Increasing Your Blog's Comment Count

Some bloggers won't admit it, but everyone secretly likes to see their blog's comment counts go up. Oh, they say, I just write for me. I don't need comments. Yeah, right. Let's be honest about it--who doesn't smile at an inbox full of comments when they wake up in the morning? In a perfect world, all of those commenters are telling you that you're nice, you're smart, you're funny and you write extremely well. To build an audience of people who leave lovely comments, you need to increase your website traffic, and that can be difficult when you're getting started.

The best way to increase your traffic is to consistently write quality posts. People who write well are a joy to read, and can make most any topic fascinating. The posts are coherent, cohesive and most of all, interesting. They make you want to read more. They even make you want to read more even if you strongly suspect that you wouldn't like the writer in real life. Realistically, of course, that's easier said than done. Writing well is the hardest part of blogging. I don't necessarily think that this ability to write a good blog is something that one either has or doesn't have. It's a skill like any other, and one that needs practice. However, it's not exactly something you can do overnight to see your stats go up.

Even if you're the best writer ever to grace Blogland, if no one knows about your blog, they won't read, and they certainly won't comment. It sounds obvious, but read other blogs. (Why would you even write a blog if you weren't interested in reading others?) Comment on them. Be the kind of reader that you want others to be. It's not just good karma, it's also a great way to get exposure. There are generally boxes to enter your website address into when you leave comments. Others who read that blog may read your comment and think, Wow, this person sure sounds smart! And witty! and click through to your site to read more of your pearls of wisdom. Besides that, the more links you have to yourself out on the web, the more attention search engines will give your blog. You can also mention your blog on other websites that you frequent. This is probably the most sustainable way to increase your traffic, and it's fun and easy besides.

It's also nice to have a list of the blogs that you read, sometimes called a blogroll, on your site. (Blogrolling.com can help with this for free.) This may help the authors of those blogs to find you, and they will be much more likely to add your link to their blog. In your posts, if you talk about topics raised by other bloggers, link to them and to that specific post. Use the trackback feature, if it's available. Gradually, you will begin to create a social network (which is worth much more than gaining traffic anyway) that will most likely be interested in your posts because they're interested in you. Mention people with links, and if you successfully infiltrate the community you're aspiring to, they'll start mentioning you with links as well. You all win!

Have you ever noticed a trend in posts with huge comment counts? Often, those posts are the ones that ask for advice, opinions or anecdotes. It seems to be human nature to expound at length about one's favorite topic--oneself. I stumbled upon this rule once by asking a rhetorical question about whether other people had favorite letters of the alphabet. (Answer: yes. Oh, yes.) It doesn't really matter what the subject is. People just like to talk about their own opinions, or tell you about what brilliant thing their child has done recently, or advise you of what they did in a situation that is passingly similar to yours. It's not that we're all self-absorbed, but it's what we have experience with.

Another way to build your traffic is to join a ring of similar bloggers. You will place a link on your page, and readers can click through various sites that are related to yours. There are a lot of different categories that you might be interested in--the best way to find the rings that you want to be part of is to look at other blogs similar to your own (for instance, people who blog about knitting, or being a parent, or cooking). See if any of them have rings on their sites and click through to the main site to find how to join.

In short, blogging is a social activity, and the best way to be a valued member of the community is to be an active member. Talk to people about their posts. After a while, they'll start talking about yours.