of these blogs. I don't like using it. But I doubt others would be so generous. I don't know . . . that's just me.

I get the whole captcha thing. But man, when I can't make it out and I've tried four or five times, I do admit to giving up. Even if I really liked the post.

A few posts that you might find useful:

13 Tips on How to Have a Great Conversation

10 Techniques to Get More Comments on Your Blog

Building Relationships with Bloggers

[Amy]

the reason a lot of blogger blogs require signing into blogger is to discourage totally anonymous comments. There's no requirement to leave an email address like in wordpress or typepad. I know it's still possible to be anon on those sites but people are less likely to do that.

I have to say, I appreciate a million times over that I don't get 50+ spam comments on my blogger blogs a day like I do on my wordpress site! even if the spam goes to askiment you still have to sort through it to make sure you're not losing any good ones.

[Paperback Traveler]

Amy -- You should check out the Akismet plugin for Wordpress. I use it on all of my Wordpress sites and I don't get any spam comments. I don't have to manage it at all, they automatically go into a spam folder that I never have to look at if I don't want to.

IMO, Wordpress's comment system is a million times more user friendly than Blogger's. I find having to type in those randomized letters to prove I'm not a robot insanely annoying, and I wish Blogger would remember my name and url info so that I don't have to type it in every single time. Also, I don't like it that to comment on Blogger a popup window opens. I read a lot of blogs on my iPhone and the comment in a popup window means I have to wait for a new page to load before I can comment.

[Amy]

I guess what I meant was that askimet is not always accurate and sometimes good comments go to the spam folder. I actually have also had it happen to me when leaving comments on wordpress on another blog. The blogger emailed me to apologize. ;)

Blogger does have an embedded comment feature now, but I think it could still use some tweaking. Also word verification is up to the blogger to add....I"ve been on plenty of other blogging platforms that use it....I don't.

I understand the frustration with not wanting to have to create an account, though. I feel the same way about livejournal and vox...I can never remember my info either! That's why I finally broke down and allowed annonymous comments. ;)

[caribookscoops]

Yeah, I finally gave in too and created a blogger account because of this same thing. It would really drive me nuts when I had already written the comment and then realized I had to have a blogger account. There many blogs, I simply by passed. I've seen at least 4 options - at least that's how I remember it, to choose from to leave a comment on a blogger blog. Are some people not aware of other blogging platforms? I know I have talked with friends that had only heard of blogger so it doesn't occur to them to add other options for non-blogger people until I tell them.