One of the most asked questions that new bloggers have is how to get more comments on their blog post. Especially when you have not yet made as many friends in the blogging world it might seem like a difficult task. I talked about how to comment on other blogs, even if you are an introvert on my earlier post, so I promise this is gonna be much easier than that.
How do some of the bloggers get so many comments and have so many friends who dote their posts?
Let me break it out for you right away. There are no shortcuts to receiving 100 comments per post. It takes time, patience, and efforts to build those relations. Commenting and blog hopping goes much beyond ‘I will scratch yours if you do mine’. And that is why many ‘follow for follow’ groups fail.
Get More Comments On Your Blog
Here are all the small things that we all can do easily to motivate, help and enthuse the readers of your blog to comment.
Let us face it, not all of us want to leave comments on all the posts we read. And most of us are still too anxious to start a conversation on the internet with a stranger, even if we love their content. So why not make it easier for them right?
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End with a question
Many of us write posts between 500-1200 words and our content is usually so awesome that we often leave the reader baffled on to what to say. I am not even exaggerating. Okay maybe a bit. But seriously it is on us to prod the reader to leave a comment and then tell them what to comment about.
My posts usually end with a ‘let us chat’ section where I ask some relevant questions for the reader to answer or share their thoughts on. Of course they are welcome to talk about anything they want, but a little guidance never hurt anyone, right?
Just make sure these questions are generic and open ended so it is easier to get a variety of comments.
Make it a dialogue
Do not forget to respond to those comments when you receive them. Do not leave the other person hanging, make it a dialogue. This will help the other blogger to remember you and maybe visit again. If you can you should visit their blog and leave them a comment as well. As I said earlier, this is beyond being reciprocal. Who knows, you might make a new friend even!
If this is something that interests you, you should consider joining the Comment 4 comment Challenge. The goal is to make sure we return every comment we receive on our blog. You think you can do that?
Make use of relevant plugins
Okay this is kinda specific for self hosted bloggers, but hey it might be useful for others as well some day right?There are nifty little plugins that I love and I know a lot of bloggers who swear by them. I am gonna keep the descriptions short and will provide a link if you wanna read more about them,
A lot of bloggers use this plugin to let their commenters leave a link to their latest post. I love how some of them have set it up to bring up the last 10 posts so that the commenter could have a choice.
This small plugin sends an email to the blogger when you respond to their comment on your blog. This helps them to continue the conversation by hopping back to your blog, if they want to.
Thanks to Evelinah for recommending me this plugin and I totally depend on it these days. This plugin adds another tab on your WordPress comments section and shows only those comments that you have not responded to.
I am too ashamed to show the number of replies pending.
If you don’t have these plugins, do consider using them. They make the commenting life much simpler.
Build relationships
Find out who are your regulars and form a relationship with them. Of course you don’t have to force yourself to do that. But the fact that they are visiting your blog regularly means you have something in common with them, so why not explore that?
You might want to take a look at Bloggers’ comment junction if you are interested in forming long standing blogging relationship and a community that will support you through comments and shares.
Make commenting easier
This sounds like a no brainer but it is kinda very important. Make it easier for the other bloggers to comment on your blog. Ditch all the things that complicate their lives. I mean Captchas and excessive authentication questions.
As I have mentioned on my earlier post, blog engagement is a two way street. Commentors may not flock to your well written post just because it is up there you actively promote it on your social media and keep linking it everywhere. You will still have to make an effort to talk to other bloggers through their comments.
I love how responsive Cait from Paperfury is to her comments, even when she must be receiving 100+ comments on each of her post. We should all make a start somewhere and just start leaving comments, despite what our introvert self says.
What are your secrets to receiving lots of comments on your blog? Do you use these plugins? Are you struggling to get more comments on your post? Share us your favorite plugin or trick to boost the number of comments on your post. Let us talk.
You remember a while ago we shared a good laugh at some of the weirdest book covers, don’t you? I thought it would be more fun to share a similar post but with a twist. Yes here are a few ridiculous book titles that make me reconsider the amount of time I am spending on the internet.
It is not a big secret that I obsess over books and bookish websites. I guess this is the prize for all that.
