No Readers, No Comments: My Blog Must Suck!
By Jay Thompson | August 10, 2007
Want more traffic to your blog? Sad because no one ever leaves comments? Maybe these tips will help…
Blog Traffic: Apart from consistently good writing, the single best way to drive traffic to your blog is to link to other blogs in your posts. This is a difficult concept to grasp, as your natural inclination is to keep people on your blog once they get there. On the surface, it would seem that linking to another blog will cause people to LEAVE the post you slaved over.
However; people that write and read blogs LOVE links. When you link to another blog, it “pings” that blog — basically notifying the owner that someone has linked to them. Virtually every blogger will then go see who linked to them. If you’ve got good stuff, you may have just picked up another reader, who at some point is likely to link to YOU from their blog. Then their readers will follow that link to you – creating more readers for you! The more you link to other blogs, the more chances you have of someone linking to you. Links help drive traffic, and the search engines love links, so they rank your posts higher in search results; which in turn drives even more traffic to you.
The “Real Estate Blogfather” Dustin Luther wrote a post titled, “Linkation, Linkation, Linkation” almost two years ago. It’s as brilliant today as it was then. It should be required reading if you’re running a blog.
Another great way to drive traffic to your blog is to comment on other people’s blogs. Almost every blog that allows comments has a place for you to enter your name and a website address. If you put your blog address in there, then anyone reading your comment can click on that link and visit your place. I always go to the blogs of people that comment on my blog, and I’ve found some great writers this way (and most bloggers do this). Note: your comments will drive more traffic if they have some substance. Making a comment consisting of only, “Great post” isn’t going to do much for anyone. If you can add something to the conversation, most likely anyone involved in the conversation will take a cyber trip over to your blog.
“Blog Carnivals” can be a great way to get traffic, and pick up some regular readers. There is a weekly “Carnival of Real Estate” hosted by a different blogger each week. You submit a “best of the best” post to the Carnival, and if your post happens to get selected, you’ll get a bunch of people checking it out. You also get links from the host, as well as the home site of the Carnival. There are *hundreds* of blog carnivals going on at any given time, many of which apply to real estate and business. I submitted this post to a carnival on cats of all things. Picked up several new readers from that, plus another blogger saw it and entered it into a pet contest he was having — picked up some readers from that too (and a gift card to boot).
Bottom line — drive more traffic to your blog by linking to and commenting on other blogs. Submit to blog carnivals.
Getting comments: Probably the most common thing I hear from newer bloggers is, “No one ever comments on my blog”. This is a tricky one. The *vast* majority of blog readers don’t comment. Ever. Most readers are “lurkers”. My blog gets 300 - 350 unique visits a day, and on a good day I may get 10 comments (usually less). So it’s a bit of a Catch-22 — you have to have traffic to get comments. But there are a couple of things you can do to encourage comments…
First, try ending your post with a “request for comments”. Something like, “I’d love to hear your opinion on this subject!” will encourage others to post. Asking “open ended” questions in a post also encourages others to comment. And as in driving traffic, your comments on other blogs can lead to people coming over to comment on your blog.
Controversial or highly opinionated posts tend to generate more comments than other types of posts. Think about it… if you write a post say on “Your town sales stats” there isn’t really a whole lot to comment about. It is what it is (and it’s not a bad thing to blog on, it just doesn’t lend itself well to comments). But if you write a post on something that makes people think, or questions the status quo, or even something that tugs at heartstrings, you are more likely to get comments. Here are some examples of posts on my blog that generated quite a few comments: A Tribute to Harry Ramos (my most heavily commented post ever — and it has ZERO to do with real estate. But it makes people cry), If blog visitors aren’t being treated as leads, then blogging is really a waste, and Incredibly inept HOA action!. See the difference between these posts and something like: Joe’s Farm Grill: Gilbert’s Latest Culinary Delight? The Joe’s Farm Grill post isn’t bad, in fact, it’s an excellent post if I do say so myself. It helps readers, and it’s got great keywords in it for the search engines. It just isn’t the kind of post that will ever generate much comment.
It is really important to respond to comments that you do receive. Blogs will, over time, develop into a “neighborhood” with regular readers and a community feel. If you respond to someone that leaves a comment, it will encourage them, AND OTHERS, to comment more.
Getting comments takes time. Sometimes significant time. Just don’t get discouraged and keep in mind that most readers will never comment, no matter what you do.
