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jamesray50
04-03-2012, 01:54 AM
Do you all get discouraged when you don't get comments on blogs? Do you expect to receive comments on every blog you write? I would like to have comments on my blogs. I even posed a question at the end of one of my blogs for people to reply or what was their opinion or something to that effect. No comment back. Maybe my goals are too high.

billbenson
04-03-2012, 01:56 AM
Do you track your stats? If so, what kind of traffic are you getting?

kerrylinux
04-03-2012, 05:23 AM
In my experience, before you get useful comments, that add to the value of your blog, you will have to fight spam commenters that try to flood your blog. If you haven't got the
spam comments yet it is too early to be disappointed, because you may not have the audience you wish (yet). Keep on creating good content, and don't give up.

jamesray50
04-03-2012, 08:40 AM
Do you track your stats? If so, what kind of traffic are you getting?

I track my stats with Google and GoDaddy Analytics and they show that visitors do go to my blog page. I don't remember how long they stay on the page. Sometimes it shows they have visited more than one page.

KristineS
04-03-2012, 12:37 PM
I wouldn't be too discouraged if you're not getting comments. You need to develop a wide audience, and then your readers need to be people who would comment. Not everyone will comment on a blog. The blogs you see that are getting tons of comments have worked over time to build vast audiences, and even those blogs are probably seeing just a small percentage of their readership comment. If you're getting traffic and they're seeing what you're writing, I'd be pleased with that. Comments will come in time.

ReganP
04-03-2012, 05:02 PM
I checked out your site and clicked on the blog, the content is great! One thing I would point out though is that it looks like you don't post very frequently. If you only post every month or so people will tend to forget about your blog, they might think you are forgetting about it too! Try to post more often, if you don't have time try getting someone to write a guest post, it will help out both of you!

A huge part of blogging is building relationships with your followers. The more quality content you have, the more credibility you gain with readers, which will keep them coming back and eventually commenting.

Do you comment on other blogs? If so, do you include a link to your own blog? People will be inclined to check out and comment on your blog if you interact with them first. Along that same line, make sure you are FB sharing and tweeting links to your posts.

vangogh
04-03-2012, 06:01 PM
Most people aren't going to comment. You really need to build up an audience beyond a handful of people before you'll find consistent comments on your posts. Asking questions can help so keep doing that. Also make sure to respond to your comments. If someone leaves a comment for you and you don't respond that person probably doesn't comment again.

One thing you can try is to ask other people in similar situations to comment on your blog if you'll comment on theirs. I did that a few times and it worked to get some comments going. Ask a few people who also need more comments if they'll comment on your posts if you comment on theirs. You do want to pick people who'll be interested in your blog and you in theirs so the comments all around are genuine. This isn't about leaving quickie comments. Its you all committing to helping each other for a time.

What happened the few times I tired it is people commented for a few weeks and then slowly stopped, but it did help get other people to comment too. Some people don't want to be the first to comment.

Ideally you'll find a few people who will comment consistently on their own, but it will take time. You need to build a larger audience than you think. You'll find sites that get 100 comments per post, but they have 100,000 subscribers. It seems like a lot of comments, but it's only 0.1% of the audience.

Don't get discouraged. Keep writing. Every so often you'll find a post picking up more comments than your other posts. Pay attention and think about why that post attracted comments. What was different about it? Try to do the same thing again and see if it works.

jamesray50
04-03-2012, 11:00 PM
All good advise, thanks everyone. I do get discouraged sometimes and sometimes I wonder how to write a blog on a topic that has already been written about with my spin on it and make it sound interesting. I think that is why I don't post so often. It takes me a while to think up a topic, then I research it to death, and if there are instructions in it, I make sure my instructions are correct. And then some of the comments I do get are stupid, like the one that said "you have a nice website". I didn't approve it because it didn't have any relevance to the topic in the blog.

vangogh
04-04-2012, 11:11 AM
Those stupid comments are probably spam. It's common for spammers to pay you a generic compliment that has no connection to the specific post.

