Today’s video is all about increasing comments on your blog.
Here you can see the daily number of comments that the blog is receiving, and on some days it’s approaching 180, nearly 200 comments a day. So that’s pretty good.
And the reason I’m using Disqus instead of the default WordPress commenting system is because it gives me awesome analytics like this so I can clearly see what’s working on my site. But if you know of a system that does this better, please do let me know, because Disqus only keeps the data for one year.
So the numbers look pretty good, we’ve got traffic coming to the blog, people are engaging with the content and commenting on the articles. It’s looking pretty good. So. how did we do this?
I’m going to show you.
I’m going to give you 3 strategies that work, that you can implement on your blog right now, to increase your comments. Right, let’s get started.
Controversy
The first tip I’ve got for you is; Use controversy. I know it’s a scary thought, you don’t want to offend people, you don’t want to annoy people. I get that. But on the flip side, when you say the things that other people are thinking, you give them a voice, you validate them. And they align themselves with you, and your brand – often quite deeply, and you become their champion.
But you gotta do this in the right way, ok. Don’t start picking on people in an attempt to create controversy. In fact, it’s probably better to just attack an idea, or a value, instead of an individual. So attack the thing that somebody stands for.
For example, in the digital marketing niche, I frequently attack the ‘something for nothing’ mentality that a lot of marketers try to promote. I think it’s absolutely disgusting that some marketers celebrate laziness, and trick people into starting businesses that don’t deliver value or improve people’s lives in some way.
I’ll save that rant for another time. But find your opinion on something and stick to your guns.
Another important thing to understand about controversy is, you have to do your research.
You gotta know the facts, and if you can, use data to support your argument. Make sure you’re well armed before you go into battle.
Ask your list
Ok tip number 2; Ask your email list. If there’s one thing every blog needs, it’s a way to collect email addresses. You can have an empty blog post with a single opt-in form and it’s still more valuable to your business than a 2,000-word article. That’s because there is nothing more valuable to your business than your mailing list.
Every time you publish a new post, you just hit the send button and tell your email subscribers.
Give them a good reason to open your email. Then give them 3 good reasons to click on the link to your post and then ASK them to comment. It’s a simple as that. People need to be reminded that they can express their opinion.
When I ask my email subscribers to comment on a new post, the number of comments across the entire site can increase by around 10%. So that’s not too bad, right? And the bigger your email list, the more traffic you can send to your blog and the people will comment on your posts.
And then, as cold traffic hits your blog, they’ll see the discussion and be more likely to engage with the content. So use your email list as a way to seed the discussion and foster community.
Comment on other blogs
So tip number 3; Comment on other blogs. This is really easy and fun to do. So find other blogs in your niche and get involved.
Start looking at the comment section of these blogs as communities – because that’s exactly what they are. And how do you gain attention and become attractive towards a community, by contributing, by helping out, by adding value.
So don’t leave one-liners or generic comments. Be honest and authentic about the article you’re commenting on and share your opinion as clearly as you can. If you can find and extra insight or a different way of looking at the article, then you’ll stand out. What I’ve found is, with a lot of blogs, there’s often a community of people who comment on each other’s posts. So they tend to be really supportive groups that encourage and reward participation.
That’s almost it, but I’ve got one more bonus idea for you.
Now, this is something I’m about to try for myself, so I can’t show you any results from this right now. So I don’t know how effective this is at the moment but I thought I’d share the basic idea with you anyway, in case you wanted to do your own test.
And that’s using a WordPress plugin called Comment Luv. But at the time of shooting this video, I don’t know if it’s being maintained and updated, so use at your own risk.
It works like this. It lets people share their latest blog post inside their comment. So you’re giving people an additional reason to comment on your posts because they’ll get more exposure for their own blog when they do.
Ok, I can imagine that the potential for abuse is pretty high, but with the right management and anti-spam protection, it could be a great way to get people interacting with your content. I’m going to try it, and I’ll report back to you with the results.
Right, so now you’ve got some fresh ideas to increase your blog comments.