Boost Comments on Your WordPress Blog: Tips & Tricks

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Creating a thriving online community is crucial for the success of your WordPress website. It not only increases traffic to your site but also secures returning visitors and helps your site convert against its goals. Encouraging people to comment on, reply to, and discuss blog articles is an effective way to foster interactions on your site. However, getting the conversation flowing can be a challenge. In this article, we will provide you with some basic tips on how to increase comments on your blog.

Choose Interesting Topics to Write About

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Choosing interesting or popular topics that get your audience excited is one of the best ways to get more comments on your blog. For instance, an article titled “8 Proven Ways to Make Money with WordPress” published on WPExplorer received 95 comments because the topic got people excited.

Engage in Controversy

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Picking controversial topics or taking a controversial stance on a subject can also get your audience to share their thoughts on your blog. If your audience is shocked, angered, or given something different to think about than the usual status quo, they are more likely to comment on your blog.

Add a Call to Action to Every Post

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Make sure you add a call to action at the bottom of every post. Ask one key question about the article your visitors have just read to get them thinking. Then ask them to share their thoughts below, so they know what is wanted from them. Stating what to discuss in the comments and simply asking your visitors to make a comment will encourage them to do so.

Reply to Comments

Replying to every comment is essential if you want to create an interactive blog where visitors reply to each other’s comments and discuss opinions. By doing so, users learn that their comments are valuable. Ask questions to help generate conversations between your audience. Being present and visible on your blog will help your audience engage with your content and community.

Upgrade Your Comments Section

Improving your comment section’s functionality and making it more user-friendly should have a positive impact on the number of comments you receive on your blog. Here are some ways to upgrade your comments section:

Enabling Gravatars on Your WordPress Website

A gravatar is a Globally Recognized Avatar, which is a graphical representation of a user. Using gravatars on your WordPress website is important because it helps give faces or identities to those leaving comments. This strengthens the community you are trying to create as it helps your audience recognize and connect with each other.

Enabling gravatars on your site is straightforward. Within your WordPress dashboard, go to Settings > Discussion. Scroll down the page to “Avatars.” Make sure the “Show Avatar” button is ticked. To allow your audience to get to know each other, you should also select “Gravatar Hovercards.” You can then choose a suitable rating for the gravatars displayed on your site and a default gravatar icon for those members of your audience who have not set up their own gravatar yet.

Set Up Email Notifications for Replies to Comments

By setting up email notifications on your blog, visitors can choose to be kept informed of either any comments written on a particular post or of any replies specific to a comment they left. Subscribe to Comments Reloaded is a free WordPress plugin that enables commenters to sign up to receive email notifications when anyone comments on a post or replies to their comment. By receiving an email detailing comments, visitors are more likely to return to the post and re-join the discussion.

Use a Third-Party Comments System

If you are looking for more advanced, vibrant, and user-friendly features than the default WordPress comments section allows, then you should consider using a third-party comments system. The Disqus Comment System replaces your WordPress comment system, taking on the hosting and management of your comments. Disqus adapts to your site’s design, or you can customize it to your own liking, giving your comments section an attractive edge. Features include real-time discussions, photo and video support for adding media within comments, comment voting, and lots more. Visitors can also sign-in using Google or numerous other social media channels.

Provide Incentives

Providing incentives to coax your readers to write a comment on your blog posts can be another impressive way to improve results. Here are some ways to do it:

Let Commenters Leave Links

Often, people who comment do so because they want to leave a link back to their site. However, just because the main reason for someone leaving a comment is link building, doesn’t mean that their comment isn’t valuable or helpful to you. Although others who have websites in your niche may be your competitors, they can also be part of your community. Insightful comments by them may generate discussion or bring their own followers to your site. So providing the incentive of letting people link to their site may help increase comments in the long term.

CommentLuv is a free WordPress plugin that rewards readers by automatically placing a link to their last blog post at the end of their comment. This encourages readers to leave a comment on your blog, as they can promote their own site’s content and gain a link back to their site.

Run a Giveaway Competition

A competition is a great way to get visitors to engage with your site. Try using a giveaway competition to get more people to comment on your blog. Simply offer your audience the chance of entering your competition if they comment on a particular blog post.

Rafflecopter makes it extremely easy to set up, manage, and run a giveaway competition. Simply sign up for a Rafflecopter account and then create your competition in a few straightforward steps. Your giveaway can then be added to your WordPress site via a widget code, no plugin necessary. Rafflecopter is free to use, but there are pro plans available if you want to upgrade to a premium service.

As a prize, offer one of your products or services, or if this isn’t appropriate, you could opt for something like an Amazon voucher. Choose to run the competition around an article that contains important content that you’d like your visitors to read. For example, use one of your most popular or controversial articles. Or an article promoting your most expensive products or containing your best paying affiliate links. The competition will help drive traffic to this article, and the comments will encourage people to carry on the discussion of the content.

Conclusion

Always make sure your articles are high quality, interesting, and published regularly. This is the first and most important step in building a community around your site. Once you have got a well-written and consistently updated blog, try the different strategies mentioned in this article to see what works with your audience. By implementing these tips, you can increase comments on your blog and create an engaged and active community.

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