Most bloggers strive to make their blog a community where people can learn, interact and exchange ideas. This is often achieved through the comment section. It has been said that comments are the lifeblood of a blog and I definitely agree with that statement. Many blogger, both new and experienced, have a difficult time attracting comments to their blog. A while back I wrote a post on how to get more blog comments. In this post, I want to get a little more specific and talk about rewarding your commentators to encourage them to start and continue adding value through quality comments.
Conventional wisdom tells us that people are more inclined to take action if there is something in it for them. As an example, I think back about when I first started college and there were dozens of credit card companies that were trying to get new students to sign up. What did they do, they gave something away, usually a tee shirt or something along those lines. The tee shirts probably cost them a buck but by offering the small reward more people were inclined to sign up. The same is true with blog comments, if you are willing to give a little and reward those that take time to comment, you will be ensuring that people will take the time to actually do it.
I came up with a list of 7 ways you can reward your commentators:
1.Make your links “do follow”, this is self explanatory, as you are rewarding your commentators by providing them a quality backlink to their site. To ruly reward them, I recommend installing the commentluv and keyword luv plugin.
2.Install Top Commentators plugin- This is similiar to the above reward where you will be providing a backlink and increased visibility to the people who comment most.
3.Create a post once a month that links back to your top commentators. I started doing this several months ago and it is a great way to reward your commentators with a link and hopefully drive a bit of traffic too.
4.Become active on their blog. When ever someone comments on my blog, I visit there blog and I usually return the favor and will comment on theirs. If the content is good, I will subscribe and become a regular reader and commentator. Basically, you can reward them by being a regular contributor on their blog.
5.Follow and Retweet. As a reward you can follow and engage with your commentators on Twitter. If a tweet catches your attention, go ahead and retweet it.
6.Give some social networking love. Another way to reward your commentators is to seek them out on social networks and link up with them and promote their posts.
7.Another reward is to reserve some ad space for your top commentators. I am actually going to implement this next month. I will be rewarding the top commentator for August with a free month of advertising on the sidebar of my blog.
As you can see, these are small rewards but every blogger would love to get as many links and promotion as possible. I know I do!
The last way to reward your commentators is by simply saying Thank you. So, Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! for all the excellent comments and helping build a community here with this blog in such a short time frame.
What are you doing to encourage and reward your blog commentators?
Some of these I already do but the ones I don’t are really great suggestions too. Have a great night!
Stacie´s last blog ..Friendship Chain
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I have tweeted your post. I think you have listed a few great ideas that bloggers can follow.
I might try the ad space for top commentator, still deciding.
George Serradinho´s last blog ..Newest WordPress Plugins 30/7
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These tips are very useful if you want to completely satisfy your Readers. Unless you show your love to your visitors, they won’t be faithful to you.
Tech-Freak Stuff´s last blog ..What is encrypted code in Wordpress themes?
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Strange thing happened when I added Keyword Luv. I got lots of comments that were using only their keywords. Most of my comments failed to include their name. They only want to use there keywords sans a name. I am inclined not to reward them with a link for not paying attention.
Boris @ Scratch My Back Marketing´s last blog ..Scratch My Back Marketing Explained
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These are excellent suggestions and if action is taken, it will definitely increase your visibility and attract comments.
I would like to say that this part of your post is what truly stands out: “Conventional wisdom tells us that people are more inclined to take action if there is something in it for them”. so, so, so true:)
Anyway, and if I may, I would like to leave here a link of a similar article that I wrote which I believe can add another perspective to commenting. http://www.iblogzone.com/2009/04/commenting-101-power-sometimes-ignored.html
DiTesco´s last blog ..3 Step Guide To Simple SEO Article Writing
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Great post Dan… I definitely need to work on a few more of your ideas. I think I am going to try rewarding the top commentators next month with some free ad space as well. That is free, but valuable gift. Thanks for the suggestion!
Doug Dillard´s last blog ..2 Simple Fixes that Could Increase Comments on Your Blog
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Thanks for the tip about Top Commentators plugin, I’ll be sure to give it a go at my blog.
Oh, hey Serradinho, I see you’re in here as well – I wonder if I’ll ever find a blog where you haven’t commented before me? Just kidding, your comments are always nice to read
dankeller – I’m now subscribing to your blog, looking forward to some great content!
