How To Increase Comments on Your Blog

Many bloggers have asked me how to increase comments on your blog.  People who blog want to know that people are actually reading what they post and sometimes just seeing traffic numbers doesn’t quite cut it.  Human engagement is the best way to understand what your readers are thinking and the comments section is one of the few ways to get it online.  I do a lot of research on how to increase comments on a blog, as well as how to increase traffic and sales overall.  Some of my blog posts receive 0 comments, but some of them receive hundreds of comments.  One post has even received 878 comments over time!  My research also carries me over to read other major bloggers posts and see what tactics have been successful for them.  All of this effort has led me to distill 4 principles for gaining more comments on your blog:

• Get traffic. It should be quite obvious to you that if no one reads your blog, it is impossible to receive comments.  You can increase traffic through SEO, PPC or by simply telling your social network about your blog.
• Engage your audience. Simply asking questions of your readers or posting polls is a good way to boost comments on your site.
• Write on emotional topics.  My most popular blog posts for commenting are ones that elicit feelings from my readers.  Sometimes those feelings are mirth, sometimes anger, sometimes sadness.
• Make commenting easy. If people have to go through a big registration process just to leave their two cents, you will not receive many comments.
• Open up personally. People are far more likely to engage if they can see a little bit of who you are as a person rather than just reading monotonous text.

If you liked this blog post on how to gain more comments on your website, please post a comment- it will be awfully embarrassing to have an article on garnering blog comments with no comments!