Why Comments Are Important for Your Blog Growth
Why would you want to invest time and effort into increasing comments? First, an active comments section where you as the author respond to your readers helps create a connection between you and your audience. This increases your blog’s potential to develop a stable following. It also helps you be more in touch with the readers and aware of what they are looking for in your blog.
What’s more, comments help create interaction between readers. This interaction gives your blog more of a community feel and will keep people coming back to your site. Readers will know they can not only find entertainment and new information there, but also join potentially interesting discussions and exchange ideas.
If you’ve just started your blog, comments will come in handy with indexing, and will generally help improve SEO. Comments add more words to your blog pages. This raises your chances of getting more search engine ranked keywords and drives extra traffic to your site.
How to Get More Comments on Your Blog
Let’s now take a look at some simple things you can do to boost your blog comments. This advice is pretty universal and will help get comments for your blog whichever platform you’re using, whether you want to get comments on Instagram, Facebook, a blog host, or your own webpage.
1. Ask Open-Ended Questions
One way to make your reader more keen to engage and write in the comments section is by asking questions. And not just any kind of question, but one that invites the reader to reflect and share their thoughts in some detail.
An open-ended question cannot be answered with just ‘yes’ or ‘no’ or a similarly short response. Such questions are common in surveys and job interviews. For example, instead of asking “Do you enjoy city breaks?,” ask “What is your experience with city break holidays?”
2. Write Listicles
Lists make successful posts because they are structured, predictable, and easy to read. The reader has to put in less effort because everything is already broken down for them.
Naturally, the more people actually read your post to the end, the more comments you’ll be likely to get. For this reason, writing listicles, or articles formatted as a list, are a good little trick to get more comments on a blog.
3. Mention Experts and Influencers
The more eye-catching your content is, the more comments you’ll receive. Mentioning well-known or relevant names that your readers recognize generates a response.
Consider making references to experts or influencers, including names that people will have seen recently in the news of their Twitter feed. This will attract views and generate a response, which will eventually get you more comments on your blog.
4. Add Visual Content
Visual content is key in making your writing stand out, driving more visitors and getting reads and comments.
Images tend to raise the number of clicks you get, but most importantly, they help diversify your text and make it easier to understand and take in. Sometimes, readers need a break from reading, and visual content offers a brilliant solution by offering a break, but also by adding information. Infographics are especially good at that, so be sure to add them if you get the chance.
Videos, too, can be a great tool to use. They can illustrate something in the text, provide authoritative information, or give comic relief. It’s up to you as to how you use visuals, but be sure to make the most of them if you want people commenting.
5. Comment on Other People’s Blogs
Creating a space for discussion and encouraging comments comes more naturally when you’re also in the game. Take the time to leave comments on other blogs. Not only will this help promote you as an author (you can always add in a link to your site!), it will show your openness and desire to engage.
If you’re asking yourself: what should I comment on a blog? For example, you can show appreciation for the author, demonstrate interest in some points of the post and initiate discussion or interaction with other users. Always remember that you need to bring value, so don’t just write something random. And if you want people to find out about your blog, leave a backlink in the comment as well.
6. Always Respond to Comments
Make a habit of responding to every comment you get, even if it is something trivial. This will show users that you appreciate their feedback and won’t leave it unnoticed, which therefore will make readers more likely to comment under your posts.
How do you reply to a blog comment? For instance, if someone thanks you for your post, say you’re happy the commenter found your post useful. If you get a thoughtful or controversial comment, make sure to use the opportunity to keep the conversation going and allow the user to bring in their expertise. As for negative comments, it’s also important to respond to them, always politely, and discourage any offensive or unpleasant behavior.
7. Write Enticing Headlines
This is pretty obvious advice, yet incredibly important. Your post’s title needs to stand out and generate curiosity. Think of something funny, eye-catching, relevant to your reader, or even controversial. A good title can make the difference between a click and a skip, and you want as many people to open your post as possible.
8. Share Personal Experiences and Emotions
There is nothing like a genuine, relatable story to trigger a reaction from your reader. Sharing experiences and showing your feelings takes you to a whole new level of personal interaction with your reader. Posts like these feel like having a conversation with someone, and for this reason, are incredibly effective in generating a response.
9. Cover Controversial Topics
Just like personal experiences trigger empathy and bring you closer to your reader, controversial topics make us more emotional and keen to express our opinion on the matter.
Relevant, hot, and contended topics are perfect for livening up your comments section. Not only will people want to agree or disagree with what you say, but they might also want to interact with other readers who commented. Try to keep it all nice and polite and enjoy the fun!
