If you know for certain that you are getting visitors to your blog, maybe
because your website stats has a good amount of data showing you where your
visitors are coming from and what pages they visited, maybe it's time to take
a look at some ways to get the comment ball rolling.
1. Enable
Commenting
At first glance this may seem like a silly suggestion but I can assure you
that some people simply forget to enable commenting (or don't know how to
enable this feature).
Take a look in the admin area of your blog and be sure to enable
commenting.
I would recommend moderating your comments to reduce comment spam
automatically being posted to your blog articles.
2. Remove Any Barriers
I come across a lot of great blog articles that compel me to comment only
to find I have a barrier in the way, 'you must register to leave a comment'.
There are only a few sites that I will register with just so I can leave a
comment and these are industry leaders in my chosen field.
If you want people to register for your site then allow this feature but I
would recommend turning off compulsory registration for blog commenting.
3. Be Clear About Who You Are
Be sure to change your blog user name from admin to something that your
users will be able to recognise and engage with. Sharing your name adds a
personal dimension to your blog and allows you to instantly identifiable when
commenting on other people's blogs.
I also recommend you grab a Gravatar and allow people to see the face
behind the blog.
4. Read The Leading Blogs In Your Niche
Find blogs in your niche and look at their content. What content gets the
most comments, retweets, Diggs, etc.
Study a few of the different blogs and try to determine what in the
articles elicited the comments from the readers, what did the blog author
write that compelled users to engage with the article?
Take notes and apply them to your next blog article.
5. Just Ask
Seriously, sometimes you really need to ask people to do something. Are you
regularly asking your readers to comment?
Try adding a line at the end of each post that says:
'Do you have something to say? I'd love to hear from you so leave me a
comment below.'
You should be able to easily come up with something better than that.
6. Mix It Up
Mix it up a little. Sometimes we get stuck in a particular writing format
that we feel most comfortable with. If your blog articles are a collection of
lists then try writing a 'how-to guide' and vice versa.
Your readers will love you for providing them with a bit of variety. Here
are examples from this site:
Are you writing email marketing messages that suck? (cautionary)
Finally, a secure tell-a-friend script (informative)
How to install a WordPress Blog using Simple Scripts (instructional)
30 plus ways to generate traffic (list)
There are other types of formats to play around with so be sure to give
them a go.
7. Reward Your Commentators
There are lots of unique ways to reward your readers who take the extra
step and leave you a comment. You can install plugins (WordPress) that allow
you to reward your commentators by linking back to their website. You could
write a blog post about your favourite blog comments and commentators. This
will allow you, in one-way-or-another, to reward those who leave a comment.
You'll find that once a visitor knows they are rewarding for commenting
they will often return in the future to leave even more comments.