With the posts you don't need to research them to death and be perfect. You do want to give out good advice and yes do some research. But sometimes if you don't cover everything and leave a few things open ended it can lead to more comments. If you say everything there's not much for anyone else to add. With finding your spin on the topic just keep at that. Over time you'll find your voice and a direction for how to approach most topics. The more you post the quicker you'll get there. I don't think I found my own voice until I'd been blogging consistently for a couple of years and even now I tweak it.

queenvictoria
04-26-2012, 05:48 PM
Ideally you'll find a few people who will comment consistently on their own, but it will take time. You need to build a larger audience than you think. You'll find sites that get 100 comments per post, but they have 100,000 subscribers. It seems like a lot of comments, but it's only 0.1% of the audience.

Pretty much hit the nail on the head. Unless you are sending people that you know to your blog, most casual readers likely won't comment. I've posted for sites with ridiculous readership and yep, only about .1% of people actually comment. I guess empirically speaking, if you want more comments write more polarizing blog posts, but if your blog isn't about causing a scene, then the comments will eventually show up. Again, like vangough said, commenting on other similar blogs does help both for gaining readership and receiving comments from them.

Also I would highly, highly recommend a spam filter for your comments since there are myriads of spam commenters out there. Sadly, you will get about 1 sincere comment for every 20 spam comments. Even with a spam blocker there are some sneaky people who will write a comment organically but still be trying to sell some sort of unrelated product. Good discussion comments are actually pretty difficult to come by, but if you get some make sure to comment back and make readers feel like they are being listened to.

In the end we want our comments to spark intelligent discussion and help further both parties' knowledge right?

Don't get discouraged, blogs take quite a bit of time to build up, especially for people to comment on regularly. And yes the extremely generic comments are likely (not so) well disguised spam.

krymson
04-26-2012, 08:08 PM
One good thing you can do and I erg you to do is some content marketing. Post it on socail media sites, DIGG, all those types of sites. Make sure you have good quality content... interesting so people will read it... and then just keep cranking them out.

vangogh
04-27-2012, 02:12 AM
Don't get discouraged, blogs take quite a bit of time to build up, especially for people to comment on regularly.

And I'd add when people do start commenting, nurture them. Make sure to reply. Ask them questions. It helps to get them to comment more and once people are used to commenting, they'll be more likely to comment in the future and encourage others to comment.


Post it on socail media sites, DIGG, all those types of sites.

I tend not to promote my own content on social sites, though there's nothing wrong with. The one thing to keep in mind is not to make your social profile be solely about promoting your own content. If you tweet one of your posts, make sure to tweet a dozen or more posts by other people too. There's a balance between promoting your content on social sites and coming across like you're spamming. That doesn't' mean you can't promote your own stuff, just to be careful not to promote it too much.

Once you've built up an audience, your audience will promote for you. You usually need to get the ball rolling and you should make it easier for other people to promote by adding some buttons to the sites your content does well.

melanie
04-27-2012, 11:47 AM
You need a lot of traffic to get regular comments on your posts that are not spammers so maybe work on this. Also in regards to the struggling sometimes to come up with posts and give your take on them etc, try learning everything you can about content curation. Really hot at the moment and working well.

Good luck

vangogh
04-30-2012, 11:43 AM
Traffic definitely helps. You do need people to find your content before they can comment on it. I think there's more to it though. Some posts will naturally get people talking more and you can encourage comments by asking questions in your post and leaving your post a little open-ended so there's room for more thoughts beyond your own.

WisemanSays
04-30-2012, 04:39 PM
Comments are parallel with the number of readers you have. Getting more readers should be a blogger's main focus after creating interesting and useful content. Also, make sure your blog posts are available for sharing on social sites. Most blog sites come with the sharing feature, but it's important to make sure. I'll read blogs daily, but I don't always comment. I'll share the post, which in turn might increase the blog's reader base.

KristineS
04-30-2012, 04:52 PM
Making your posts easy to share is a good thing. If people can click a button and share a post with their Facebook friends or on Twitter or some other site, it does help drive readers. You should also make sure that people can easily link to your post - some blogs don't allow that, which makes it very hard for other bloggers to share a link to one of your posts on their blogs.

jamesray50
07-06-2012, 03:44 PM
Since I first asked about this I have to say that I have been getting comments on my blogs. Very encouraging. I still don't write as much as I should. I struggle to think of a topic. Usually I write about whatever the most common question on forums in my industry are. I appreciated everyone who answered and encouraged me.

vangogh
07-07-2012, 07:10 PM
That's great about the comments Jo Ellen. Ideas come with practice. Here's a quote from me from a recent post of mine about generating ideas (http://www.vanseodesign.com/blogging/generate-ideas/).


