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If your a blog or website owner I’m sure you’ll agree with me on this, “it’s always nice to get a comment on a post from your members or readership”.

But why does it have to be a one way thing that really only benefits the site your commenting on.. well the fact of the matter is that it’s not just a one way thing, commenting on other sites can not only help the website in question but can be a great source of traffic to your own website..

Overview

In this article we investigate 4 main areas of commenting:

1. The Benefits Of Commenting
2. Wordpress Comments Settings
3. Specific Benefits To Webmaster And Commenter
4. How To Comment
5. How To Respond To A Comment
6. Moderating Comments

So lets begin..

The Benefits Of Commenting

Posting comments can work both ways for the bloggers involved, posting light-hearted constructive criticism, well deserved appraisals or bringing and any other ideas or opinions you might have on the topic in question can help the person running that site see the other side of an argument, let them know their article meant something to you and even open their eyes to other aspects of the topic at hand they had not considered or talked about.

This can not only help them improve the article in question but you might just spark off an in-depth debate.. either way your comment will add quality and further meaning to the discussion and if people like what you have been writing they may follow your link in search of more witty banter.

A big part of commenting is showing that the website has an active community because an active community is attractive. For example you would never consider joining a forum with just 10 members because the activity of the site would be quite limited. While very big forums with lots of members are much more attractive because they are so active.

Keep one thing in mind:

“people will only be active in an active community…
..when its easy to be active”

Wordpress Comment Settings

Taking what we’ve just discussed it must be easy for visitors to contribute to a discuss or article. I recommend that you change your wordpress settings to allow anyone to comment on your website and not limit commenting to only those that are registers and to turn off registration and its really not necessary.

Here is how to change those settings in the wordpress:

At the following address, Wordpress Admin > Settings > General > Membership

1. Deactivate “Anyone can register” as its not very common for people to sign up for membership at a blog and its really not necessary.
2. Deactive “Users must be registered and logged in to comment” to allow any visitors to comment easily and quickly.. forcing visitors to register with your blog will turn them away from trying to comment.

Benefits to the Webmaster

1. Receiving some good feedback can give a blogger a huge confidence boost and a big boost in motivation when it comes to writing the next article.
2. Comments make a topic look intriguing to a new visitor as they are active and look popular.
3. Some constructive criticism, or another side of topic not discussed could open the doors to a small debate which is no better or worse than good feedback on a post and will draw just as much as attention because the post looks active.
4. It helps them to improve or correct some aspects in the article.
5. May lead them to post further articles on the topic.

Benefits for the Commenter

On to the section more relevant to you.. I covered this second because I know you are more interested in this and if I did it first you would skip the web master section which although it doesn’t apply to you is good to know.

So what benefits would you see as a commenter?

1. By posting on a blog you get to have a link to your blog on the name you used to post, which when clicked will send people to your website, this being a link-back. This can be beneficial for your traffic levels and can improve your PR (PageRank) within Google (If rel=”no-follow” is not used).
2. You get brownie points with the webmaster of the site (if you comment is well written and helpful) which could lead to other options being available in the future like link exchanges and feature posts. The webmaster may reply to you comment which means more eyes will pass your comment and that means more clicks.
3. The webmaster of that site may visit your own site and browse around, and if he/she enjoys they may sign up to your feed or post a comment back.
4. If the comment is well written, relevant and points out a very interesting idea, readers will visit your site looking for more on the same topic or content written in the same style.

How To Comment

In this section we shall cover all the areas you need to cover when posting a comment on another blog. By following these few simple rules we hope you see an increase in the traffic back from sites you comment on in future.

