6 August 2007
Blog Marketing 101: Make Commenting Easy
Posted by Darrell under: Blog Marketing 101 .
I read a post the other day entitled Any Questions or Comments? It had a great analogy between a speaker that asks for questions at the end of his presentation and a blogger that waits for comments. If you don’t get any, you start to worry about whether anyone was/is listening.
I know this from experience. You take the time to write a post that you are really proud of and no one leaves a single comment on it! Whew, you start to get worried. Why isn’t anyone commenting on my blog? Isn’t anyone reading it? Does no one agree or are about what I’m writing about?
Well, back up a little. You can’t make people comment on your blog - but you can influence them to. In my fill the parking lot article, I discussed how leaving comments for others can lead to increased commenting on your own blog. Leaving comments for others won’t lead to any comments on your own blog, though, if you make it difficult to comment. A key to receiving comments is (drum roll here) making it easy to comment.
How can you do this? Whatever blog software you are using should allow you to set the parameters for comments on your site. I’m not going to attemp to tell you how to set those parameters because I don’t know what is absolutely best. However, I do know that you can easily determine if your parameters are right or not by simply asking “is it easy?” Is it easy for visitors to place comments? Can they do the entire process in less than a minute? If not, you need to re-evaluate the way commenting works on your site.
I would never dream of making someone register with my site and then login before allowing them to comment. That isn’t easy! I’ve always moderated the first comment (for the sole purpose of making sure it isn’t spam) and then let subsequent comments by an approved commenter automatically post. I’m not sure that even this is easy enough.
I’m considering allowing comments to post without any moderation. I’l let you know how this goes.
Just remember - MAKE IT EASY TO COMMENT ON YOUR BLOG!
5 Comments so far...
Kristine Shreve Says:
6 August 2007 at 9:04 am.
We try to make commenting on the GSI blog as easy as possible. We do have a catchpa, but that is an absolute necessity. We used to get hit with so much comment spam it was unbelievable. The catchpa totally eliminated that.
I would have to agree that making commenting simple is important. I find that I learn a lot from what people say in response to a post.
Matt Says:
6 August 2007 at 12:37 pm.
Thanks for the link. You are so right. I love commenting on other people’s blogs, but, as befits the Internet, I like to move through it fast. Having to register takes up too much time.
Jon Bryan Says:
6 August 2007 at 8:17 pm.
I going through a period now with folks having trouble leaving comments on my blog. My techie (son) and I are trying to figure out the problem.
Leaving a comment should be real easy!
Darrell Says:
15 August 2007 at 2:56 pm.
Matt, thanks again for the inspiration!
Jon, I’m looking forward to your solving the commenting issue on your blog as you have some great posts that I would love to be able to comment on!
Kristine, my blog software filters most spam for me. 94 filtered as spam links in the last 60 days. Not too bad really.
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