Continuing my theme about blog comments, if you’re a blogger, what are some ways you can encourage comments from your readers? Some of these suggestions will be wordpress-only, but perhaps the idea behind them has been implemented differently for other blogging platforms.
1. Comment
What’s that? Encourage commenting by commenting yourself? Balderdash!
*sets aside monocle and walrus mustache*
One way to encourage people to comment on your blog is to reply when you get comments. It’s a way for a blogger to say “Aha! Oho! This blog is run by a human who likes it when they get comments!”
Granted, it’s a pretty safe bet that most bloggers like getting comments.
Even though I KNOW that, I’m still more likely to comment on a blog that I get feedback from the blog author. I’m pretty sure that’s true for other commenters as well.
If I comment and I never get a reply, I do not think “oh, what a stuck up blog author! I’m never coming again!” and then flounce as I click away.
I DO, however, stop and think about leaving comments on subsequent blog posts. If I have a comment that I don’t care whether or not I get a response, I’ll still leave it. But a conversational, “hey, thanks for the post” comment I will probably just keep to myself and move on without commenting.
Responding to comments is the number one most inviting method to encourage people to leave comments on your blog, and works for all platforms.
2. Invite Links
That’s sort of an odd phrasing, but it it’s a single idea that encompasses multiple methods.
You want to invite people to link back to their own site. I am more likely to comment on a blog which allows me to comment AS MYSELF. I want to choose the name I use to comment on your site, and I want to be able to provide a link directly back to my blog, just in case I’m witty enough that someone decides to find out who I am.
Livejournal and Blogspot are NOTORIOUS for failing at this. For both of those blogging platforms, I have to use my Livejournal ID (which points to a now defunct blog) or my BloggerID (which also points to a defunct blog). Aside from commenting anonymously and then ending my comment with a link to my blog (which I do not like to do, since it reeks of self-promotion and link-whoring) I don’t have a way to tell people “this is who I am!”
I don’t really have a solution for LJ and Blogspot bloggers – I don’t know if there’s a flag you can set in your blog settings to change that behavior or not.
WordPress users can actually go one step further. We can install a plugin called CommentLuv, which will actually pull a link to the commenter’s most recent blog post and insert it into their comment. It’s automatic, so it’s not link-whoring, and if I’m reading comments, I might see a catchy blog title and click through to read, thus finding another blogger to follow.
HUGE kudos to Kestrel for not only finding this plugin, but also encouraging others to use it AND giving tips on how to make it more “pretty” during display. <3
Being able to comment as ME makes me feel more comfortable when leaving a comment.
3. Inform Commenters
Even if you are a diligent comment replier, if your commenters don’t know that you’ve responded, it does no good.
I may spend a day visiting and commenting on a dozen or so blogs – I am SO NOT going to re-visit those dozen blogs periodically throughout the week, refreshing the comments to see whether or not someone replied to me.
I’ve done that before. It sucks bigtime since most bloggers don’t reply to comments, so I seemed desperate and needy as I hit the refresh button. NEVER AGAIN, do you hear me?!
So how can you let a commenter know if they’ve gotten a reply? My weapon of choice is another plugin recommended by Kestrel (smart guy, there) – Subscribe To Comments.
A commenter may CHOOSE to have replies to comments emailed to them. Granted, this probably works best on smaller blogs, like my own. Blogs that frequently get upwards of 100 comments might easily end up spamming inboxes, but those are the blogs that I’d not really expect bloggers to reply directly anyway. Who has that kind of time?!
I am more likely to comment on a post if I see the little “subscribe to comments” checkbox (from any of a number of different plugins) because I’ll be able to tell if I get a reply, and I’ll be able to read OTHER comments as well.
This feature, in particular, encourages conversation among blog commenters. For example, the comments in my recent Fun With Twitter post are hilarious as some of the original commenters have stepped up and replied to things other people have said.
Ending
Does anyone have any other tips or ideas? Does any of this not really apply to you? Anything that bloggers can do which might make you feel more comfortable leaving a comment?
Aside from “write witty blog posts which invite commentary based on content and subject alone”, of course. That one goes without saying (only I said it! What can I say, I’m a rebel.)
A roundup of my favorite blog posts this year. I recommend everyone walk through their blog and see their old posts. What posts are you most glad that you’ve written? Can you see the voice of your blog change through the year, like 