Do you get fascinated about such ridiculous book titles? Is there a book that you have read in this list? What is the weirdest book title you read? Let us talk.
Blog engagement is a two way street. The only way to improve interactions on your blog is to take the plunge and involving yourself in one. I understand how that sounds difficult especially if you are an introverted bookworm, like many of us are but take a step, we won’t bite I promise.
Be it a new blogger or a blogger who has been lurking around the corner for a while but never joined for a discussion but want to, this post is for you. I belong to the second category, it took me years to come out of my hermit shell to talk to other bloggers or leave comments on their blog.
I just want to say I understand how frightening it is. And to leave you with a list of etiquette as a reference to follow when you are leaving comments on others’ blog. And I promise, it gets easier.
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1) Start by saying something relevant
Assume commenting as dropping into someone else’s party. All you have to do say a hi and join the conversation that is already going on, ie the topic or the post. I know it might sound intimidating, but once you start commenting you will get better at it.
2) Nothing is at stake
Remember nothing really bad comes of making a bad comment. Nobody is judging you, especially not your comment. Once you start commenting on a few blogs you will definitely feel better And the blogging community is usually nice and nicer to the newbies.
3) Leave genuine comments
Last week someone was talking about how they received a comment asking to check out their new blog and leave a comment there. This type of comments rarely work.
Remember blogging is as much about relationships as it is about commenting and engagement. What type of comments would you wanna receive? Etiquette is all about common sense and giving what you want to receive.
4) Spark a response
No no, I am not recommending to start a keyboard war.
But invoke a response from the blogger by asking a relevant question or sharing an anecdote or experience. Leaving generic comments like “Awesome post! Thanks for sharing.” are okay too, but they don’t call out for a reply, does it?
5) Do not self promote
While it is okay to share relevant links in a comment leaving comments to your own blog is generally frowned upon. Of course you can link your blog from your user name that you use to sign in.
When that is not possible (read as Blogger or Disqus commenting system) I do leave a sign with my blog name on it. Though I am not sure if it is alright, anymore. I would love to hear some of your opinions on that.
6) Be YOU
Commenting is just more than leaving your links all over. Comments are just a way to brand yourself so make sure your reflect your blog, personality and YOU.
If you are looking to meet more blogs and bloggers, join my Bloggers’ Comment Junction where you will find like minded peers. Take part in the Comment 4 Comment Challenge and ensure to ‘leave no comment un-replied and un-returned.’
What is your taken on commenting etiquette? Are there are rules that you follow while you comment on others’ blog? What is your best advice to other commenters? Let us talk.
Starting a blog is not a simple task. If you add the yearly goals and plans to it, it can easily become overwhelming. At least it does for me. But it all changes the minute I get a new follower or a comment on my blog. I am sure many of you will agree. Isn’t that what we are all striving for?
One of the major issues that new bloggers face is lower engagement (ie, comments, shares and likes) and that can be huge discouragement, especially when they just start out. We all need those approvals. I was in that position not a long time ago.
New bloggers Checklist
I used spend hours scouring the Internet trying to learn everything and read everything. I still do that, but not for the basic things. So I thought I will share with you those little things that made a huge difference in my blogging statistics and engagement rate.
Here is a new bloggers checklist to ensure you have everything you need to increase your blog engagement and follower count. They are not going to be general advices nor highly technical. These are stuff that you and I can work on. So let us get on with it, shall we?
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1) Is your Home button easy accessible?
This may sounds really silly but I have had a few long conversations about the home tab on the menu bar, or the lack of, in some of the blogs with other bloggers who regularly blog hop. If you do not have one, you are losing out on the valuable readers who want to read another post but are not able to.
I know it seems like a small thing but having the ability to go back to your main page matters to blog hoppers and new visitors. While you are at it, just ensure a click on your blog header leads to your home page as well.
2) Are your graphics easily shareable?
It comes as a no brainer that every post of yours should have some image attached, a feature image or a book cover at the least. While how you use these images is up to you, just make sure these blog graphics are easily shareable across the social media.
Some of the places that I recommend for downloading such high quality, copyright-free images are: Freepik and Pixabay. And I use Canva to edit them into blog graphics. Canva even has templates with recommended sizes for each social account.
