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GregApologies to readers who turn up for the (randomness) humour, today’s post is of the techy variety, but it’s useful stuff! Well, it is if you’re a blogger who doesn’t get any/many comments.
When you first start blogging, it’s easy to feel you are talking to yourself. Unless you are fortunate enough to have the sort of family and friends who will happily drop by to give you feedback, you are likely find you have very few comments on your early posts and this can be disheartening. If you are in this position, don’t be discouraged, there are ways you can encourage readers to comment. The tips below won’t provide an instant fix, but they are tried and tested ways of slowly building up a solid base of regular commenters.
Get some readers - Often the lack of comments is indicative of a lack of readers. Promoting your blog goes beyond the scope of this post, but do make sure you have a simple and visible way for people to subscribe, and make use of social networks to publicise your most recent posts.
Comment on other blogs - This is probably the quickest way to get comments. (However, do read this before you go out leaving your link everywhere, the idea is to leave useful, relevant comments, not generic blurb that adds nothing of value.) Obviously, if you only comment on A-list blogs, you probably aren’t going to get many return visits, but many lower profile bloggers will pay you a visit, and may leave a comment.
Give your readers something to comment on - Ask questions, leave loose ends, ask for opinions, offer some way for them to interact. In my post a few days ago I mentioned the irony that it’s often the posts I have spent least time on that receive most attention. This is true for most bloggers. People are more likely to comment on something they can relate to, and interact with – that’s why memes are so popular, everyone can get involved. You don’t have to fill your blog with memes or lolcats, but you can learn from them. Posts that are fun, or which offer useful information are more likely to attract comments.
Make it easy for people to comment - Don’t ask your readers to jump through hoops. If your blog requires registration before commenting you will dramatically reduce the number of comments you get. Similarly, anti-spam measures such as CAPTCHAs can make readers click away. It’s natural that you want to deter spammers, but there are better ways to do that without making life difficult for your readers.
Remove spammy and trollish comments - If the only comments you receive are either from spammers, or people telling you you’re an idiot, delete them. It might make you feel better to have some, even if they are rude, but it does nothing for the image of your blog, and will make genuine people think twice about leaving genuine comments.
Reply to comments - This might seem obvious, but I’ve noticed a lot of bloggers don’t do it. Sometimes, that’s because they receive such huge numbers, but often I see it on blogs that only have a handful of comments spread out over umpteen posts. When I visit a blog like that, it does make me wonder if there’s any point in leaving a comment; how do I know the blogger even reads them? Of course, there will be times when life gets in the way of responding, but do at least try to reply.
Hope that helps! Feel free to share your own comment increasing tips 
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lilystrange
/ August 12, 2009I think that my method of going around beating them with sticks until they comment is bound to work one of these days!
Kate
/ August 12, 2009lmao! I like that, tough love, show 'em who's boss.
And to the rest of you – see, I don't do that to you, but do you appreciate my fluffy niceness?!
vene2ia
/ August 13, 2009Great post, Kate!
There must be programs which can show you how many people have visited your post, even if they don't comment… so you don't feel as though you are talking to yourself. Do you know of any?
By the way, I don't think you lack readers anyway
R.K. Charron
/ August 13, 2009Hi
Thanks for the great blog post.
…I've been thinking about starting a blog & this advice is very helpful.
Wishing you all the best,
RKCharron
xoxo
Ken Armstrong
/ August 13, 2009I would agree with all of this. Primarily, if you want comments, then comment in other places, do unto others.
For the commenter above, Google Analytics is a good free way of monitoring your traffic.
Kate
/ August 13, 2009lol Yes, I think I have a couple of readers.
As Ken said below, to check who's visited you can use Google Analytics, it's free and very comprehensive. Or if you prefer something simpler, you could use Statcounter, but that only displays something like the last 100 visitors. To see how many people are reading via the feed, use Feedburner, that also displays email subscribers.
Kate
/ August 13, 2009What kind of blog would it be? Writing? Good luck with it, and do let me know when you're up and running, I'd love to have look!
Kate
/ August 13, 2009I agree! When I first started out, commenting on other blogs was the most successful tactic for me. A lot of the people who came here via comments from other blogs are still reading now, so it's not just drive-by commenting either, you do build up a relationship.
andymitchell
/ August 13, 2009Ooo the pressure to write something interesting! Seriously, I do think that social networking has impacted on the number of comments recieved on blogs and dare I say Twitter. It's almost like everyone has used there energy to write there instead… I suppose the question is will the day of blogger comments come back?
Kate
/ August 15, 2009I agree, social networking does have an effect, I've even seen quite big bloggers say comment numbers are down. On the up side, if you publish your posts to Twitter, Friendfeed etc. you do get comments there too.
I can see blogging making a come back. It probably wouldn't be as popular as it was a year or two ago, but the idea of having your own forum with no character limit is an appealing one.
Diddums
/ August 15, 2009Hi, I never realized the social networking was having a detrimental effect… but I can see that might be true! I stay clear of Facebook et al (at least partly so that I stay grounded and don't wander off to some great new scene), so you won't find me anywhere except around blogs.
One down, how many to go?
I used to be active in looking for new blogs but not so much now. I want to start that again, but shouldn't do much reaching out till I feel confident I'm back to stay.
I just got a techy question on one of my more techy posts, LOL! Unfortunately I wasn't able to give a sensible answer (beyond “er…”)
Kate
/ August 16, 2009Sometimes that's all I can give lol Although, it's not always me, there have been times when I'm not entirely sure what it is I'm being asked.
Hope you are back to stay! It's nice to see you around
Smith
/ August 17, 2009The global organizations all over the world have always preferred India to outsource their non-core business services. Today, outsourcing BPO services in India has almost become a norm for many global companies. In fact, BPO services are one of the fast growing segments of Information Technology Enabled Services( ITES) industry. India has constantly been able to provide the growing demand for BPO services in terms of cost effectiveness and customer support contact centers.
Smith
/ August 17, 2009The global organizations all over the world have always preferred India to outsource their non-core business services. Today, outsourcing BPO services in India has almost become a norm for many global companies. In fact, are one of the fast growing segments of Information Technology Enabled Services( ITES) industry. India has constantly been able to provide the growing demand for BPO services in terms of cost effectiveness and customer support contact centers.
NLP Training India
/ September 2, 2010Here’s a comment! See, it works!