Blog comments are a magical thing. They give you hope, inspiration, motivation, and encouragement because you know that people are interacting and resonating with what you have written. For blogs in particular, comments can build your community of readers and allow them to take part in the conversation. For you as the writer, they are an indicator that people are finding your content useful in some way.
Almost every blogger strives to get people to interact and comment – because it validates what we are doing and that we are reaching people. We want to know that what we are spending our time on is worthwhile and beneficial to others. After publishing a great post or piece of content we sit back and wait for people to start commenting on our masterpiece… and wait…. and wait… and wait. It’s frustrating sometimes to see that the article we just put so much effort into, just kind of sit there and eventually be pushed into our archives.
Having a few strategies and techniques to encourage comments come in handy:
Strategies & Tips to Get More Comments on Your Blog
- Ask Questions – Open-ended questions will give your visitors a chance to respond. Everyone loves giving their opinion or their view and questions appeal to our desire to be heard.
- Create Controversy – While this is a unique way to approach getting more comments on your blog, being controversial can garner you attention and those opposed are more than willing to voice their opinion.
- Use Avatars – Simply integrating the use of avatars in your site can encourage comments, people like being unique and avatars allow them to be branded as well.
- Reply to Comments – Personally, I find it very frustrating when I leave a comment on a blog where I seek the author’s response and never hear anything back. Those blogs that do respond encourage me to write more comments because I am part of the conversation “not just another commenter.”
- Comment on Other Blogs – Commenting on other blogs can be a great way to get new comments. Often, I have found comments on my own sites because of comments that I left on other people’s blogs.
- Link Out – A great strategy that I have used successfully is to link to other blogs about your topic. Just like commenting on other’s blogs, you will find that many come to your site to check out what you are writing about.
- Be Less Complete - Though this isn’t something that I’ve used, Chris Garrett in a post on the Blog Herald recommends this as a way to encourage people to chime in and take part of the conversation because people can add and expand upon your content.
- List Recent Comments – Displaying the recent comments prominently on your sidebar (or somewhere similar) will encourage people to comment because they are more widely recognized than on just the post that they comment on.
- Encourage Openly - Whether you write a post, send a tweet, or however you want to approach encouraging comments, simply letting visitors know that you want comments will often lead to more of them.
- Run a Contest – One of the most surefire ways to get more comments is by holding a contest. I have seen many extremely successful sites use this as a strategy to get people to interact.
- MAKE SURE YOUR COMMENTING SYSTEM WORKS – I can’t tell you how many blogs or sites that where I have taken the time to write a well-crafted comment, only to have their comments section broken. You would be amazed at how many sites’ comments sections don’t work, so ensure that yours is properly running by testing it out yourself. You won’t get very many comments if people can’t leave one in the first place!
WordPress Plugins that Encourage Comments
- CommentLuv - Yet another excellent suggestion by PlaceForBloggers. CommentLuv automatically pulls in the last post of each commenter (if they have a blog).
- Subscribe to Comments – Allows your visitors to subscribe to their comments so they can follow up or come back to respond.
- Most Commented – Displays the posts with the most comments on your blog.
How do you encourage comments? 
Great post.
I think the most effective way to get more comments is by activly leave valuble comments on other related blogs. Not only do you get traffic and comments, but you also get a free backlink.
Trust me if you run a contest where visitors can win cash money by commening your going to get tons of comments. People will be lining up to your blog to leave comments. Contests are also a effective way to gain comments.
Installing the Top Commentator plugin wil also increase chance.
Nice post.
I think leaving comments on a blog that provide more insight or continue in the conversation are absolutely a great thing both for the blog, and for the commenter.
You are so right in how they it lifts your spirits and gives you motivation as a blogger to get some good comments, and be able to start a discussion on the blog.
Actually – that is exactly what my intention is this evening. I’ve been so busy through the week that my reader was jam packed full. So I am taking the time to read, comment, and actually find more blogs to look at through the comment sections.
I’m off to take a look at Teen Blogger’s site now. Great Post!