Patience and consistency are key. If you take the time to write quality posts, read and comment on blogs, and link to others you will find your readership growing steadily.
Popularity: 19% [?]
Author's Website: http://www.phoenixrealestateguy.com
Topics: Blogging |
16 Responses to “No Readers, No Comments: My Blog Must Suck!”
Comments
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August 10th, 2007 at 1:51 pm
Great article Jay - you’re totally right about blog turning into communities; I’ve noticed that in just about all the blogs I read regularly.
I should also note that David Gibbons published his own tips to attracting blog comments on Zillow blog - http://www.zillowblog.com/attracting-a-conversation-blog-comment-tips/2007/02/
August 11th, 2007 at 7:34 pm
We were blessed enough to have a loyal community already in place with our site, before we even launched the blog. But I’ve definitely noticed a difference in comments between the times I directly ask for them and when I don’t.
Thanks for the Linkation link - great resource!
Also I’ve considered exploring the Carnival thing, but I’m just not really sure I get it. I’ll have to look for a summary of what it’s about a little more. But sounds intriguing. I think our blog would probably be a great fit.
August 12th, 2007 at 11:09 am
Would this post be considered “comment bait”? Just about daring your readers to comment.
Link early and link often - it takes a village!
August 13th, 2007 at 9:12 am
Jay,
I agree. I visit many blogs on a daily basis and I only leave one or two comments here and there. Mainly the article has to hit me in some way to generate a response. Sometimes if the writer hasn’t looked at a certain point or if the topic is a bit off (in my opinion of course) or if it’s controversial.
I hope you don’t mind me using some of these ideas in the RE Blogging Seminar this week. I will cite this post of course.
Thanks,
Shailesh
August 14th, 2007 at 3:48 pm
Another little tool that I have found to increase reader participation is a “Recent Comments” section in the secondary column. I can see one here. On my new blog, I gave “Recent Comments” a prominent position. I think it’s part of the reason why my 2.5 month old blog now gets more comments than my 2.5 year old blog.
August 14th, 2007 at 3:59 pm
Todd-
I totally agree with you — so much so, that I just moved the “recent comments” on GeekEstate higher on the right sidebar. I love having the recent comments in the upper left of Zillow Blog and definitely think it has lead to more comments than we got prior to displaying recent comments.
August 19th, 2007 at 3:45 pm
Frankly, I hear that all the time. “I don’t get enough comments”
Another way to get comments is to post your blog on Active Rain. Their system gives points to people who make comments, therefore your ratio of comments per 100 visitors is higher.
Works great for me!
Frank
September 11th, 2007 at 10:53 am
Thanks for the tips. The linkation resource is great. Maybe my blog doesn’t suck after all!!
September 24th, 2007 at 12:39 pm
Hi,
This is some really great info. I never thought of leaving open ended questions or asking people to comment at the end of posts.
This should help quite a bit!
Thanks,
Richard
October 13th, 2007 at 9:41 pm
Search google for my alias and whadda you know, someone using my alias attempting an xss attack in a random blog. Way to make yourself look bad buddy.
-The Real, HarmonyNHavok
Nice Blog Btw
December 7th, 2007 at 8:53 pm
Jay -
I knew as soon as I started reading your forum posts on Point 2 that your blog posts would be worth reading. Everytime I read something you write I learn something new. This time it was how the comments work to get traffic back to your site. I’ve only been blogging for a few weeks and have 10 posts up now. I’ve left a few comments, but didn’t realize that it was bad karma to leave a link to your site in it about one of your posts. It’s nice to know that people will take the time to click on your name and check out your site. I do it, but I figured it was just because I’m new and have so much to learn.
Keep posting those tidbits of knowledge. I’m definitely reading!
Karen
December 10th, 2007 at 3:24 pm
Well thanks Karen, glad I could be of some assistance.
January 9th, 2008 at 11:29 pm
[…] reiterated that you shouldn’t think that too much of not getting comments on your blog - even if you don’t get many comments, your blog doesn’t automatically suck. Teresa made the point that you should not delete comments that disagree with you. You’ll […]
March 24th, 2008 at 10:17 am
hey great site
April 1st, 2008 at 10:40 am
Jay, You wrote this post before I started my blog, so I missed it the first time around. Both your and Dustin’s Linkation posts belong in some kind of Encyclopedia or History of Blogging. As always, thanks for sharing what you’ve learned.
April 24th, 2008 at 2:37 pm
Thanks for the tips!