I remember when we built HTML websites, we published our content and let that be that. We cared about things like traffic and clicks and conversion rates.
Not so in today’s content management system times. Now we build blogs and while we still concern ourselves with analytics, what we really care about is how many comments we get in reaction to our content.
The Almighty Comment Section of our blog rules our mood after we publish a new post. If we’ve slaved over the post to make it the best we can, we expect that it will inspire countless reactions – good and bad. We imagine a small world war erupting as comments fly back and forth. Such attention it will draw that we’ll see numerous tweets, retweets, diggs, stumbles, shares and trackbacks.
So we click ‘publish’ and sit back waiting for the feedback that’s sure to come.
Then we tweet the link for those who aren’t subscribed to our RSS feed.
Then we share it on FB.
Then we post it to Google+.
Ok, well we should send a link to our mailing list – building it up a bit to create anticipation.
We ask a friend to Stumble the link.
Hmmm.
Where are the comments? Why are there no comments? Surely someone agrees with me? I’m positive someone disagrees with me.
I would have thought so and so would have commented right away. (IM her a link in case she’s missed it.)
And… nothing.
Depression sinks in. Nobody likes my blog. Am I bad writer? Am I just boring?
This is where I admit to you that I have no great advice for you on how to get more blog comments. Some of my best posts have sit commentless for ages while other posts I’ve thrown together in a rush stand with 30+ comments. I can’t tell you what made one more commentable than another.
I’ve decided to just stop worrying about it. (Do you know that some big name bloggers don’t even turn the comment section on?)
But if you really do want to attract more comments on your content, here are some terrific posts that claim to teach you how:
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LOVE THIS!! As you know, this is such a timely post for me and I had to LOL as I read this because I can envision myself doing just as you said.. well, all except the Google+ part only because I am not there yet ;-)
I will be sure to peek in at your links above but I am going to lean towards letting it all go! I feel like a small weight has been lifted just by typing that out.
LOL! Thanks for the comment Aurelia – I was starting to wonder if my posts about comments would go commentless!
Yes – let us make like a duck and let it roll off our back.
Still, the advice in those posts are still great, it all encourages you to be a good blogger and engage your readers :)
I will need to read all of the links you left but wanted to share first that yeah I have been there – am there. I have often thought of throwing in the towel as I felt that no one cared. No one was really reading my site regardless of what the stats said I must be talking to thin air.
But then I think about how often I read blog posts and never comment. Not because I don’t love it but often I’m in my email reading the RSS and *gasp* I’m lazy and don’t click to go to the website. I should start doing it though as I know how it feels to write the post of the week and no one comments! Whew – now off to comment on the great posts I read today!!
What’s so interesting is that there seems to be no real relationship between comments and income. I’ve known bloggers who get dozens, even hundreds of comments for a popular post… but don’t earn enough monthly from their blog to pay the light bill. I guess it depends on WHY a person is blogging as to whether comments mean a lot to them.
Sometimes if I write a post that is really emotional and makes me feel vulnerable, a lack of comments makes me feel lonely. Other than that, I try not to worry about it.
Gee, I thought it was just me that couldn’t figure out the “trick” to getting more comments. This post has made my day. I’m just going to keep doing what I’ve started and not worry. I’ve seen too many really big blogs with little or no comments, so I need to stop fretting and just be real.
Thanks for this post!