Klaus @ TechPatio´s last blog ..SEO: Why Meta Description Is Still Important
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Great tips! I have always been on the prowl for ways to reward those that leave comments on my blog. One time I made a list of of all their links and published it as a blog post. Two days after, my PR3 blog rank went down to zero. I deleted the post and a few days after I got my PR back but this time only PR2. This is to show how desperate I am in searching for ideas to thank those that comment on my posts. Thanks to you, I gained better ideas of showing my thanks.
Julehya´s last blog ..I Wonder If I Ever Lived My Life For Me.
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@ Julehya,
In that case, you might just want to add rel=”nofollow” to the links, so the search engine spiders won’t follow them – or if they do, they won’t “hold you responsible” for the links. It doesn’t award the sites you link to with “link love”, but at least they might get some real people clicks/traffic by clicking on the links in your post.
Klaus @ TechPatio´s last blog ..SEO: Why Meta Description Is Still Important
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I think you’ve managed to list them all. Never thought about ad space for commentators, feel free to tell me more after you’ve tried it.
Stefan´s last blog ..How to Make Money by Shopping
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Fascinating article. I’m a bit of a novice, but i found this article very informative. Thank you
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Ok Dan… I took your advice. Checkout my latest post: http://www.makingmoneyonline.com/why-comment-on-making-money-online-dot-com/
Doug Dillard´s last blog ..Why Comment on MakingMoneyOnline.com?
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Just tweeted this. I’m always looking for ways to reward my commentators, especially the loyal ones (that come back after every new post I make.
The Gooroo @ Finance Advisory Stop´s last blog ..The Pain Of Changing Domains
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Excellent tips for any blogger that wants to increase their blog comments and reward the people that support their blog.
Thats a RT and Twittley brudda!
Extreme John@Extreme John Blogging and Business´s last blog ..Yellow Book Customer Service FAIL
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Hello am I the only one who noticed LOL
you said make your links no follow hehe
silly Dam
Besides that these are great tips and I follow most of them
haha no follow ok everybody lets go change to no follow link like Dan says
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I’ve actually implemented most of those tips at one time or another. I have blogs where I’m not at all fussed whether or not I get comments and these blogs are nofollow, do not have the top commentators plugin and no commentluv. They’re pretty quiet. The ones where I do reward my commentators are a lot more active.
Sire@ WassupBlog´s last blog ..Noel Biderman Vs Top Sexual Aids
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No Brian, I noticed it also; you just happened to beat me here. lol And, pretty much, #1 is at the top for me.
Mitch´s last blog ..Truth In Marketing?
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“1.Make your links “no follow””
I don’t understand how this is beneficial for your commenters to be honest. Could you please explain this? Thanks by the way for the info, it was exactly what I was looking for.
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Thanks for the comments guys!
For those that noticed the typo, thanks for pointing it out. I meant to say “do” follow instead of “no” follow
George and John, Thanks for the tweets!
Doug, I just read your post…good luck on the contest…I am tied for the lead with 1 comment
Tycoon Blogger@Make Money Blogging´s last blog ..Entrecard seems to be listening
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I do agree with you that installing Top Commenter plugin can really attract more people to leave comment and that’s an awesome way to say thank you to the commenter. I do think that installing CommentLuv plugin would be great too.
So far I just installing these 2 plugin, also I’ll rewarding my commenter using dofollow too.
Regards,
Lee
Lee Ka Hoong@Make Money Online´s last blog ..10 Blog Commenting Strategies That Drive Traffic
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Great ideas, my favorites are numbers 2, 4, 5, and 6.
Deneil Merritt´s last blog ..July 2009 Income Report
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I am taking almost all the points ticked for my blog. From this month I have decided to be active on my most of the commentators blog’s.
I am currently still thinking on the 7th point.
Typhoon´s last blog ..10 ways to achieve a winning first paragraph for your article
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Great ideas! I will execute…
A few other ideas:
1. Best comment gets to write an article on your blog as a guest blogger.
2. Respond to comments personally.
Brent´s last blog ..Text Message Marketing: Five Tactics to Reach Your Tarket Customer
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I,ve been thinking about your last suggestion, really great idea.
shraqs´s last blog ..Download Free Full Michael Jackson Album “Invicible” – 2001 mp3
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Excellent points! I’m still trying to absorb these information about promoting blogs but I think I’m coping up at the moment.
I’m bookmarking this blog.
Michael
MichaelR@Tips for your long distance calls´s last blog ..Submit Your ATA Model, Let Us Help!
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some useful tips are given. great to read this.i will keep this point in mind . i am going to use it.
