After weeks and months of long hours in front of your computer, you’re finally getting some traffic on your blog but you can’t get enough people to participate on your site. Ever wonder how some smaller blogs get a lot more activity than some of the giants in your niche?
Let’s look at some comment stats during the first week of this month. I went to three popular sites that I’m sure many of you frequent and grabbed their three most recent posts. Then I did the same to mine. You be the judge.
Shoemoney – 5,244 Alexa – averaged 33 comments per post
Daily Blog Tips – 6,062 Alexa – averaged 14 comments per post
John Chow – 6,381 Alexa – averaged 21 comments per post
Free Blog Help – 118,099 Alexa – averaged 53 comments per post
Before the bashing begins, I know that this is just a small sampling. We should consider that some of them have multiple posts per day, some of their posts are by guest posters, and perhaps this set didn’t include any of their killer articles. We all know that some of their posts break the 100 comment barrier and none of them made it in this sample lot.
Anyway, the fact remains that on good days, their traffic beats me by a factor of 10. I’m not knocking these blogs because, I too, am a regular visitor at their sites. I’m simply presenting those numbers as a testament to how even newer blogs can create a buzz as loud as blogs that have been around for years.
8 simple steps to increasing comments
Write useful content
1. Create quality articles: People won’t comment if your article is terrible.
2. Ask a question: Help start the dialog by posting a question at the end of your article.
Promote your articles
3. Regularly visit top blogs in your niche and leave value-added comments: You should leave a comment at least 50% of the time.
4. Regularly visit blogs of those who left comments for you in the past and leave value-added comments on their site: You should leave a comment at least 75% of the time.
Build relationships
5. Respond to every comment on your article when appropriate: You should be able to reply at least 75% of the time.
6. Reciprocate the gesture by leaving a comment on their site every time they leave one for you: You should leave a comment 100% of the time.
Provide incentives
7. Install CommentLuv plugin: Give your commenters a way to promote their articles.
8. Install Do Follow plugin: If you have PR, give your commenters some link juice.
Just a little time each day makes a big difference
Seems like there’s a lot of work involved but really, this is where you’re grabbing the low hanging fruit. Spend a few minutes to do these things every single time you post a new article and you’ll see a boost in your comments.
The key is consistency. Many of my regular visitors know me by name and face. They know I’ll return the favor when I can and occasionally even double or triple the effort. I’d like to think that there’s a level of expectations that’s mutual on here. So not only am I providing valuable information but they are also going to get me on their team.
There will be a day when this site will also be too big (e.g. the aforementioned sites) for me to do what I’m currently doing. Until then, however, I still plan on following my steps and helping this community grow.
What are some other things that increase comments that have worked for you?
Related Posts on Free Blog Help Related Posts around the web
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with an entrepreneurial spirit. Although I have an MBA and managed websites and IT departments
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Bloggers with no relationships have a huge uphill climb in the growth stage. In fact, more time should be spent promoting than writing in during that maturity phase.
Great post. I have had varied results with my new niche blog- still looking for a way to get people to comment more on the letters that are submitted.
.-= eve ´s last blog ..My dear husband, =-.
Your therapeutic writing niche is somewhat unique and you can definitely take advantage of it.
One thing you can do to create more of a community is build a brand identity so your visitors can better relate to you.
These contents are unique. I will try to follow all steps here in order to get more comments in my blog. Thanks for sharing!
.-= Kok Siong Chen´s last blog ..Say No to Cancer! – 3 Approaches to Prevent Cancer =-.
Give these tactics a try and please let us know how it works out for you.
One of my New Year resolutions for 2010 is to build community spirit, after spending 12 months on content and design.
I watched George Serradinho blog (comment above) focus on community in 2009 as he obviously had more time or found more time to put into his blog and his blog is a hive of activity as a result. It is proof to me that commenting and link love really pays dividends.
This is a great post Gabe. I will subscribe – after visiting Serradinho AND the content AND the inspiration to get involved.
See you more often
.-= Somone | Thesis Theme HQ´s last blog ..100 Reasons Why Blogussion is an Amazingly Successful Site (Part 1) =-.
Thanks, Somone.
Promotion and community building during a blog’s growth stage should take a blogger more time than writing content. It does pay off!
All of this makes perfect sense and should be done on a regular basis. Besides, doesn’t it go: give and then receive? But first you must give and then you receive. In that order. I re-discovered that good bit of information in one of Larry Winget’s books… My favourite author.
Good article and straight to the point. I’ve seen websites talk about this but reading the real deal over and over is what truly makes a difference when you start taking action on what you learn.
Thanks. I know that these tasks generate activity because I do them myself. It does take work though!
If you moderate comments, as I do, spam comments are moot. I’ve found, though, more spam was coming through from KeywordLuv than from CommentLuv.