The real trick to generating ideas is to learn to recognize them when they’re in front of you.

The idea is that in time you train yourself to see things that happen in your daily routine as possibilities for blog posts. Observing what people ask in forums is one way to do just that. How about reading industry blogs and mining those for ideas. You could do a series on how to use Quickbooks or a series on bookkeeping in general. Find sources of ideas that aren't forums to add to the forum ideas.

jamesray50
07-07-2012, 11:43 PM
Thanks Vangough, I read your blog and it does make a lot of sense. The other problem I have with writing blogs is using links in my blogs. I noticed that your blog had lots of links, I only clicked on one and it went to another blog you had written. I haven't quite got the hang of that yet.

vangogh
07-08-2012, 12:16 AM
The post I linked to above is part of a series I wrote about my blogging process. Here's the introduction to the series (http://www.vanseodesign.com/blogging/process-introduction/). In the section "My Blogging Process" I linked each of the stages of the process to the more detailed post. When it comes to links I usually add some to my own content and some to external resources. With the links to my own content I just read the post while editing and when I've written something that I know I've written about with more detail in another post I add a link. It's mainly habit to include them and adding the links does help in a few different ways.

MissesBeatriz
07-13-2012, 01:35 PM
Don't feel discouraged but I feel you. I have a fashion style blog and I know a lot of my friends, and their friends, and other random people visit it and NOTHING , no comments. I also leave a question at the end. But I learned people are just more visual, they look at your pictures and hardly have time to read. When I visit my favorite blogs, I hardly read, I skim unless its a new or popular topic. That's why I write short paragraphs now but the days I wanna write and my blog posts turn out to be 6 paragraphs long and very passionate, I get a lot of feedback and views because my friends end up sharing the link. Enjoy your blog, don't worry about comments or how many views, its all about you and your passion for blogging :) best,

vangogh
07-14-2012, 12:58 AM
I know a lot of my friends, and their friends, and other random people visit it and NOTHING , no comments.

I was going to suggest contests since it fits what you do, but I see you already have something set up. Do you know how many subscribers you have? It took me a little while to find the link to your blog. I wonder if others miss it. Why not move it to the top to make it more prominent? That is assuming you want to promote it more.
One of the things I've been noticing is as I've made my writing more informal and personal it's encouraged more comments. I try to mix in a healthy balance of I, you, and, we and I'll mix in posts that have personal stories. It seems to encourage more comments overall. I think when you share more of yourself your readers get to know you better and feel more comfortable chatting.

Another thing you can do is get the ball rolling some. In the beginning I got together with a few people and we each agreed to comment on everyone's blog. That way we didn't have empty comments sections and it encouraged other people to join in as well.

Ted
01-10-2013, 12:59 PM
There are a few points I would like to add to this discussion Jo Ellen.

I run a bunch of different blogs in different niches. So I get a lot of feedback from different angles.

Most people honestly don’t understand the commenting process unless they are bloggers. So, if your audience is not predominantly bloggers, then most of your visitors won’t even understand how to leave a comment. In fact, if they try to leave a comment, it could very easily not go through or get rejected or get filtered for spam because they did something incorrectly.

I have seen that happen on blogs where your typical non-internet savvy people comprise the primary audience. Leaving comments seems intuitively obvious to people like us. But, to most people, it is not that obvious.

They aren't sure what to type in what box. They are hesitant to leave their email address because they don’t understand why you would need that. They are hesitant to type in their name for fear that they will do something wrong and look foolish. There are many good reasons why it just isn’t worth it for them to even try to comment. They don’t see the benefit in it for them.

If bloggers are your primary target because you have a blog about blogging or something like that, then you will find that you get a lot more commenters. Topics that relate to blogging also attract internet savvy people who like to comment. So, topics like internet marketing, SEO and things like that are more likely to draw in the types of readers who feel totally comfortable leaving comments.