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For number 4, how about if your visitors is not a blogger? and don’t have comment feature. What will you do?
or they don’t have do follow blog. Do you still post a comment for them?
Ruri@Free article directory´s last blog ..How to Win Ex Back-Rekindling Love With Your Ex
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I would like to know if its possible to either delete or edit a comment left on a myspace blog, i know you can delete comments but does this extend to blogs as well or are they permanent.
self improvement resources´s last blog ..Hello world!
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So on my friend’s blog i clicked on add a comment & i did.. Then i clicked post and a few minutes later went back to nose on what i had written but it showed that no comments had been posted.
self improvement resources´s last blog ..Hello world!
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I think you friend may have his settings to where they have to approve the comment before it goes on their profile. That has happened to me before, and I backtracked myself and it showed their settings were set to where he had to approve all comments before they were posted.
self improvement resources´s last blog ..Hello world!
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You can’t do it without a plugin. There is no plugin for that either, which is kinda dumb but You can upload the pic to flckr or something. Then you can attach the URL…
self improvement resources´s last blog ..Hello world!
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Someone wrote something on my blog comments page about after looking at my friends and interests I might be interested in joining this explicit group.
self improvement resources´s last blog ..Hello world!
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Please I need some help, I have deleted my blog comments and they still appeared at first at my blogs but now they are gone, is there a way to get them back or is this final.
self improvement resources´s last blog ..Hello world!
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I will provide a list of the blogs to target, and you simply need to go there and post comments. This can be done at your convenience, but I am looking for someone who can get them done within a day or so of me submitting the order.
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This will start out small with the possiblity of being much larger. Thank you for your responses.
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my blog comments are coming thu in a HUGE font size…never used to do that, yet, nothing in “customize” my blog to adjust the size of the font, when people leave comments on my blog. Any ideas ?
self improvement resources´s last blog ..Hello world!
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Tell me… How do dofollow blog links compare with dofollow forum links with respect to gaining good SEO advantage?
self improvement resources´s last blog ..Hello world!
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Okay so I have a blog but none of the comments are showing could someone explain to me step by step how to get your blog comments to show…
self improvement resources´s last blog ..Hello world!
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It depends on the blogging software you’re using… If it’s Wordpress it might be as simple as changing your options…
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I’d like to take down my blog & archive it. I’d like to save it as a Microsoft Word document. I’d like to save the comments as well. Is there a software or website that will help me do that?
self improvement resources´s last blog ..Hello world!
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You can do this one of two free ways. If you are not that good with computers… Just open word, then click you a page of your blog. When on the blog hold “Crtl” then press “A” This will select the entire page.
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Once its all selected hold “Crtl” and press “C” to copy the page. Then go to your word document and select “Paste” to paste a copy of the page. Repeat this for all subsequent pages. THis is the most organized and easiest way to copy your blog.
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THis is the most organized and easiest way to copy your blog. If you have a bit more knowlege in the area of computers.. you can use IE/FF Documentation to save the entire page as an encoded .txt document.
self improvement resources´s last blog ..Hello world!
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really very nice points for top commentators and is very encouraging to theme for visiting and revisiting
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good post
by follwing this we can get more comments
Crazy blogger´s last blog ..How to Choose Blog Topics
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This post is very much informative in context. I’m really grateful to you for providing this information.
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why are so many people buggin of of this? who cares, comentators use only last names most the time any way so theyd only say ocho cinco which they do most times anyway, go get a life and people stop posting stupid questions like this.
self improvement resources´s last blog ..Best price available related to shopping
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Every brand’s commentators have been messed up. . Only Tazz is on ECW as of now. I’m assuming Jerry Lawler and Michael Cole will continue, but JR made an appearance. .
self improvement resources´s last blog ..Best price available related to shopping
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It’s pretty much confirmed at this point that Ross is moving back to Raw in the near future. It’s not the first time that Vince has swallowed his pride about Ross’s commentary. I think Todd Grisham is taking Adamle’s place, or at least it seemed that way on Raw.
self improvement resources´s last blog ..Best price available related to shopping
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I have no idea why else he’d pop up. I really wish they’d put Joey Styles back on ECW, or give Josh Matthews a shot. Matthews was a wonderful play-by-play guy on Velocity, and I’d put him over Cole when it comes to charisma, and Jim Ross on new age wrestling knowledge.
self improvement resources´s last blog ..Best price available related to shopping
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