.-= Ari Herzog´s last blog ..Resolve to Fail in 2010 =-.
Great points! I have a blog only a week old and have had as many as 20 comments on posts this week (ok, some were my replies) but my point is, I had built up relationships in the weeks prior to my developing this site, and by going everyday to the same sites and adding valuable comments, they were there as soon as the doors to my site opened!
Also, do-follow, commentluv, and top commentor are very enticing for some people as well!
.-= Keith´s last blog ..Sunday Funny’s: Drunkest Guy Ever =-.
Having a number of your own comments is expected in any blog. The percentage for a growing blog could be as high as 25-50% self comments.
Mature blogs, typically under 10k Alexa ranking, could get away with significantly fewer. The reality is, bloggers who reached that milestone wouldn’t have time to execute the same tactics.
Well, evertyone knows, I don’t care how “big”v you become, you don’t stop replieng to comments.
That said though, get yourself a good threaded comments plugin and an active community and your personal replies may legitimately decrease.
On many articles, I have readers responding to other readers before I can even get there…unless I have something new to add, my repeated comment isn’t even necessary.
I have a post coming out on this topic too.
.-= Dennis Edell´s last blog ..Again – Pick My New Domain Names With A chance To Win $10! =-.
[...] There are strategies that you can employ to help this along. Gabe Young over at Free Blog Help has posted an impressive lists of things to do to encourage comments on your blog. I certainly found it helpful and rather than writing the list here, I encourage you to hop on over directly to his post for the whole meal deal. “How I Get More Comments Than Blogs That Have 10 Times More Traffic” [...]
I read somewhere that the best way to get comments is to write a post about getting comments!
You’ve written a great set of tips to follow, something I haven’t seen done before…at least, I don’t recall any.
Bookmarking for re-use later! Cheers and nice to meet you! Hope you have a wonderful 2010 and beyond!
.-= Wayne´s last blog ..It always pays well to be a constant student =-.
Ha! I didn’t write a post about getting comments to get more comments but based on the article’s stats, I guess it’s true!
There is some relative truth to that.
.-= Ari Herzog´s last blog ..My Top 88 Commentators in 2009 =-.
[...] How I get more comments than blogs that have 10 times more traffic (tags: comments blogging traffic) [...]
“Congrats” and I do agree that “be responsive” to all comments and giving our commentators something is that bring them back always.
And NOT asking your commentators to fill in a CAPTCHA is a Bonus as well.
.-= TechChunks´s last blog ..3D TV: Is it too Early for the Manufacturers to Start Selling them? =-.
I totally get why some people use captchas but I personally hate them. I want to make it easier for my visitors to comment, not make them jump through hoops.
Most blogs get spam/bots that simple plugins like Akismet can handle anyway.
I’ve been gone for a while, so when I came back here for the first time in a while, I was really impressed with the comments you receive. I’d be interested to see how you stack up with Blogussion.
To be fair, most of the blogs you mentioned don’t respond to most of their comments, so you get a little higher comment count by responding. Then again, they probably also get more than 10x the traffic than you.
.-= Blake @ Props Blog´s last blog ..Everything You Thought You Knew About SEO Is Wrong =-.
Great points! As I wrote in this post, if the quality comments are being left, then the blogger should be able to respond about 75% of the time. Let’s use this article as an example.
This comment will be #78 for this article. Out of those, 34 are mine and 44 are from everyone else (BTW 44 is still more than many articles for even the top MMO sites). That means that about 40% of the comments are mine which also means I responded to 77% of the comments left on here.
Some of the bigger sites like Blogussion, and one that I visit often, actually will respond to comments and it, too, will have a good number of comments. As a result, its comments will exceed mine consistently (though not by much) since it’s comparing a 20k Alexa blog with a 90k one.
It’s more of a loss that some of the other guys don’t respond on their own sites. Perhaps they don’t care, perhaps they don’t need it, perhaps their egos won’t allow it.
I find “Call To Action” very useful, as what you mentioned in point #2, ask question. I used to ask a simple question at the end of every posts, not a headache question that people doesn’t know how to answer, the intention is to drive more comment and discuss in the blog.
Install plugin like commentluv, keywordluv and make your blog dofollow doesn’t really help. When I did this, obviously the number of comments increased, but of course I would get more spam comment as well, I deleted quite some spam lookalike comments secretly.
Best Regards,
Lee
I’m OK with getting more spam as long as I can reward the commenters, even if they are the minority. Thank goodness for Akismet!
Hi Gabe,
Thanks for referring me to this post. I have certainly learnt a lot that i intend to take action on.
Cheers,
Olusegun
[...] How I get more comments than blogs that have 10 times more traffic – Ever wonder how some smaller blogs get a lot more activity than some of the giants in your niche? [...]
