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This is an article by Ben, who writes about how to get more blog comments and similar topics at his blog Start Blog Now.
When it comes to blogs, we tend to judge a book by the cover. Having an attractive design is the first step to build trust and acceptance with your visitors. However, the battle for authority in the eyes of your readers doesn't end there.
Blog comments are an extremely visible and simple way to gauge the popularity of a blog. Those who are more internet savvy may check your Google PageRank or Alexa ranking, but that is unlikely in most niches. In order to impress visitors and appear as a bustling and thriving blog, you should accumulate as many comments on your posts as you can.
The obvious way to get more comments on your blog is simply to get more traffic. However, you don't really need more traffic for more comments. In fact, there are a few quick changes you can implement right now that will get your blog many more comments every day.
Technique #1
The first technique you can use to get more blog comments is to install CommentLuv on your blog. This plugin will reward site visitors for commenting by allowing them to use their keyword in their username as anchor text.
You can also use CommentLuv Premium and allow your visitors to include a link to their most recent post on their blog.
Now, this again won't apply to a lot of your audience since it only appeals to other webmasters. Luckily, there are other ways of incentivizing comments.
Technique #2
A reason many visitors will comment in the first place is to ask you a question. If you consistently respond to comments on your blog, other people will be more likely to step up and post a comment.
This has a multiplying affect and can result in loads more comments on your site. Your blog will look full of life.
Technique #3
Allow visitors to subscribe to the comments. A lot of people who ask questions or post any other comment want to follow the discussion taking place in the comments section. Make it easy for them to subscribe to the comments.
This will result in more comments and even more recurring traffic from these visitors.
The more you interact with and promote interaction on your blog, the more trust you'll build with your readers. As most internet marketers now, trust is key when trying to get a visitor to subscribe to a list or a buy a product from you.
Dealing with Spam
Of course when you go out of your way to accept and promote commenting on your blog, you're going to get a lot of spam. Some spam is automated and some people will actually visit your site, and then leave a copy & pasted comment.
You can use a plugin called G.A.S.P. which adds a checkbox under your comment form which must be checked off for a comment to be accepted. This stops a lot of automated spam.
For the manual spam and the automated stuff that gets through, the quickest way to filter it out is to check if the comment is relevant. I can sift through dozens of comments very quickly just by checking to see if there is anything they said that is relevant to my post. If it's generic and just says something like, "great post, I just subscribed to your blog", it is probably just spam.
Blog comments can be fruitful for your blog and your success as a blogger. They should be nourished and encouraged in order to create a more vibrant and active community on your blog.
This is an article by Ben, who writes about the best Wordpress plugins and similar topics at his blog Start Blog Now.
New to the blogosphere? You should know that WordPress is king when it comes to running a blog. The vast majority of bloggers use WP to run and manage their blogs. In fact, more and more webmasters running non-blog websites elect to use WordPress for their sites every year.
One of the best parts of using WordPress as your CMS (content management system) is that you have thousands of plugins at your disposal. But what are plugins?
Simply put, WordPress plugins allow you to add additional functionality to your site. This could be something simple like allow commenters to subscribe to the comments, or it could be complex like an image slider with tons of customizable options.
With the use of plugins, there's not much you can't do with WordPress.
They're easy to install as well. You can search within your WP dashboard for new plugins and find them without ever leaving your site. Most of the time, I like to find useful plugins elsewhere on the net, and then search for them on my WordPress install.
When you find the right plugin, there's literally a one-click install. Then, all you have to do is click "activate" and your new plugin is operating on your site.
The Essential Plugins
There are a few plugins that almost every site should install right away. These are plugins that make your site perform better, and they're absolutely free.
1) WordPress SEO by Yoast
WordPress SEO is a plugin that helps you setup your blog or site for the search engines. There's not a single piece missing from this rock-solid plugin.
The SEO plugin lets you customize the link structure for your site, which pages get indexed, and much more.
2) CBNET Ping Optimizer
A lot of people don't realize just how often WordPress pings. In case you're not familiar with pinging, it's simply an alert to the search engines that you have added new content to your site. It helps them find it and index it.
At first this seems great, and it would be if WordPress only sent out a ping when you publish new content. However, it also pings every single time you update a post. Many bloggers like to make lots of small adjustments to fine-tune their posts and end up sending out way too many pings. This can actually have a negative impact on your search engine rankings.
You can use Ping Optimizer to limit this function or turn it off entirely.
3) Header and Footer
One more plugin that I've found extremely useful over the years is called Header and Footer. It allows you to add code into your site's header or footer section without ever having to actually deal with the site's theme code editor.
This comes in handy all the time. For instance, when you install Google Analytics (which you should) you are given a few lines of code that you need to add into your site's header. It's easy to mess this up and waste time trying to get it right.
You can skip all that fuss with Header and Footer. All you have to do is locate the header section and paste in the code, then you're good to go.
The sheer amount of plugins and they're overall quality for the WordPress CMS is incredible. The open source blogging software has allowed thousands of developers to make their own plugins and help webmasters all over the world improve their sites.
If you elect to use WordPress for your blog, lookout for great plugins because they're going to transform your blog.
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