Apologies 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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