Wednesday, October 18, 2006
How to get more comments on your blog
It seems like every blogging-related forum and chat is full of people begging others to come post comments on their blogs; in their honor, here are a few ideas about how to get more folks to click your "comment links":
1) Eliminate anything about your site that might cause new arrivals to instantly dismiss it, such as:
a) Music or video that starts playing automatically: It's not work safe, and is the #1 complaint I've seen about blogs.
b) ANY sort of automatic file download: People will assume it's a virus, but no matter what it actually is it's NEVER ok.
c) Requiring a special plugin to play your files: There are endless ways to play music or video that don't require weird plugins, so there's no reason to make people deal with a popup telling them to download one.
d) No content at the top of your main page: Even someone on a small laptop with the screen minimized somewhat (which people who surf via BlogMad and such often do) should see something other than your header, graphics, and ads when they reach your site; they won't scroll down to a comment link if they see nothing to comment ON. Ads are a special case in this category; I've seen people say that they won't read ANY blog that has ads at the top of the page, so you've gotta weigh the few pennies extra you're earning against lost readers.
e) Text that's hard to read: If your font is too small, too funky, or in a glaring color combo with the background, don't expect people to risk eyestrain to read your posts. Anything other than black on white (or white on black, although some people complain even about that) can be hard to read after a while, so you REALLY want to be sure that "colorful" posts are important to you before choosing them. Also, if some people's fonts sizes seem too big, but yours looks just right, you might have your screen resolution too low; if so, the other blogs are fine, and yours has too small of a font size.
2) Make sure the general public is ABLE to comment on your site:
a) If your blog only allows registered users to comment, most folks can't post there; to increase comments, move to a more visitor-friendly site, put in Haloscan or some other flavor of commenting that doesn't require registration, or install a chatbox. If your blog is somewhere that allows for anonymous commenting, such as Blogger, and you've turned that feature off to reduce the likelihood of trolls and spam, why not turn it back on and see what the ratio is of increased comments to "bad" ones?
b) If you've got cutting-edge code, be aware that some of that stuff only works on newish PC's with recent versions of Windows and browsers; potential commenters on Macs, or with older computers, operating systems or browsers, or browsers other than the major ones, might not be able to use your links and scroll bars (the latter being very important if you have a postage-stamp-sized embedded window with your posts in it). If you want to be sure that everyone can comment, either test your site on a wide range of machine and browser combos or just stick to tried and true, if less glamorous, template designs.
3) Post content that people will WANT to comment on: If you're posting about how many eggs you had for breakfast, the only person who'll comment is your mom warning you about your cholesterol level; to affect folks enough to engender in them the urge to respond to you, your posts should be funny, emotional, informative, controversial, insightful, sexual, or about famous people.
4) Don't beg people to comment: Anyone who liked you enough that they would have commented eventually will change to viewing you with pity and even contempt, and new readers will instantly peg your blog as a dead one that no one likes enough to comment on. Yes, you might get a comment or 2 from embarrassed lurkers who don't fully grasp that you can't "see" them, but their discomfort will probably drive them away afterwards, and in any case will NOT lead to them commenting regularly.
5) Be aware of the email addy issues:
a) There's absolutely, positively NO reason to require an email addy for someone to be able to post on your blog; trolls and spammers are perfectly capable of entering fake addies. It's a pain for commenters to have to type something in for that field, and to either give a total stranger their private email addies or invent fakes; if your current commenting system won't let you eliminate the email addy requirement, consider a new one.
b) Recently, a bunch of commenting software was apparently updated to detect fake email addies; they accept the comments, but dump them in a spam file rather than posting them. Commenters who don't want to give you their addies won't be willing to keep trying fake ones until your system accepts them... they'll just move on to the next blog.
6) Go easy with "captcha": If people have to enter a code in order to post comments on your site, a certain % of them won't bother; unless you've had a major spam problem, it's best to just do without captcha. If you REALLY need to use it, be careful about which one you choose; the capital and lower-case versions of lots of letters look alike, especially when they're distorted, so don't get a captcha that doesn't accept upper- and lower-case as the SAME letter, or people will have to make a bunch of tries to get past it... and that won't encourage them to ever post again. Also, avoid captchas that are too deformed or otherwise difficult to make out; same reason.
7) Re-think comment moderation: I understand the desire to fight spam and trolls, but it's off-putting to some folks to not be sure if their comments will ever appear, and if there's a discussion going on it'll be a wreck with no one knowing what's been said but not officially posted yet... that is if people are willing to post at all, and risk looking foolish because they duplicated someone else's comments.
8) Treat anyone who DOES comment with courtesy: The bulk of your comments should be from repeat visitors, but people won't come back if they don't feel like they connected with you in a positive way, which means that you should:
a) Welcome 1st-time commenters.
b) Respond to every non-trivial comment that's posted: If all someone says in reaction to your post is something like "Me too," they probably don't expect you to reply, but most folks comment because they want to be part of a dialogue, and if you deny them that there's plenty of other blogs they could go to where they can feel more involved.
c) Even if there's an intense debate going on, as long as a commenter hasn't stooped to name-calling or personal remarks you need to remain polite when you address or refer to them; also, resist the temptation to argue with someone who's posted a reason for disagreeing with you withOUT asking you questions to prompt you to rebut them... there's no chance you'll change their minds, and it just looks like you're being a bully.
9) Keep control of your comment areas: If you let trolls, or people who can't discuss issues without getting nasty, run rampant, no sane person will want to bother posting a thoughtful comment, much less become a regular commenter; unless all you want are a few belligerent types spewing on each of your posts, delete comments from and if possible ban trolls in a timely fashion, and threaten to do the same to those who get too heated if they refuse to abide by your request that they keep it civil.
