Three Simple Ways to Encourage More Comments on Your Blog

Posted: 07 Apr 2014 05:23 AM PDT

Do you have post after post with zero comments … and perhaps a handful with one or two comments each?

If you've got subscribers and traffic, you might wonder what you're doing wrong. You know people are reading — but they're just not commenting.

One solution, of course, is to turn off comments. But many bloggers, especially in the early days, find that the comments they receive are a huge source of encouragement, motivation and ideas.

So here's what you can do to encourage more of your readers to leave a response to your post.

#1: Invite Comments with a Question

Not all readers will immediately think of leaving a comment. A great way to encourage them is by asking a question. This could be as simple as "What do you think?" or "Did I miss anything?" or it could be more specific.

Try to make the question (a) open-ended (rather than yes/no) and (b) easy to answer — something that readers can give their opinion on.

#2: Make it Easy to Comment

Some blogs receive next to no comments because they've made the commenting process difficult and time-consuming. If readers have to fill in a CAPTCHA, register, or even use the Disqus system, they're less likely to leave a response.

Unless you've got a really strong reason to use a different commenting set up, go with your blog's default. (The WordPress commenting system is perfectly good as-is.) For more on this, see Diane Urban's post Why WordPress's Native Commenting System Beats Disqus or Livefyre.

#3: Use the CommentLuv Plugin

CommentLuv is a WordPress plugin (with free and premium versions) that automatically adds a link to a commenter's most recent blog post — assuming they fill in their URL when leaving a comment, of course.

It's a nice way to reward commenters, and to help your readers connect with one another, building up a real community around your blog. To find out more, take a look at Kristi Hines's post 5 Reasons I Still Use CommentLuv.

Which of these will you be trying out this week? Let us know … in the comments.

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USAHA BERSAMA

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