Friday, June 08, 2007

Star Tech

Highest Comment Denominator

This is a question that comes up fairly regularly, so I dealt with it in my Blog Cabin newspaper column in `mX' (published simultaneously in Melbourne, Brisbane and Sydney) this week.

Some bloggers get lots of comments, but I haven't had any yet.What am I doing wrong?

Let's deal with the technical aspect first. Go to the template and if you haven't ticked the option to enable comments, do it now and hit the "Save Preferences" option. To avoid spam comments, tick the "enable comment moderation" option. This simply means you have the final say over which comments are actually displayed.

Now for the non-geeky part. A comment is the internet equivalent of an SMS or a phone call. You only get 'em from people who know you or are familiar with your blog. It can take a while - even for a great blogger - to get that first comment. The more visitors you get, the higher your chances of getting comments. It is good protocol to reply to comments. They are the only form of one-on-one communication between you and your readers, so be courteous, be concise and prompt when you respond.

For new bloggers, the more comments you reply to, the more you'll get. Likewise, it also pays to leave comments on other blogs with themes similar to yours. Don't leave trite messages such as "Nice post. LOL" because they mean nothing. By leaving a comment that is brief but pithy or to the point, chances are someone else in turn will check out the link to your blog.

No comments: