Guest Bio: David Smith works for Conversion Optimization Company Invesp and enjoys writing on SEO, landing pages, conversion rate optimization and affiliate marketing.
Are you tired of seeing no or very less comments on your blog posts? Do you feel sad when you find out that no one wants to spend his 2 minutes in leaving a comment on the post which took hours of your efforts? If the answer to above questions is Yes, then here is good news for you, on average more than 80% of blogs suffers from “No Comments” disease. And to help you in getting rid of it, we’ve compiled a list of 18 types of posts that always gets lot of comments.
But before jumping to the list, what you need to understand is that number of comments is not an accurate index to measure success of blog. There are many other factors that determine the success of a blog – traffic, affiliate sales, advertisers etc. And if you can see a consistent increase on those departments then there is no reason to worry about comments. Now without further adieu, here are the 18 types of posts that can get you the maximum number of comments. read more
Thanks for everyone that sent this in, from the Disqus 3 teaser site, embedded below for your viewing pleasure:
Disqus is obviously one of those comment hosts that can take care of your site’s comments. A lot of sites swear by it, and we are considering switching to it here on the Blog Herald as well.
Disqus is a hosted comments solution, a popular one at that. What it does is that it replaces the comment functionality on your blog (or site for that matter) with a hosted one, which means that people can sign in with one username, and you get a lot of cool features without having to mess with plugins or code on your own.
The Mini-Profiles is pretty cool, but the killer feature is the Twitter sign in, available thanks to the new OAuth support (for you techies). Not only can you sign in with Twitter, you can also synch your commenting with your tweets, which is cool. Check out the Disqus blog post for more, or try it out yourself on any of theseblogs.
In my article, “What Changes Your Mind About Leaving a Blog Comment,” I talked about some of the issues around debating where and when to leave a blog comment on a blog that hosts information or opinions you don’t support, or is filled with blog clutter, a clue that something isn’t right. About how your comment may be seen to support the blog, and impact your reputation by association.
As I wrote that post, I looked back over all the WTF Blog Clutter articles in the series and realized that many of these issues are ones that impact my willingness to comment on a blog. Sure, they impact my ability to even read the blog, let alone return and tell others, but they also impact my willingness to endorse a blog with a comment.
I started thinking about all the blatant, subjective, and even unconscious reasons that prevent me from leaving a comment on a blog. Here are some of my self-discoveries, most of them associated with various aspects of blog clutter. I’m sure you have more you can add, but these are big clues that this is a blog that doesn’t deserve my participation. read more
This is actually pretty cool, and could be the one killer feature that would make me swap to IntenseDebate. As you probably know, IntenseDebate is a hosted comment manager for your site, just like Disqus.
And now they’ve added plugin support, with a bunch of them available already. Like instant YouTube embedding and Seesmic video commenting support. Check out the launch post, the ReadWriteWeb coverage, Techmeme coverage, and the intro video below:
One of the biggest problems facing those who consult and train others in social media, as well as business that need to know about social media, is defining social media. What is it?
Many simplify the concept and say that it is Twitter and blogs, especially blog conversations and comments. Others offer complicated answers that have to do with building your online identity and brand.
The last few workshops and conferences I’ve been to, including Podcamp and WordCamp Hawaii, battled with the definition of social media and the role it plays in today’s business and economy.
What does social media mean to you? How do you use it? What is it doing for you? How do you define social media?
One way of starting a conversation on your blog is what I call the “Wander, Wonder, Ask” method.
A blogger wanders around looking for news and finds something of interest, often newsworthy. She wonders about it and realizes that her wondering has some validity. It’s worth talking about. So she posts it on her blog as “news” and “information” and shares her wondering points, then asks, basically, “What do you think?”
“Wander, Wonder, Ask” posts are ubiquitous. There are plenty even here on the Blog Herald. We all do it. I’ve done it. Sometimes it works, more often it doesn’t.
When it works, it’s a great way to get readers to wonder and answer back. It works even better when they are out wandering and your blog post pops into their heads. They wander, wonder, and start to ask themselves the key questions that may lead to a solution, and possibly back to your blog. read more
I’ve never been a fan of closed comments, though they are a choice for many bloggers. However, I’ve never liked the idea of closing comments on old posts with the hopes of preventing or restricting comment spam. Here are a few reasons why.
The Myth of Comment Spam Prevention
There are a lot of myths around comment spam. One is that the more popular your blog is, the more comment spam. This is false. The more incoming links to your blog, the more comment spam. Comment spam bots follow those precious links, nofollow and dofollow, to your blog and spam it.
You could say that the more incoming links you have, the more popular your blog is, but that is not always true either. Trust me, it just takes one link to open the door to a voracious comment spam bot, as I’ve proven repeatedly on brand new blogs. These sites have no comment spam for months until that first trackback or incoming link.
The “old posts” myth about comment spam is that comment spammers hit older posts more than current posts. This is also not true. Comment spammers will hit EVERY post they can. Comment spam bots and human spammers don’t check the date of the post before they hit, thinking, “Hmmm, this one is at least six weeks old, ripe for spamming.” read more
A week ago, I was offline for a few days and returned to find a bunch of comments on my blog pointing to comment spam that had slipped by my comment spam fighting WordPress Plugins as comment spammers tried new techniques.
Recently, I brought up the issues of comment trolls and mean comments, and about your ability and responsibility to editing your blog comments if they require some fixing or cleaning of inappropriate content. But what do you do with a collection of comments such as, “Is that comment spam above me by iwantyourbodynasty? You might want to get rid of it.”
They don’t help the conversation. They don’t contribute. They don’t expand upon the blog topic. But they do help me, the blogger, just in case I did miss a comment spam or two. Right? Maybe. read more
A blogger just contacted me quite upset about the reaction to a blog post they’d written. They wanted my advice on what they should do.
“Should you do anything?”
“Well, I thought I should respond, but I don’t know what to do!”
“Did you want a response to your blog post?”
“Sure, but not this response.”
“You wanted a response. You got one. What about that response aren’t you happy with?”
When we put our words out there on a blog, we want a response. That’s part of the whole justification for blogging. We want a response. We want reactions. We want feedback.
The problem is when your expectation about that feedback isn’t met. read more
Guest Bio: David Smith works for Conversion Optimization Company Invesp and enjoys writing on SEO, landing pages, conversion rate optimization and affiliate marketing.
One way of starting a conversation on your blog is what I call the “Wander, Wonder, Ask” method. 