1. Don’t Spam! Spam comments are deleted before anyone gets a chance to even see them. Most blog owners moderate all their comments and if they see your post as spam (having no relevance to the article except just to link to your own blog) they will delete it
2. Don’t flame articles, by this I mean if someone posts and article that you have conflicting opinions on don’t jump in all guns blazing and pull the whole post to pieces. Instead post your opinions in a polite matter raising the issues that concern you.
3. Give appraisal where it is deserved, if you liked an article tell them! They may have no idea how good the content on the site is and it only takes a few seconds to write a short comment mentioning that you enjoyed the post and a few points you really liked (and between you and me pretty much all positive non-spam comments will be accepted :))
4. Be Professional in your writing, avoid using slang on comments as it looks as if you don’t care what you are writing (and its definitely not cool). It’s also handy to avoid spelling mistakes (not vital as I correct spelling mistakes manually as an admin) and to take 30 seconds to read over what you’ve written before you submit to check that it makes sense.
5. Comment Early on new posts as this will mean you comment is at the top of the list and that means more visitors will see your comment, therefore leading to more traffic from that particular article.
6. Don’t Waffle on your comments, try to be accurate and to the point or visitors may tire of reading your comment and move on to read other more interesting feedback. Also reading a huge 400 word comment is not appealing to the vast majority, people want it now, they don’t want to have to look for your main points.
7. Signup for Gravatar and personalise the comments you write. (Gravatar allows you to specify a picture to an email address, and whenever that email address is specified on a comment that image is shown)
8. Clever Linking, for example if you read a post on itunes and on your own blog you have an article on itunes place the link directly to that article on your website in place of your root domain. This way any clicks you do get are taken straight to a relevant article on your own site.
9. Comment On A Variety Of Blogs as this will help you attract new visitors from a different readership in place of trying to appeal to the same visitors (or readers) over and over. This will bring a flow of new traffic to your blog and potentially new readers/subscribers.

Now it is time to tackle how deal with comments on your blog, and how to encourage commenting on your website.

How To Respond To A Comment

When readers post a comment on your website, they love nothing more than seeing a personal reply to that comment dedicated the the questions they have asked, or even just a thank you back to know that their comment actually means something and is appreciated.

So here is a short list of how to reply to comments to keep those commenters coming back:

1. Use Their Name - state the name of the person you are replying back to, just make sure you spell it correctly! (This will bring more eyes over their comments and if they get traffic off you they will be back for more) This gives the visitors a more personal experience on your blog
2. Begin With A Thanks to the person that commented, for example something like “thanks for bringing that up” or “its great to see you here”
3. Be polite even if you don’t agree with what the commenter is stating being nasty to your commenter can have a negative effect on your users.

Showing that you as an admin are active on your website and engage with your readers can go a long way towards increasing your readership. And shows that you want to help your visitors and readers get the best out of the service you are offering (and that they know that).

Moderating Comments

As a rule I prevent all comments from being shown until I have read it and approved it manually and if you are one of the few that don’t read all your comments then I recommend you do from now on.

It is a very good way of filtering out the those that are just posting on your site for a link and those that are actually interested in what you have said and will help keep your discussion on track.

How Do I Change My Setting?

At the following address, Wordpress Admin > Settings > Discussion > Before a comment appears

• Activate “An administrator must always approve the comment ” which tells wordpress to queue all comments you receive. Now no comment will be shown until it has been approved by you.

To help you keep on top of your comments and to help keep things easy to read and understand for others here is a short list of things you should do with comments before you approve them:

1. Read them fully just to make sure comment is relevant to the post they were commenting on.
2. If it looks like spam is probably is, just make sure you report it as spam to help protect the blogsphere from spam, as clever plugins such as akismet will recognise if that person posted the same post on another blog and prevent it from being posted
3. Can you understand the comment? If not then others are not going to understand what is meant either and it is probably not worth keeping as it will add pointless context to your post and might turn readers off
4. I understand it but only just, in cases of poor grammar or comment stucture the comment might need editing slightly.. don’t completely change the comment but maybe just add and change the odd word here and there so it flows better and is easier to understand
5. Is it riddled with spelling mistakes? One of my personal pet hates, I always go through my comments (Ok there may be one or two around with errors) and check spelling. I would recommend that you skim over the spelling or just go through it with a spell checker and fix it all up, it only takes a few seconds! And makes your blog look much more professional

Is It Over?

Yes, it was a long one but we’ve reached the end..

We hope this post has opened your eyes to how comments can be beneficial to those commenting, the best way to go about commenting on other sites and moderating comments you receive on your own website.

Now go and comment the world over..

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