To Comment or Not to Comment

In the world of blogging one thing that I find particularly important – yet underutilized – is the comment. What makes the comment particularly interesting is that it is important to both sides of the spectrum; the blogger and the blog reader. It is something that I have really worked hard at trying to do on other blogs as well as increasing comments on my own page.

So why is it important?

Let’s start with the person that reads blogs, but doesn’t author their own blog – why is it important that this person comments? No matter what any blog writer says, they love comments. Any blogger that says otherwise is either playing it cool or…well…there isn’t an “other”. Personally, when I get that little email notification on my phone, telling me that somebody left a comment, I instantly get excited and feel a small amount of gratification that some person, somewhere in the world not only read my blog, but took the time to comment on it. It’s an important element that keeps many bloggers going. If nobody comments, eventually the blogger will get bored and fade away – leaving the world with one less perspective to read.

So what about the blogger? Why is it important that they comment on other blogs? This answer, in my opinion, is a two parter. For starters, just as above, it keeps your fellow blogger going. On some level, I might even venture to say that a comment from a fellow blogger is even more rewarding. The second reason is something that every website owner hopes for…it’s the number that we all look at….

...have you figure it out yet? 

That’s right! 

TRAFFIC!!! 

So how does commenting on somebody else’s blog give your site traffic? The first way happens when that blog owner may give your name a click to see what blog(s) you have. The second was is if another reader of that blog may like your comment and click that link to see if you have a blog. This could mean a new subscriber for you. Finally, it increases your page rank. 

Page rank, in a nutshell, looks at how many links are pointing back to your site. Every comment becomes a link.The more links to your site, the more “pagerank” your site gets. The more page rank, the higher your site shows up in search results. The higher up in the search results, the more traffic you get. It’s an amazing circle of e-life!

So next time you are sitting there, trying to figure out how to get more traffic to your site, get out there and start commenting on other blogs. Try your best to keep them relevant, though – it’s more fun for all. 

Also, if you are wondering how to increase interaction on your site, make sure that leaving a comment is easy. Ditch that captcha garbage that so many bloggers love, yet so many commenters hate; Blogger is pretty good at keeping out the spam without it. I think since this blog has started, I have had to delete 2 spam comments – Blogger handled the rest. In addition to that, make sure you respond to comments that others have left. Commenters dislike talking to themselves just as much you.