10. Bring Value
Possibly the most important thing there is. There are lots of ways to drive traffic to your blog by carefully following guides (including this one!). But the ultimate way to make it all work is this: create quality content.
Most readers can tell if you’re wasting their time from the first few lines of the post. What encourages them to continue reading and commenting on your post, is the value that your post brings them.
11. Ask Readers to Comment
Some of your readers may not be very keen comment writers. It might not even occur to them to share their thoughts on your post. And even if they are thinking about it, a little encouragement never goes amiss.
How do you ask to comment? You can do this at the end of your post as you conclude, or anywhere within your post whenever you mention a particular thing or idea you’d like to ask people about. Invite people to share their thoughts on the topic or any experiences they may have had with the issues you covered. It’s always good to remind people you’re interested in feedback and want to hear what they have to say.
12. Create a Newsletter
A newsletter is a great way to keep your readers up-to-date and have your content sit directly in their mailbox. Add a ‘Subscribe’ button to your blog page, ideally after each post, and create a newsletter which will tell your readers about the latest posts, discussions and news around your blog. This will ensure that people can quickly access posts they find interesting and join the conversation.
13. Repurpose Old Blog Content
The quest for likes and comments largely revolves around volume: the more you post, the easier it is for users to come across your blog. But writing can take a lot of time, especially when coupled with the time invested in promoting posts.
So, if you have some old blog content, put it to good use by refreshing it and changing the format, for example, by turning a blog post into an infographic, presentation, or video. It will allow you to highlight the topic from different angles and cater to various categories of users. This technique is especially efficient with evergreen content, so make sure to include it in your content marketing strategy so that you have materials ready for republishing later.
14. Get Creative
Get creative and experiment with forms of content and ways of getting people to engage. Try new things, analyze the results and see how it works out. The advice listed here is general and will work for anyone, but it’s up to you to find something that fits your blog’s profile and gets you the best results.
15. Giveaways
Looking for a fun and easy way to drive lots of comments? Host a giveaway or a contest, as they always attract the attention of users and help grow traffic. For example, you can ask the participants to comment on your blog or social media and subscribe to a newsletter, whatever works better for your blog growth.
To encourage users to participate, you need to provide an incentive worth their while. It can be free access to your premium content, as well as any free trials, discounts, or gifts of relevant products and services in the niche. In this regard, it’s even more beneficial to partner with other influencers and brands and run a joint giveaway, which will allow for cross-promotion and larger coverage.
16. Make Commenting Easy
User experience matters everywhere, so the easier it’s to comment on your blog, the more likely users are to do so. Comments are often made impulsively, and you don’t want to stop people from writing a comment with an inconvenient comments section.
Ask yourself: how can people comment on my blog? What do they have to do to post a comment? Put yourself in the reader’s place and make commenting as easy and intuitive as possible. Refrain from asking people to register or login before they can share their thoughts.
17. Turn Top Comments Into New Posts
Comments are beneficial for many reasons, for example, they can help you keep your hand on the pulse in the niche. Particularly thoughtful, good comments can help you develop new ideas and become a source of inspiration for new posts.
Carefully read all the comments that your blog gets, and if you encounter a different angle, point of view or any other added value, use it to create a separate blog post or refresh the current one with the information received. Make sure to let the user who left the comment know about their input into your blog growth, which will help strengthen your relationship with the audience or may even become the beginning of a new partnership, if the user has enough niche expertise.
18. Display Recent Comments on the Homepage
Having recent comments and treads displayed on your homepage shows straight away that your blog is a popular space in the niche that keeps conversations going. It also helps readers see what topics are being discussed and not miss those that appeal to them. First-time readers simply might not know what posts are popular on your blog, but the comment section on the homepage will let them know what’s worth paying attention to first.
19. Contribute to Other Blogs
Again, it’s all about visibility. The more people know about your blog, the more comments you’re likely to get. So, contribute to other blogs in your niche and related ones and make sure to leave a backlink to your site. Having your name and writing flash across these websites lets you tap into new audiences and makes you easier to find, not to mention that you’ll help fellow influencers grow their blogs and can therefore build efficient partnerships.
How to get more comments on your blog
So, there you have it! You are now armed with 19 easy ways of increasing comment activity for your blog. Hopefully, these will help encourage discussion on your website and get great thoughtful comments on your writing. Oh, and by the way… If you know other good tips to increase comments, share them in the comments section below!