[Mistakes #6] Five Common Comment Form Mistakes … and How to Fix Them - DailyBlogTips

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[Mistakes #6] Five Common Comment Form Mistakes … and How to Fix Them Posted: 10 Jan 2014 04:58 AM PST This is the sixth post in our Mistakes series, a guest piece from freelance writer and blogger Raspal Seni. (You’ll find his bio at the bottom of the post.)  Your blog’s comment form is how your blog visitors communicate with you and other readers, perhaps to ask questions or share something. The more comments on your blog, the better! Comments show that your blog is popular, give you valuable feedback, and even help turn your blog visitors into regular readers.  But what if commenting on your blog is difficult? Visitors may not bother, and might not even visit your blog again. These are five common comment form mistakes which, if you fix, more of your blog visitors will become regular readers of your blog: Mistake #1. Not Even Using Your Own Comment Form! This is a mistake many bloggers make. They work hard on their blog, write great posts, share them on social networks, but then don’t reply to comments. This doesn’t make your blog look very welcoming. Traffic to your blog will decline as new visitors may think you’re not interested in your readers. Comments are currency for your blog, as Chris Brogan says. If you reply to them, more and more visitors will become regular readers. Fix it: Visit your blog and reply to any unanswered comments, then do this regularly. You don’t have to reply to each and every comment, but at least reply the ones which directly ask you something. You can even reply to more than one comment in a single comment, like Ali and Daniel do here on DBT. Mistake #2. Using a Captcha System This is one of the mistakes which I made when starting my first blog: using a difficult captcha system. I realised later what a mistake this was, especially recently during my 31 days at the Ultimate Blog Challenge,  where I’d get irritated, when I had to read and type a difficult captcha to comment on other people’s posts. Once, I even lost a long comment I had typed, due to typing the captcha answer wrong. I just left that blog and didn’t bother commenting again. Fix it: If you’re using a captcha plugin, disable it! Akismet is quite good at eradicating comment spam, and in recent WordPress versions, it’s installed by default.   Another good antispam plugin is G.A.S.P. (short for Growmap Anti Spambot Plugin), which presents a checkbox below the comment form, to check before submitting a comment. Since bots can't check it, they can’t comment. Mistake #3.  No Option to Subscribe to Comment Replies Many blogs have a ”Subscribe” checkbox below the comment form, letting readers subscribe to any new comments the post gets. Some even include another checkbox to subscribe to new blog posts. But hardly any have an option to subscribe to just replies to your comments. Readers may not want to subscribe to all the comments, but they’ll want to know when you’ve replied to them. Fix it:  Use a WordPress plugin like the Send email only on Reply to My Comment. There’s another such plugin from Intense Debate, which has similar options like the above. Mistake #4. Not Moderating Comments This is more of a problem for new bloggers, but even some expert bloggers fail to moderate their blog comments. [Ali's note: Some DBT readers will know I could be better at this...!] If you don’t check the moderation queue regularly, it’s frustrating for readers who’ve tried again and again to leave a comment. Fix it: Check and moderate your blog comments on a regular basis and don’t forget to check the spam folder occasionally. Sometimes, legit comments will land up in there. Mistake #5. Enabling Links within Comments By default, WordPress is set to allow one link per comment. But, spammers take advantage of this and use it for building backlinks. Usually, there’s no need for commenters to post links in their comments. If it’s really important, they can e-mail the blog owner with the relevant links. Fix it: Check under WordPress Settings -> Discussions, to make sure links in comments are disabled. Set WordPress to hold the  comment if it contains 1 or more links (see the screenshot below). If they are legit comments, you can periodically check your spam folder and approve them (edit them to remove the link first, if you want).   Have you noticed any other comment form mistakes, you’d like to share? Let us know in the comments below. Raspal is a Freelance Writer and Blogger at RaspalWrites, where he has just published a follow-up post to this, 5 Additional Comment-Related Mistakes to Avoid. He enjoys helping people, is interested in technical content writing and blogging and available for hire. You can follow Raspal's personal and business ramblings at @raspalwrites. Wanna learn how to make more money with your website? Check the Online Profits training program!

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