If you are a GIF lover like me, before you unload a tonne of them on to your post, make sure they are of good quality and will fit to a common size. Having different sized animations or just too many of them for that matter easily annoys the reader. We do not want that, do we?
3) Do you have a follow button?
Be it a blogger or WordPress blog, you definitely need a FOLLOW button. It is indispensable and you cannot skip it.
Be it a blogger or WordPress blog, you definitely need a FOLLOW button. Do you have these essentials on your blog? Check the post!Click to Tweet
Many readers like me will be reluctant to share their email addresses and we are all drowning in the unread mails (okay, it might be just me) and might be unsubscribing after a few weeks. So no, subscription by email is not the same. ADD A FOLLOW BUTTON RIGHT AWAY.
4) Do you include short paragraphs?
As you would have seen in my posts, I love to write or talk to my readers. And my posts are usually long winded and I like it that way. But the Internet is full of studies that tell us what is the perfect post length and I am sure writing 1500+ worded posts are not that.
My suggestion: Long or not, write what you want to write but make it easy for the reader to enjoy them by breaking it up into lot of short paragraphs. I mean paragraphs with 2- 3 sentences. Let us face it, our attention spans are not getting any better.
While you are at it, consider including headings and subheadings to the post. Make them simple. Make them witty. Make them catchy. They can be however you want, but just add them!
5) Do you interlink your posts?
Another simple thing that you can do to make your blog sticky (making readers hanging on for a long time) is to hyperlink to relevant older posts. All you have to do is to add the link to your text and point them to go to yet another of post in your blog, just to keep the traffic juice flowing.
The key is relevance. For instance when I talk following your blog, I can link it up to my ‘Why I follow your blog‘ post, but not the ‘Five Must have elements for your author website‘. (See what I did there! *insert evil face*). Just don’t overdo it, a mistake I often commit.
You can also consider including a ‘Related post / You may also like’ section at the end of each post! I do both. Bonus points if you set these link to ‘open in a new page’.
6) Is your blog comment friendly?
A trouble that many new bloggers have is increasing the blog engagement and comments. The blogging community is really welcoming and me love meeting new bloggers. But it goes without saying that you should make it easier for your readers to leave comments on your blog.
I might be biased but I know there are many bloggers like me, who dislike using the Google+ commenting form. It gives very few options to sign in and links back to only Google profiles. Sigh it is quite cumbersome.
I strongly suggests going back to Blogger’s comment forms if you are using Blogger. Disqus is a great alternative if you are self hosted on Blogger.
Since we are talking about things that I hate about comment forms, I do not understand why some themes do not show comment form directly below the post and ask us to open another window to comment. I will add an image just to make what I am saying clearer.
Please do not your readers jump seven hills and seven seas to comment on your blog.
I am definitely not the most qualified person to tell you about Search Engine Optimization (SEO) but I am going to tell you the simplest things that can help you to improve your SEO, that even a #newbie can do easily.
If you are self hosted install the Yoast plugin right away and you can follow the wizard to set everything up. And you are good to go!
If you are not using Yoast, it is still alright. There are smaller things that you can do anyway.
Try to include the keyword (or the word that you want Google to associate with your post, in the simplest terms) in your title and headings of your post. For instance, I can add “new bloggers checklist” as the keyword for this post.
Also mention the keyword in the first paragraph of the post. But the key here is not overusing the keyword. 2-4 times in a 500 post is good enough.
Bonus points if you add in the keyword in the ‘Alt text’ of the blog images. It generally helps the search engine to understand what the image is about.
Okay, I am currently obsessed with Pinterest and have been reading a lot about, and this is applicable only if you are focusing on Pinterest for your blog. If you are thinking if you should sign up for Pinterest for your blog, you definitely should.
Try to images that are well proportioned to fit the Pinterest vertical scheme. Add at least two pinnable vertical images to your post so that you have more pins to be re-pinned.
That is all for this post people! It doesn’t matter if you are a new blogger or experienced, give a quick check on to you blog to make sure you have all these on board.
And newbies, if you have problems implementing any of these ideas on my new bloggers checklist or would like to hear more on these feel free to ask me.
