How to build your blog through reader comments

When I visit a new blog, there are a number of things that convinces me to subscribe to it. Off the top of my head, subscriber count, author’s best posts and the comments count. That doesn’t mean if the subscriber count and the comment count is low, I won’t subscribe to it. But rather, especially the comments count assures me that,

• People are genuinely interested in your blog.
• The author encourages and discussion and is willing to get involved with the readers
• The blog is something worth reading and subscribing to.

Are the commentators so important to the growth of your blog? In my opinion, and as an obvious fact, absolutely yes. Commentators virtually run blogs. They can probably be regarded as the blog’s hardcore fanbase.

The basic logic of comments

In the clearest and most concise manner:

• Commentators are most of the time your loyal readers.
• Author must initially encourage comments thmeselves.
• Comments encourage more comments.
• More comments encourage more subscriptions.
• More subscriptions means accelerated growth in your blog.

Savvy? So that’s the purpose of this post. To show you how you can grow your blog though comments.

Making your blog commentator-rich

Tip #1: Always return your comments

This is probably a must for you if your blog doesn’t average 137 comments per post. Readers might give their opinion, ask questions or just complement you for your post. Reply them. That gives your readers a sense of feeling that you actually care about their presence in your blog.

When someone wants to comment in your blog, giving that person the impression that you will actually go thought their comment and reply accordingly gives the reader the feeling that what they are doing is not going to waste. And that will undoubtedly convince them to “invest” their time in your blog.

Tip #2: Fish-out the random commentators

Does your blog have those commentators who find your articles randomly, and leave a comment and never come back? Fish them out. They were interested in your blog and that’s why they commented at the first place. With some extra effort, you ca probably score.

What can you possibly do? Well, this is what I do. When a new user comments on my blog at the first time, I send them an e-mail message thanking them for commenting, asking them to come back around and encouraging them to subscribe.

If you haven’t already tried it, for WordPress users, I recommend Comment Relish. A WordPress plugin that automates this process. You just have to specify your message and your first time commentators will get the message instantly!

Tip #3: Write posts to trigger comments

It will be advantageous for you if you write some posts from time to time that are open for debate. If you write about how black coal is, well, it will hardly trigger a good discussion since coal is anyway black. But if you can write about something that relates to most of your reader-base and something that you can’t give a proper conclusion to, well, I assure you, it’ll trigger some good discussions!

Make an impression that conclusion is very tricky and allow your readers to come up with their own conclusion to your post - trust me; It works!

Tip #4: Encourage comments though post content

(I know, I know, this might be an exhausted tip but for the sake of keeping this post informative, here goes…)

When you are writing a post, be sure to ask questions and ask for opinion whenever possible. It’s an old-fashioned way of encouraging comments that still works. Might be at the end of your post, might be in the middle, might be about how you can improve something or simply asking for their opinion. You’ve got nothing to lose.

Tip #5: Keep your commentators tied-up

This is very similar to Tip #2, but here, instead of encouraging random commentators, you encourage established commentators.

Whenever a reader leaves a comment in someone’s blog, they hardly come back to check out the reply. And, your reply, as mentioned in Tip #1, will encourage more comments from them. But what if they never come back around to see your reply?

This is what I do. Whenever a reader asks a question, I reply to his/her comment in the post itself and mail a copy of the comment to the given e-mail address. I know - who has the time, right? Well, it doesn’t take me anymore than the time I take to reply a normal comment. Introducing - Comment to E-mail! A powerful plugin that allows you to reply a comment and mail the reply at the same time. Check it out

That pretty much solves it:)

Tip #6: Avaters and Top Commentators widget.

So as the final tip, it might help if you give your commentators some personality. They would love to display their sexy Avater in your comments area and gain some visual appearance. And let’s face it - it also makes our blogs look good?

Not forgetting the largely popular Top Commentators widget. I have “above the fold” top commentators widget in this blog. That is to show my genuine appreciation to all the people who contribute to MindBLOGGER’s growth. If you don’t have too many real-estate issues in your sidebar, you might want to try that.

So there goes… Off the top of my head, as innovative as I could be, keeping the cliches short and irrelevant out - top 6 tips to build your blog through comments. Feel free to share your methods and tell me if I’ve missed anything. After all, I should be encouraging you to comment on this:)