Love Your Commenters


I have not been blogging for a long time, but I have been actively reading and taking part in various blogs for some time. One of the most interesting aspects of blogging is the chance to add to the conversation though comments about a post. Commenting on another persons blog is a way of continuing the conversation that the blogger started.

In my experience there are a couple of ways that bloggers can quickly turn off people and ultimately loose their readers.

One of the quickest ways of losing readers and visitors it to not take part in the conversation that takes place after the post. You need to continue that conversation. It helps to express and round out ideas from the post. Blogging after all is not meant to be a one way form of communication but a group participation activity.

Another way of losing readers through comments is by not posting comments. I am not talking about spammer comments, but comments that are good quality comments that are not posted because the blog owner does not agree with the content or simply feels that the comment does not add to the conversation of the post. While I agree that blog owners have the right to not post comments that they don’t want to post, there is a large difference between spam comments and comments that add to the conversation of the post. You don’t have to agree with the comments, but as long as the comments are on topic I feel they should be posted.

There are blogs that I have taken part in over the last few years that I simply don’t return to. Not because the content of the blogs was not interesting, but simply because the blog owner has chosen to delete, not post or basically be disrespectful to their readers and commenters.

Be good to your commenters. They have taken the time to share in the conversation that you started. If people are not sharing thoughts and opinions back with you then what is the point of blogging? The reason I started this blog is so I could take part in conversations about web mastering and blogging that I enjoy and I look forward to the conversations.

Categories: blogging  
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