Do you have all the things on my new bloggers checklist? New bloggers, what are the problems that you need help with? And the experienced bloggers tell me what are your essentials and if I missed out anything. Let us chat.
New year, New day and hopefully a new beginning. I know time is just a man made construct and the ‘new year’ doesn’t change anything. But for me, and many of others, this is big deal. And if you are anything like me, you probably have great plans and schedules that are ready and have just begun to be put to use.
I don’t call them resolutions, because we all know how quick I am at failing them. But they are typically long to do lists and new ideas to be tried out. So what is on store for this year? Let me show you my GRAND plans for the new year.
Reading Plans
Here is a list of reading challenges that I will be participating this year.
Goodreads Reading Challenge 2019
I think this is the most basic of all the reading challenges. I am increasing my target from 35 to 45. I know it might seem very less compared to other prolific readers/ bloggers around here. But I hate having to stress about reaching the target and not enjoying the book.
Target: 45
A – Z reading challenge 2019
Hosted by the Ginger Mom and company, I did great last year and that motivated me to join this year’s challenge as well. But this year I will plan to participate more and be more social.
Target: Reading books with the titles starting with all the letters of the alphabets
Reading more classics
One of the major goals I have is to read more classics during the year. And I will following these two challenges for my reading choices.
Penguin’s classic books reading challenge for 2019
I love reading indies and promoting indie authors. I am making it a point to read more indie books anyway, so why not make a big deal of it and join a challenge for that, hosted by As told by Tina.
It has been years since I read a Nancy Drew and I found a stash of those books a while ago. So I am going to take a go at it. I will be following this Goodreads group as a guide.
Blogging Plans and actions
We come to the interesting part of the post – the blog plan.
I participated in the Tidyathon hosted by Clo and Sam of Book Dragon247 and Fictionally Sam and I totally loved it. And all the colorfulness you see on my blog are just a result of that. It is still a work in progress, let us just face it, editing about 200+ posts and graphics is not a small deal. At least that is what I tell myself.
For 2019, I decided I will blog better, like every other blogger here. But knowing me I won’t do well without an action plan. So here are my plans.
Blog content
When I started Elgee Writes I used to post lots of book reviews and a little bit of personal updates. I have come a long way from that and currently I post four times a month with a variety of content like quotes, quizzes and tags and lot of discussion posts with a weekly review.
And joining Nicole’s Book Blog Discussion Challenge last year made the switch more easier. So I will be joining the challenge for 2019 as well. As I was saying earlier, I will be more vocal and participative in this link up as well.
I am also planning to include more fun and non bookish posts in the coming months but not to worry, it will stay a book blog.
I am proud of myself with my last year’s blog hopping and I plan it to keep up.
Action:
Visit blogs I follow at least weekly once.
Reply to all the comments on my blog
Return the comments by visiting their blogs
Learn to follow and use blog statistics.
And to care about the follower counts.
Blogging Schedule
This is a more obvious one – more consistent blogging.
I already post 4 times a week and I more or less am consistent in doing that. I plan to continue that but I am trying to make it more streamlined. I am putting to use of all the time I have spent on ‘pretending to be organized’ into becoming actually organized.
So what I am going to do differently?
Action:
Planning the topics ahead of time.
Working in batches
Scheduling posts at least two days before the publishing date
Taking planned holidays off the blog
Make more blogging friends
Yes you heard it right!
Blogging has got me so many new virtual friends this year, especially ones with similar interests. Isn’t that really great?
I am part of a few Discord, Facebook and Twitter groups. But being the introverted booknerds that we are, it is understandable that I didn’t take part in the conversations as much as I wanted. So this year I will be doing exactly that.
I don’t usually talk about my personal life and goals online but I am making an exception. I will explain why in a bit.
Take more photos of the places I visit. (Bonus if I post on Instagram)
Learn to knit
Take initiative to talk to more people
Create and follow routines in general life (See I am being more organized!)
Self care and self love, for obvious reasons and I am not breaking that down
I guess that is it for now! I am not going to be trying too hard or be stressing myself with these plans, but using these action plans as guidelines and take it as they come.
Pin me!
Let us talk
What are your goals for the year? Do you have New Year resolutions? Share your favorite blog that I should be following already. Let us talk.