Another thing….Blogs with comments tend to attract more comments. When someone visits your blog post and sees that some other person has already commented, then they are more likely to comment too. It adds an element of social proof. They think “Oh…okay…this blogger wants us to talk back…cool”

Then there are the people who drop comments just for links back to their own website. Your website isn’t a primary target for them because your comments are nofollowed. If you made your comments flow link juice then over time you would find that these dofollow commenters start telling each other about your blog. As a result, you end up with more comments.

These are all reasons why people comment or not and things to think about when considering why you aren't getting the amount of comments you had hoped.

jamesray50
01-10-2013, 01:39 PM
Ted - thank you for your comments. Since I asked this question I have started receiving comments on my blogs. I receive more on some topics than others, and some I don't receive any. I try to reply to all comments and sometimes I will email the person privately. Several of the people who have made comments have also contacted me through my contact page and most of these have turned into a paying job. That is my ultimate goal with my blog. I do want to write informative blogs that people will like and come back to read more, but I also want people to see that I am knowledgeable in my field and hire me to help them.

Comments have to be approved by me before they are posted. I have gotten pretty good at telling what is legitimate and what isn't. Sometimes a legitimate comment will end up in the spam folder, so I have made a point of checking that folder on a regular basis.

I don't get the opportunity to attend local networking events due to my caregiver status for my parents. Social networking is a big part of my marketing. The number of comments I receive on my blogs helps me to determine what subject is the most interesting or searched for, so I know what to write my next blog about.

dianecoleen
01-10-2013, 02:10 PM
I was once obsess with comments on my blog too back then. Every time I checked my blog posts and see no comments in there, I feel so discourage to write a new post. 'Coz in such a way, I would feel interested in having my posts to be commented by others so it would be just like an interactive blog. So I let my blog to be open and not setting the moderation of comments on it. Then there comes the spammers. They had planted a virus on the blog causing it to be hacked. It took me 2-3 weeks to remove the planted virus comment on my blog. It was then a very frustrating event for me. Since then I made my blog more secure and have the comments to be moderated and checked by me before posting.

Since all of them already shared helpful suggestions. I'll just share this thought in case you are not aware of those spammers who plant a code in there comments to hack a website.

vangogh
01-16-2013, 12:08 AM
Most people honestly don’t understand the commenting process unless they are bloggers.

I'm not so sure this is true. I only have anecdotal evidence to share. My mom is a good example. She's hardly a blogger and barely understand what rss is. Still there are blogs she regularly reads by visiting them directly and she has no problem leaving comments. I realize that's just one example, but I don't know that most people can't understand how to comment.


Blogs with comments tend to attract more comments.

Absolutely true. I'm not sure if I mentioned this earlier in this thread, but I have somewhere on the forum. When I first started in order to get the comments started I found a few bloggers who blogged on similar topics and got us all commenting on each other's blogs. We all knew each other from different forums and figured we'd all help each other out. We didn't do this for a long time, but for a little while it meant few, if any, of our posts would show 0 comments. That did help attract others to start commenting.


I receive more on some topics than others, and some I don't receive any.

Pay attention to what does and doesn't get comments. You can write more on that particular topic and see if leads to more comments. You might also look through posts that get more comments and see if there's anything you're doing on those posts. For example asking for an opinion at the end of a post can often lead to more comments. Try to notice what you're doing on posts that get comments and repeat those things in new posts.

Ted
01-16-2013, 09:13 AM
I'm not so sure this is true. I only have anecdotal evidence to share. My mom is a good example. She's hardly a blogger and barely understand what rss is. Still there are blogs she regularly reads by visiting them directly and she has no problem leaving comments. I realize that's just one example, but I don't know that most people can't understand how to comment.


"Most" was probably the wrong word. Maybe I should have used the word "Many". I really don't know what percentages apply.

Here is why I say that...

Two particular situations come to mind. A few years back I was running a lot of different blogs (much more than I am now). Two particular blogs come to mind. One was a political blog and the other was a topic that had to do with pet dogs.

Both of those blogs attracted traffic from people who were just average home internet users. The people weren't really computer savvy or internet savvy. When I got comments on those blogs, they would often times be screwed up a little bit. By screwed up I mean that maybe the person would type in my website's homepage instead of their own homepage in the spot where it asked what their website was. Sometimes they would type their name there. Sometimes there would be something else there. They would type wrong things into the email address field. Really, the only thing they got right consistently was the comment field itself.