In general, though, the most important thing about comments is that you don't get so hung up on them that you lose sight of what makes your blog special; YOU, and your unique perspective on the world.
1) Eliminate anything about your site that might cause new arrivals to instantly dismiss it, such as:
a) Music or video that starts playing automatically: It's not work safe, and is the #1 complaint I've seen about blogs.
b) ANY sort of automatic file download: People will assume it's a virus, but no matter what it actually is it's NEVER ok.
c) Requiring a special plugin to play your files: There are endless ways to play music or video that don't require weird plugins, so there's no reason to make people deal with a popup telling them to download one.
d) No content at the top of your main page: Even someone on a small laptop with the screen minimized somewhat (which people who surf via BlogMad and such often do) should see something other than your header, graphics, and ads when they reach your site; they won't scroll down to a comment link if they see nothing to comment ON. Ads are a special case in this category; I've seen people say that they won't read ANY blog that has ads at the top of the page, so you've gotta weigh the few pennies extra you're earning against lost readers.
e) Text that's hard to read: If your font is too small, too funky, or in a glaring color combo with the background, don't expect people to risk eyestrain to read your posts. Anything other than black on white (or white on black, although some people complain even about that) can be hard to read after a while, so you REALLY want to be sure that "colorful" posts are important to you before choosing them. Also, if some people's fonts sizes seem too big, but yours looks just right, you might have your screen resolution too low; if so, the other blogs are fine, and yours has too small of a font size.
2) Make sure the general public is ABLE to comment on your site:
a) If your blog only allows registered users to comment, most folks can't post there; to increase comments, move to a more visitor-friendly site, put in Haloscan or some other flavor of commenting that doesn't require registration, or install a chatbox. If your blog is somewhere that allows for anonymous commenting, such as Blogger, and you've turned that feature off to reduce the likelihood of trolls and spam, why not turn it back on and see what the ratio is of increased comments to "bad" ones?
b) If you've got cutting-edge code, be aware that some of that stuff only works on newish PC's with recent versions of Windows and browsers; potential commenters on Macs, or with older computers, operating systems or browsers, or browsers other than the major ones, might not be able to use your links and scroll bars (the latter being very important if you have a postage-stamp-sized embedded window with your posts in it). If you want to be sure that everyone can comment, either test your site on a wide range of machine and browser combos or just stick to tried and true, if less glamorous, template designs.
3) Post content that people will WANT to comment on: If you're posting about how many eggs you had for breakfast, the only person who'll comment is your mom warning you about your cholesterol level; to affect folks enough to engender in them the urge to respond to you, your posts should be funny, emotional, informative, controversial, insightful, sexual, or about famous people.
4) Don't beg people to comment: Anyone who liked you enough that they would have commented eventually will change to viewing you with pity and even contempt, and new readers will instantly peg your blog as a dead one that no one likes enough to comment on. Yes, you might get a comment or 2 from embarrassed lurkers who don't fully grasp that you can't "see" them, but their discomfort will probably drive them away afterwards, and in any case will NOT lead to them commenting regularly.
5) Be aware of the email addy issues:
a) There's absolutely, positively NO reason to require an email addy for someone to be able to post on your blog; trolls and spammers are perfectly capable of entering fake addies. It's a pain for commenters to have to type something in for that field, and to either give a total stranger their private email addies or invent fakes; if your current commenting system won't let you eliminate the email addy requirement, consider a new one.
b) Recently, a bunch of commenting software was apparently updated to detect fake email addies; they accept the comments, but dump them in a spam file rather than posting them. Commenters who don't want to give you their addies won't be willing to keep trying fake ones until your system accepts them... they'll just move on to the next blog.
6) Go easy with "captcha": If people have to enter a code in order to post comments on your site, a certain % of them won't bother; unless you've had a major spam problem, it's best to just do without captcha. If you REALLY need to use it, be careful about which one you choose; the capital and lower-case versions of lots of letters look alike, especially when they're distorted, so don't get a captcha that doesn't accept upper- and lower-case as the SAME letter, or people will have to make a bunch of tries to get past it... and that won't encourage them to ever post again. Also, avoid captchas that are too deformed or otherwise difficult to make out; same reason.
7) Re-think comment moderation: I understand the desire to fight spam and trolls, but it's off-putting to some folks to not be sure if their comments will ever appear, and if there's a discussion going on it'll be a wreck with no one knowing what's been said but not officially posted yet... that is if people are willing to post at all, and risk looking foolish because they duplicated someone else's comments.
8) Treat anyone who DOES comment with courtesy: The bulk of your comments should be from repeat visitors, but people won't come back if they don't feel like they connected with you in a positive way, which means that you should:
a) Welcome 1st-time commenters.
b) Respond to every non-trivial comment that's posted: If all someone says in reaction to your post is something like "Me too," they probably don't expect you to reply, but most folks comment because they want to be part of a dialogue, and if you deny them that there's plenty of other blogs they could go to where they can feel more involved.
c) Even if there's an intense debate going on, as long as a commenter hasn't stooped to name-calling or personal remarks you need to remain polite when you address or refer to them; also, resist the temptation to argue with someone who's posted a reason for disagreeing with you withOUT asking you questions to prompt you to rebut them... there's no chance you'll change their minds, and it just looks like you're being a bully.
9) Keep control of your comment areas: If you let trolls, or people who can't discuss issues without getting nasty, run rampant, no sane person will want to bother posting a thoughtful comment, much less become a regular commenter; unless all you want are a few belligerent types spewing on each of your posts, delete comments from and if possible ban trolls in a timely fashion, and threaten to do the same to those who get too heated if they refuse to abide by your request that they keep it civil.
In general, though, the most important thing about comments is that you don't get so hung up on them that you lose sight of what makes your blog special; YOU, and your unique perspective on the world.