What about building relationships with first time readers? how do we attract them to subscribe to our feeds? Thanks mate.
.-= SchoolPaper Addict´s last blog ..Somebody Hates Schoolwork – School Papers Suck =-.
Thanks for the post idea.
.-= Dennis Edell´s last blog ..48hr Downtime – Lots Done-LOTS More To-Do! =-.
But I just hate those comments that do not make any sense. They simply want to expose their links for traffic I guess.
.-= Rian´s last blog ..Free Download PSP Games Philippines – Nintendo Wii, Nintendo DS lite i =-.
I think the main benefit in commenting is that we get to expose the different links in our blogs. But of course it is also a good thing that we have lots of comments from our readers proving that we are providing them with quality contents.
.-= Ricardo´s last blog ..What is Methodology Chapter? – Writing Your Methodology Page =-.
Thank you for letting me know about this site. Great info!
.-= Howard´s last blog ..You Found a Secret Video While Farming =-.
Thanks for swinging by, Howard. Glad to be of help!
This is a nice post. There is something for me to learn when you bring up the point about leaving comments on blogs of those people who comment on our site. I usually don’t do this and feel I should start doing it more from now on as it can help build relationship with that blog owner, which hopefully can later on result into something more useful and meaninful.
Commenting is good when it is done for getting traffic and exposure as well as to build relationship with the blog owner. When people only do it for backlinks, most of the time they will post terrible comments which do not have any sense or purpose.
Such kind of useless comments would make the blog owner irritated, forcing him to delete those comments. It is hard work gone waste for the commenter as well as irritation and headache for the blog owner.
On the other hand, consider someone who want to leave a comment in order to get traffic to his site and to build some sort of good relationship with this blogger. Such a person will tend to leave long, detailed comments which have some value or purpose. It will be liked and welcomed by the blog owners as well as they can easily get a lot of attention by visitors to that blog.
This is a kind of win-win situation for the blog owner as well as the commenter. Sure, it takes some time and discipline to read the post and comment something of value, but isn’t the time well worth it for the extra traffic and exposure? I think most people will agree with this.
.-= Mirc Bes´s last blog ..Fat Loss 4 Idiots Review & Details =-.
It’s always nice when there’s an incentive for commenters. The benefits go both directions, especially when blogs have a decent PR.
Very true! I get a lot of comments on my blog but most of them are spam. Can you recommend a good anti-spam plugin? I’ve tried Captcha but it’s getting cracked pretty easy lately.
Akismet is the best out there! It’s effective and it’s free!
i think you very friendly ，because of that you reply nearly all the comment
I do not know what will happen to my site because I enabled captcha, this will reduce commeting right?
Ricardo’s last post…Telework Jobs That Can Pay You Well
Good website, where exactly did you find the knowledge in this specific post? I’m pleased I came across it although, ill be checking back again shortly to see what other articles you’ve got.
Hah, look at the list of comments here! Do follow brought me here but Gabe I am quickly finding out that you are an awesome guy!
SEO and comment love is an education in itself, but once you have mastered it, it really can work to you advantage!
Thanks,
Laura
Thanks for the useful information. I hope I’ll be able to build my comments base as effectively as you have!
Providing incentives is the most popular way to attract more commenters. Commentluv and keywordluv plugins are the most commonly used by blog owners to encourage more people to come into their blogs.
I luv commentluv and keywordluv. They are simply awesome plugins which allow one to promote their article or blog. And I thank all bloggers who have been kind enough to instal these pluggins. I have them installed as well.
This site is awesome and i will follow thanks!
Really diggin’ you blog! Getting some great information for my own sites. Thanks!
pastry chef’s last post…Learn to Make Amazing Pastries
Second step is really valuable suggestion, promote your blogs is an easy way to increase comments and also to drive traffic. RSS feed submission is one of the link building techniques to promote our blogs. By submitting our feed URL of our blog, we can drive huge traffic from those sites.
I is very effective and greatdwr
Hi Gabe, Thanks for this very helpful blog. I am getting good traffic to the blog, but not as many comments as I would like. Comments are so important, they give life to a blog post. If I visit a blog that is more than a day old and has no comments, it seems a bit lonely.
The issue for my blog is that my topic is personal technology for the everyday person. I try to translate tech talk into plain English for people who want to learn more about tech. I have a feeling some people don’t want to ask questions for fear of seeming “stupid” about tech, even though I encourage my readers to ask questions. Chances are if one person has a question, other readers do too.
Any advice on how to make readers feel more comfortable in commenting on or asking questions about an unfamiliar topic?
Carolyn@The Wonder of Tech’s last post…App Sales!
Promotion and community building during a blog’s growth stage should take a blogger more time than writing content. It does pay off!.