5 Simple Ways to get Your Comments Reply from Bloggers

When you run a blog, one great way to tell how effective or interesting your posts are is through reader comments. However, if people are not leaving comments, this can leave you in the dark. How will you know what people are thinking when they read your content? Additionally, posts that generate comments can help drive traffic to the site, as people refer others to an interesting discussion taking place. If you are not getting blog comments, or are looking for more, here are five simple ways to do so.

“Comments make Blog Alive”

1. Create a Call to Action

The first and most obvious step that a lot of people do not think of is to ask their readers to reply with their opinions. A simple, “What do you think?” at the end of a blog post can spur readers to action.

People who may not have considered the idea of responding may do so, and others who did not think you were looking for an opinion may decide to reply. Something as simple as requesting a comment can actually go a long way towards generating responses.

2. Ask the Reader Questions

Going further than simply asking for some sort of response, ask readers direct questions in your posts. To begin with, this shows that you care about and are interested in reading their opinions. Further, this gives you data for other posts and information that may be useful in the future. People love talking about themselves, so asking them to tell you about their experiences can open the door to comments.

3. Request Differing Opinions

Another great way to get readers posting is to ask for people to disagree with you. Finding someone that thinks you’re wrong on the internet is incredibly easy, so this is a simple way to generate comments. However, in these situations it is important that you create posting guidelines to keep comments clean and civil and to prevent war from breaking out among posters.

While the goal is to generate a discussion regarding your blog posting, creating an argument filled with attacks is not. Be sure to monitor posts after requesting differing opinions to keep things professional.

4. Make Commenting Easy

One of the easiest ways to keep people from posting is to make it difficult. If you require that people fill out a two page form and then type in squiggly letters to verify they are a human before they can respond, expect very few responses. Most people won’t take more than a few seconds to get to the part where they actually leave feedback, so keep that in mind.

If you find that you are being inundated with spam or garbage comments, you can always increase the requirements to post, but start simple to keep from causing people to give up when they were going to leave a response to a post.

5. Respond to Comments

When people do leave comments, respond to them. It increases the likelihood that people will comment in the future, and it can also increase the chances that other people will respond to your posts if they know you are reading. Additionally, if people leave interesting comments or ideas, mention the comment and the person who left the comment in future blog posts. People love having their ideas validated, and being called out on a post will make them feel valued as a reader. This will also increase comments from other people, hoping that they will leave something insightful enough to get a mention.

Comments make the blog alive, so you can implement these tips on your blog to make more user interactive.

Liza is a blogger and content writer with a particular interest in improving ecommerce conversion rate through testing, changing content and finding out what the consumer wants.