Having an active and engaged blog community is at the top of every blogger’s wish list. While the goal is clearly outlined, the way to get there sometimes isn’t. Although not guaranteed, there are some ways that you can get more comments onto your blog.
Paid Traffic
Sometimes getting a high level of engagement does take a financial commitment. In this case, having paid campaigns to get more traffic to your website will certainly increase your chances of more engagement, especially when they come from social media. Do some research on paid social media campaigns on Facebook and Twitter and also through the major search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo!. Facebook and Google also occasionally send out coupons to new account users, so be sure to research that before signing up for a new account.
Answering Existing Comments
Are you already engaging enough with your existing user base? Readers like to see that bloggers are engaged with their active audience before chiming in themselves. Be sure to answer all comments, even if it is just to thank them for reading your blog. This goes a long way and usually only takes a few moments.
Ghost Commenters
While it might be a controversial tactic, having some “ghost” commenters on your blog might increase the number of comments from actual readers. It is pretty easy to get caught, especially if your comments are too general (e.g. “Great post!”) or they are being posted from the same IP address. So, ask friends and family to comment when they read your posts or occasionally use a library or friend’s computer to write comments. Test this strategy with a few of your most popular posts (based on traffic analytics) and see if it can drum up more actual comments.
Charged Topics
People like to give their opinion on topics that are controversial or ask the tough questions. While you shouldn’t publish things that are purposefully making people mad, consider writing about hot topics within your target niche and see if that can get more of a conversation going.
Ask Questions
Many popular bloggers ask a question to the readers at the end of their posts. This could be related to the topic of the post, or be something random that relates to the blogger’s personal life or current events. Many people take the time to answer questions on blog posts because it feels like the writer was asking them directly.
photo credit: kevin dooley via photopin cc
