Have you developed a great looking WordPress blog, with high-quality content and marketing, yet realised you‘re not getting the comments and engagement you were expecting? You’ve implemented basic SEO, promoted your blog on social media but something just seems to be missing. Comments are so important because they get your consumers’ engaged. If your consumers are engaged they will then be more likely to purchase from you in the future.
This post will provide you with the top 10 tips to get more comments on your blog, period. Before I jump into it if you would like to get back to steering the ship and let someone else handle your marketing, contact SBIM. We are a team of WordPress and marketing specialists that can help in unlocking the business of your dreams.
Table of Contents
1 – Reply To Existing Comments
Reply to the comments that you do get will help you build an engaged audience, and that is what you are missing. Why is an engaged audience important for increasing comments? Because when a customer comments on your post they’re inviting you to build a relationship with them. When that relationship is established they will continue to comment on your posts in the foreseeable future.
If the comments you get are questions, reply to them to the best of your ability. If your customer provides a statement, turn that statement into an opportunity for conversation. If they complain this can be a great opportunity for your blog. Research shows customers that complain and have their complaints handled effectively are likely to turn into loyal customers and advocates. We could talk about the importance of complaints and complaint handling all day but that is a discussion for another video.
2 – Ask Open-Ended Questions In Your Posts
An open-ended question allows your users to express their opinion and potentially start a discussion on your blog. Compared to other questions, an open-ended question is seen as less threatening and provides users with more creative freedom in their comments.
When writing an open-ended question you don’t need to beg for a response, just let the question do all the talking. An A level example of this is “how do you think open-ended questions will increase your blog’s engagement? Let us know in the comments below”. Now feel free to use that one in your blog posts and make sure to drop that comment below.
3 – Display The Newest Comments First
Displaying the newest questions first requires a little bit of tweaking in your WordPress dashboard. This is because WordPress displays your newest comments last by default. For those viewing your comments, however, having the old questions display first will make your post seem outdated. Stopping your audience from making that initial engagement.
Fortunately, WordPress makes this fix easy, all you have to do is go to the settings tab, then navigate into discussions, before finally going into the “other comments” settings then set the “comments should be displayed” section to newer.
4 – Create An Email Marketing Campaign
On your WordPress blog, you can add a subscribe form which you can encourage users to fill out. The users that put in the effort to subscribe are the most engaged making them perfect for your email marketing.
Email marketing provides an opportunity to mass contact these engaged followers with any form of content you believe they will get value from. Questions and offers are two email types that can be used to get your users engaged and commenting on your posts. If you publish a new blog post send it to them and encourage them to comment. Your users are already engaged in your content so don’t shy away from asking them to do something.
5 – Allow Comments On Your Old Posts
Did you turn off comments on your old posts? To avoid getting spammed many people do. But there are always people who engage with and enjoy your older posts that want to leave a comment. This is a great thing.
Getting new comments will also make the post seem more relevant and timely. The setting to enable comments again can be found by clicking on settings then navigating into the discussion tab. With the disable comments box unchecked your chance of getting comments and engagement on your post has instantly increased.
6 – Highlight Your Top Comments
By highlighting your top comments you are expressing your appreciation towards your user base. This lets the commenter, as well as other users, know that you are paying attention to them and respect their contributions to your post.
By highlighting your top commenters’ you will strengthen their loyalty towards your blog, motivate them to continue engaging in your content and also let other commenters know that what they are doing is appreciated and will be rewarded.
Various WordPress plugins and widgets let you highlight your top commenters. One of which is simply called “top commentators widget” which after installing you can use by going to appearance, then navigating into the widget tab then finding a widget called top commentators and adding it to your sidebar.
This widget has various features such as limiting commenters that are displayed based on the number of comments they’ve made, excluding specific users and many display features that you will find very useful.
7 – Mention Other Bloggers In Your Posts
Mention blogger in your posts that are
- well-known, and
- relevant
Both of these criteria need to be filled before you mention another blogger. If you simply mention the biggest bloggers on your posts, when these bloggers are not relevant to the content of your blog, you will get nowhere.
When you mention a famous blogger they will be more likely to notice you and your blog. Once they notice you they may give you shout outs, share your content and it may even open opportunities for collaboration. The best method to mention another blogger is to include their:
- full name,
- what they do,
- why it’s great, and
- provide a link for your readers to follow.
After you have mentioned a blogger with the above information, let the blogger know and invite them to have a look.
If your content is appealing to the blogger, your traffic, engagement and subscribers will instantly increase.
8 – Display Your Most Recent Comments On A Sidebar
By displaying the most recent comments on a sidebar, you are encouraging engagement and conversation between your users. This is because you are making the comments more accessible.
To display comments on a sidebar is easy. All you need to do is activate an inbuilt WordPress widget. To access this widget navigate into the “appearance tab” on your left sidebar. From here navigate into “widgets” then look for the “recent comments widget”. Turn this widget on and watch as the number of discussions on your blog increases.
9 – Add Comment Rating & Sharing To Your Blog
Adding comment ratings and sharing to your blog is a feature highly regarded in today’s world of blogs and forums. This is because it encourages engagement in a fun way. To incorporate this system into your WordPress blog, you will need to install a plugin called wpDiscuz.
Once you have installed wpDiscuz to your WordPress website, you will get the ability to:
- modify how your comment forms look,
- add articles and comment ratings,
- set comment thread displaying options, and
- enable social network sharing buttons.
10 – Enable Comment Subscription
Normally when users leave a comment on one of your posts they have to manually go back to check if someone has replied. Comment subscription enables your users to get notified when someone replies to their comment. This encourages users to re-engage with your post whenever someone replies to their comment. As a result, both engagement and page views will increase.
To add this feature to your WordPress website, download the “Subscribe to Comments Reloaded” plugin on your WordPress website. After you install and activate this plugin, simply go to STCR then the Comment Form in your dashboard. From here you just need to set the Advanced subscription option to Yes. This plugin will allow you to choose how and when you would like your users to get notified.
Get Your Website Working The Way You Want It With SBIM
By following these 10 tips, you will instantly get more comments on your WordPress blog. If this seems too difficult or you would like to get back to steering the ship and let someone else handle the marketing then contact SBIM today. With over 500 happy customers and 10 years experience, SBIM can help unlock the business of your dreams. Give us a call today on 1300 781 609 or go to sbim.com.au.