Now, you might think it was spam or something like that. Right? But, I could tell they were legit visitors who had read the blog post in its entirety because they left very detailed comments that spoke directly to the point of the post. It was obvious that these were real people who were very passionate about the topic. But, the comments were often times screwed up. These people were obviously perplexed trying to figure out how to leave a basic Wordpress blog comment. It amazed me too. I couldn't understand how someone could have trouble doing something so simple.

Now, once a person has left two comments, they probably figure it out pretty quickly. But, based on my experiences, it seems that the very first time they ever try to comment on a blog, many people are kind of confused.

I imagine on most blogs, a new person who experiences any hesitation at all about how to fill out that comment form will probably just think "it isn't worth the hassle". If you are running the blog, you never get to see those people. You don't get to find out how many people started to leave a comment and then quit because those comments never make it to the point where you get to approve or reject them.

Those two blogs of mine I am referring to here had topics that people were exceptionally passionate about. So, in those cases, I feel that those people were willing to try to figure out how to comment even though it was a hassle for them. It was worth the hassle to them because they were so emotional about what they were about to say.

99% of blogs are not about topics that people would be really passionate about. So there is very little incentive for a confused person to figure out how to fill out that comment.

I know it seems like filling out blog comments is ridiculously simple, and it is to anyone who is computer savvy or even just internet savvy. I can assure you that for people who are not savvy, even something as simple as a blog comment can be challenging the first time they do it. They will sit and stare at those little boxes wondering what they are supposed to put there. Then they will question whether they should give out their email address to some stranger online. To some people, that is too much of a hassle.

vangogh
01-17-2013, 02:11 AM
Many is a better word. That I can agree with. I do hear you too. I think those of us who spend a lot of time online and are tech and web savvy take for granted sometimes how much more difficult some of what we think simple really is. I know I remind people here all the time that simply by having posted something to a forum you're more web savvy than most.


99% of blogs are not about topics that people would be really passionate about. So there is very little incentive for a confused person to figure out how to fill out that comment.

You're % is probably off, but I agree with your point. However, I might suggest it's not necessarily the topic that people aren't passionate about, but rather how the blog presents it. Odds are if someone is passionate enough about a topic to blog about it, there are others also passionate about the topic.

There's a "rule" which I'm guessing is more guestimate in its numbers than actual fact, that says that 1% of people who visit a community site will participate and 99% will just read what other's write. Years ago I remember seeing even more detailed and probably guestimated numbers that suggested that only a small % of that 1% were active members. Most people who visit your blog are never going to comment and that's fine. Part of why new blogs don't receive many comments is you have to build up some readers before you notice that 1% who will comment.

There are ways to encourage comments though. Like I said above find another blogger and agree to comment on each other's posts. Write posts that are open ended. Ask questions of readers in your post. These all work. They won't necessarily get you hundreds of comments, but they can get you more than you get now.

I also think even topics that may not inspire passion can be made more passionate in how you write about them. Pick a side. Hold a very strong opinion. If you put enough passion into what you write it can inspire passion in anyone reading.

bulk
01-24-2013, 10:18 AM
I can say receiving no comments can be really discouraging.

I noticed some things.

1) People are in a hurry. They read the post, find useful information and go further. Here you can't actually do anything to stop them for a while. I noticed that I comment blogs not very much these days. It's impossible to comment all the posts that you like.

2) People like commenting and discussions on a very narrow niche or topic. Seriously, technical blogs get way more comments that ones about SEO, for instance.

3) When the post is perfect and covers the topic completely, there is nothing left to say but 'thanks'. So you have to leave space for questions, discussion, sometimes even contradictions do work.

4) When they see zero comments, they are not likely to be the first. Sad but true.

When I get discouraged, I go to my google analytics account and look at the traffic. It helps:o

neil@camisonline
01-24-2013, 10:23 AM
I've found that it's useful to browse similar topics on forums such as this to look at the questions people are asking about a particular subject and how many views the article has had; this way you can try to focus your blog to cover the things that people are asking and talking about. Personally I like to get someone to review mine before I publish as it's so easy to go off topic and forget about the type of reader that might be viewing your post (i.e. technical, business focused, newbie, marketeer etc).


