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Only 1 out of every 100 readers of this post are likely to interact with it by leaving a comment…

The most common way for interaction on blogs is through comments. Most people have an opinion on any given topic, but fail to express their opinions through comments on blog posts they read. On most blogs, the ratio of readers to commenters is huge, so I got to thinking: what kind of person comments on a blog, and why?

The Upside to Comments

I personally think commenting is the best part of blogging. Comments add value to your blog. I like to hear others’ opinions on what I have written and learn a lot about my readers from comments left on this blog and occasionally, even meet some new friends through them.

Getting people to comment on your posts helps to create a community at your blog. They also help you to be more accountable as a blogger (if you’re not getting a lot of comments, just post inaccurate information or something very controversial and you’ll probably notice a significant rise in comments).

Comments add to the content on your blog. The more comments you get the more content you end up with.

The Downside of Comments

The downside of comments is dealing with comment spam. Most bloggers moderate their comments to combat comment spam and this takes time, particularly if you get a lot of it. There’s also resources and plugins that help to combat comment spam. Nobody, including your readers wants to read a bunch of comment spam. It decreases the value of your blog not only to readers but in the Search Engines.

You’ll also get a lot of comments from people promoting their own blog and hoping to get hits from comments they leave on yours. This doesn’t bother me as much as the real comments spam and I normally don’t delete them unless they are serial trollers. Flaming in comments can be an issue also and you can develop a comment policy to deal with these issues.

Finally, people are motivated more to comment on things they disagree with rather than things they agree with. This doesn’t have to be a negative as long as the disagreements don’t become flaming and name calling.

7 Ways to Get More Comments

Approximately 90% of people who use online communities are lurkers (read without contributing). Only 1% of the remainder are active contributers, with the other 9% contributing a little. So 1% of your blog’s users are actively engaging with your blog and the rest are at best occasional contributers. To some extent you’ll just have to accept the fact that most of your readers will be lurkers, but there are some things you can do to encourage more interaction on your blog.

1. Ask for Comments. When you invite people to comment, more people leave comments. Simple, but it works.

2. Ask Questions. Including specific questions in posts definitely helps get higher numbers of comments. I find that when I include questions in my headings that it is a particularly effective way of getting a response from readers as you set a question in their mind from the first moments of your post.

3. Interact with your readers. If someone leaves a comment interact with them. This shows your readers that you value their input and creates a culture of interactivity. People are more likely to jump into the conversation if they see that your comment section is an active place and that you participate.

4. Don’t Be a Know-it-All. If you come across as knowing everything there is to know on a topic, your readers may be intimidated and feel they have nothing to contribute. People will respond more to humility and are more likely to respond to it than a post written in a tone of someone who is a know-it-all. If you do make an error in your post and are called on it, be gracious and admit you were wrong instead of getting defensive.

5. Be controversial. There’s nothing like controversy to get people stirred up and more likely to leave comments on your blog. Of course with controversy comes the risk of putting off some members of your readership who don’t agree with your topic but are less vocal when it comes to disagreeing.

6. Reward Comments. There are many ways of rewarding good comments that range from simply including a ‘good comment’ remark to mentioning them in other posts that you write or having a top commenters section on your blog to highlight active commenters. I use the Comment Luv Wordpress plugin on this blog and feel that highlighting the posters most recent blog posts rewards them for commenting. Drawing attention to your readers who use comments will also get the attention of other readers, showing them that commenting is rewarded. I also use the do*follow plugin so you get a link back if you contribute by commenting (spam, of course, is deleted).

7. Make it Easy to Comment. Blogs that require you to login before making a comment are much less likely to get comments. Most people are either too lazy to register or don’t want to give out personal information just to leave a comment. While registration can help to combat comment spam, it will also put people off of leaving relevant comments. Keep your comments section as simple and as easy to use as possible.

So - what do you think? Do you have any other methods of increasing comments on your blog?

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