10 Practical Ways to Boost Blog Comments and Conversation

August 28, 2008 · by Joanna Paterson · in

One of the reasons I was moved to WordPress was that it offers so many more practical ways to encourage blog comments, support lively conversations and build a community around your blog.

I’ve jotted down some of the things I’ve added to Confident Writing – partly to let you know what you’ll find when you pop over and comment but also in the interests of sharing and learning from what you do.

Some of the things on the list are approaches I’ve seen others using but haven’t adopted here yet – or haven’t worked out how to make work yet (without breaking something else!). Most of these approaches are based on ‘plugins’* which sound very mysterious (if you don’t use WordPress) but quickly become part and parcel of your blogging vocabulary and practice if you do.

1. Comment Luv: If you’re a comment writer (or reader) you’ve probably seen this one. It’s one of the simplest and most effective ways to reward commenters and encourage interaction between bloggers. The Comment Luv plugin adds a link to the end of your comment to your most recent post. If someone reading likes the sound of your comment – or the sound of your post, they can click over to read it.

This was one of the first things I added to the new site. It’s a must have! You can see how it looks from this screenshot of a comment box conversation below – the link to your last post is highlighted at the foot of the comment. This is also a good incentive to write catchy or compelling headlines!

By the way does anyone know why this only seems to work for about 75% of blogs? Is there anything I / readers need to do to make their last posts findable?

2. Pictures of commenters As you’ll see from the screenshot the comments come with a picture of your good self. I think this makes a big difference to the feeling of a ‘real’ conversation. If you’d like to have your picture showing up next to your comment just pop over to Gravatar and register a photo with the e-mail you use when you’re writing comments.

3. Subscribe to comments You can sign up to get the rest of a conversation on a post by e-mail. You’ll see the opt-in check box at the foot of the comment box. (This is the Subscribe to Comments plugin.) I need to sort out an RSS feed for all comments – I guess some of you might find that useful. I just haven’t worked out where to put the RSS comment icon yet!

4. Preview your comments Well I did have this in Typepad, but I’ve got a live preview built in again here with Live Comment Preview. If you remember to use it you can save yourself some gruesome typos and awkward moments…

5. Manage your comments I’ve just added in the Better Comments Manager plugin which doesn’t do anything at the reader end but does make it easier for you as blogger/editor to get an overview of your comments and to reply to them quickly. I think this might be the most effective way to ensure you don’t leave comments hanging (a point well made by Barbara Swafford and reminding me of many times I’ve left ‘late’ comments on other blogs and been ignored as the party’s moved on)

6. Highlight talking points Some of you might have noticed I’ve added a ‘talking points’ section to the sidebar. It pulls out the 5 comments that have the highest number of comments. (This is based on some code I found at the WordPress site as I, like the bloggers there, couldn’t get some other better known solutions for generating lists of popular posts to work.)

7. Highlight top commenters I haven’t implemented this one yet, and am still thinking about it. I know some people reported having problems with folk leaving comments just for the sake of getting the links back through the plugin. is this something you look for on a blog – or have experience of running on your own site?

8. E-mail first time commenters I have to confess to slipping on this one. I used to do this routinely but I’ve fallen a bit by the wayside now there are so many more commenters here (which is a nice problem to have). The comment relish plugin will automate an e-mail but I’m not sure that’s going to create the same effect, however carefully I word the text. Any views on this? Can you tell the difference between a personally sent welcome e-mail and an automated one? Does the automated version create the same (or any?) sense of connection?

9. Celebrate your comment count! Here’s a great new addition to the comment scene – a plugin (plus widget if you use them) that shows off the total number of comments on your blog. It’s called the Liz Comment Counter in honour of Liz Strauss at Successful Blog. (For more on how it works read this write up by Lorelle van Fossen.)

10. Highlight valuable comments I don’t think there’s any solution, widget or plugin that will do the hard – but valuable – work for you of highlighting valuable, interesting and thoughtful comments from your readers. This is one of the best and most effective ways I know to reward those who comment, to develop conversations, and to build a sense of community around your blog.

What would you add to this list? Do you have particular features that you look for as a blog reader and commenter? Do you have particular solutions that work for you as a blogsite owner and that have helped you to nurture comments, conversation and community?