I've found that when it's got a degree of relevance to the user, they are more likely to comment back. MSN blogs seem to get some amusing comments that can be quite entertaining.

vangogh
01-29-2013, 12:10 AM
I've found that it's useful to browse similar topics on forums such as this to look at the questions people are asking about a particular subject and how many views the article has had; this way you can try to focus your blog to cover the things that people are asking and talking about.

Absolutely. You can also type generic words and phrases about a topic into a search engine and see what suggestions appear in the drop down to get a feel for what questions people are asking. Similarly you can see what's being searched for on Twitter or Facebook, etc. If people are searching for something it's usually a good topic for a blog post.

LGCG
09-30-2013, 02:14 PM
Good Van Gogh. Although at the same time you want to make sure that the topic hasn't been done to death. Or at least you've got an interesting take on it.

vangogh
10-08-2013, 01:25 AM
True. After seeing the same thing a dozen times in my feedreader, I'm not likely to click on the 13th article on the same topic. It depends on the topic of course and most topics do come around again. The topic might be tired today, but 6 months from now it might be fresh again.

patrickprecisione
10-08-2013, 03:45 PM
True. After seeing the same thing a dozen times in my feedreader, I'm not likely to click on the 13th article on the same topic. It depends on the topic of course and most topics do come around again. The topic might be tired today, but 6 months from now it might be fresh again.

Yeah, that's the great thing about evergreen content. You write an article about something, then six months, a year later etc. if suddenly is back in the news and you get a big bump in traffic.

vangogh
10-15-2013, 02:18 AM
True. That's definitely happened to me. Most of my content is meant to be timeless, at least as far as any technology topic can remain timeless. Some of my older development posts aren't as relevant as they once were, though where design is concerned I tend to focus on fundamental concepts that are as true today as they were 100 years ago. It's interesting to see how some of the content will see large spikes in traffic when the topic comes around again. Some of my biggest traffic pullers are a couple years old now.

patrickprecisione
10-15-2013, 08:39 AM
I think part of the reason you see so much hyperbole in marketing blogs is it's a way to get traffic and comments. So it explains why there's so many "SEO is DEAD" articles out there or "The 5 BEST ways to get INSANE Amount of Traffic to Your Blog!".

Chase
10-16-2013, 07:20 AM
As long as I'm getting the hits on the page, I really don't mind about comments. I find that I get more feedback/discussion when I post the article on twitter. I think it feels more informal there than at the bottom of a blog post. And there is a certain truth to the saying that the comment section is the bottom half of the internet. I've seen comments on other people's blog posts that would make you lose faith in humanity.

OlegLola
10-17-2013, 04:54 AM
I think that it's better to disable comments, than to have just empty fields or some spammers comments. I know that some bloggers are commenting their posts themselves to show that the audience is "active" and the post are interesting. What do you think about it?

DTGeorge
11-07-2013, 11:03 AM
I think that it's better to disable comments, than to have just empty fields or some spammers comments. I know that some bloggers are commenting their posts themselves to show that the audience is "active" and the post are interesting. What do you think about it?

Definitely NOT.

If you're running a Wordpress site, then there are really easy ways to ensure that you don't have a problem with spam. I use Akismet, and of the 50 or so comments that it allowed to go through, not even a single one of them is spam.

If you're at all interested in ranking well on Google, then you will definitely not want to turn your comments off. Comments are a key part of determining your search ranking, and I've managed to reach #1 for a number of search terms due largely to an active comment section.

I'm betwixt and between what to say about commenting on your own stuff - morally and ethically it's wrong, but there really aren't any penalties for it and it really doesn't make a huge difference in how people interpret your content.

vangogh
11-14-2013, 12:34 AM
Akismet works well. It's not perfect, but it does catch nearly all spam and the rest if seems to send for moderation. Lately spam seems to be on the rise for my blog. I woke up to over 2,500 spam comments this morning. None of them actually went through though. Akismet caught them all.

If you're trying to figure out how to generate more comments instead of commenting yourself with fake accounts, find someone or a few someones in a similar position and make a deal where you each comment on each other's blogs. Often all it takes for others to comment is to see someone else comment first.

marrick
12-22-2013, 06:56 AM
For the comments, it will depend on the type of comments that will be made on my blog. If it adds value to my posts/blog, then I will probably allow it. I don't post questions at the end of my blog posts. It's up to my readers if they want to leave comments or not.