When it comes to blogging, it’s all about having a conversation with your followers. Comments are the medium that makes this possible.
You share your tips, tricks, or advice and they chime in with their thoughts.
Knowing that people are paying attention to your words is a great feeling. Nobody wants to feel like they’re screaming into the void, after all.
If you’ve found this article, you’re likely wondering why you’re not getting comments on your blog posts.
And that’s okay because it happens to the best of us. It is definitely disheartening to put a lot of effort into something and not receive the acknowledgement we want.
But it’s important to realise that all hope is not lost. While one might feel discouraged, there’s a lot that can be done to rectify the situation and there are numerous techniques you can apply to turn things around.
However, at the same time it’s important to approach this task with the right mind-set.
You can’t trick your followers into engaging with your content. You need to appeal to their tastes and provide them with content that makes them react.
Sometimes the reaction can be good, other times it can be bad. What matters is that they’re reacting at all.
Now onto the advice!
Contents In Page
Design and Layout
UI or User Interface is how one interacts with websites, computer devices among other things.
This can be through software, appearance, etc. and is an extremely important aspect of design.
While it might sound very technical, it’s actually very simple. UI is what allows you to navigate/use something (in this case, a blog).
For maximum efficiency UI is designed with the intention of being user friendly, or in other words, very simple to use.
How is this relevant to generating comments?
Well, it’s very important that your blog’s layout is easy to navigate and labelled clearly.
The comment section has to be visible and accessible.
If people don’t know where to post, then they likely won’t go around looking.
Another common layout problem is that some blogs have conditions that require you to create an account or submit multiple Captcha codes before allowing one to post anything.
This can be off putting to a lot of people, leading to less engagement.
So consider reviewing your comment system and see if there are any adjustments required on that end.
Engage the Audience
While this strategy doesn’t increase the number of people responding, it does help in developing a strong base.
While questions are the easiest to respond to, it can be beneficial to reply to all comments regardless of what they say.
Whether one realises it or not, commenters get excited when bloggers respond to them.
This is a great opportunity to capitalise on if you want people to engage with your blog posts more often.
Aside from that, a fairly simple tactic is to pose a question or two.
Keep in mind though, the question needs to strike a balance between open ended and closed ended.
If you ask a simple yes-or-no question, you won’t really get much out of it because it’s too generic.
If you ask something like, “Did I forget something?
If so post in the comments!”, you will still be underwhelmed.
Most people won’t pay close enough attention to be able to spot what might have been missed.
There is a solution, though! All you have to do is ask questions like “How do you normally perform X task” or “What are your favourite X”.
These don’t require a lot of thinking, but still have enough substance that responders will have a reasonable amount to say.
Online Presence
Another fairly simple technique – all it requires is you to be an active commenter yourself.
How it works is that you make yourself prominent in your respective niche by posting thoughtful and well-articulated comments on someone else’s blog and generate interest in your work.
Shy away from self-promotion and focus primarily on the blog post itself.
This creates a ripple effect where the other blogger will be inclined to explore your posts and leave responses of their own.
In some cases, this can also lead to collaborations of sorts, giving you the opportunity to expand your audience.
Additionally, you might even be able to secure interviews with people relevant to your niche.
This is an excellent way to gain an intrigued audience invested in the posts you publish.
Get Personal
Sometimes bloggers are so eager to share information that they forget to add a little personality to their writing. You could be overusing jargon or sounding like a sales pitch.
Either way, readers pick up on these things and tend to find it hard to relate.
The content (and by extension the blogger themselves) comes off fairly robotic, giving off an unapproachable vibe.
A suggested remedy for this is to share personal anecdotes, adding a ‘human’ touch. By opening up to your followers, you might see more people willing to engage.
Either they’ll support you through your struggles or they’ll cheer you on during your successes.
Regardless, they’ll feel more connected and that’ll encourage them to post comments more often.
Quality Control
This relates to your blog posts themselves and whether your work is up to the mark.
Proofreading is of utmost importance here; make sure to go over your posts multiple times before you publish them.
Multiple silly mistakes can do a lot of damage.
For example, readers are less likely to finish reading (let alone comment on) your posts if they see that it’s not useful to them.
Plus your content might not be taken seriously if you develop a pattern of posting poorly written posts. So remember to do your research and edit often!
Conclusion
- Admittedly, this list isn’t exhaustive, but strategies outlined are effective.
- It would be remiss to not mention patience as a factor.
- Nothing changes over night, and Rome wasn’t built in a day.
- Successful blogs are the result of determination and resilience.
- Whichever tactic you choose to employ, remember that it’ll take time to fully enjoy its benefits.
- So don’t be discouraged and remind yourself that more comments are almost within your grasp.
- Good luck and happy blogging!
