Blogging, Strategy, Web Tools
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3 Tips to Make Your Blog “Commentable”

Posted by John Saddington on Jan 15, 2009

call_to_actionA blog with no comments is sad, especially on “launch”.

It doesn’t have to be that way (and it shouldn’t if you’ve followed some of the 8 P’s here!).

Perhaps your blog and your posts are “commentable”?  Did that ever cross your mind?

Maybe it’s not that you don’t have anything good to say but you just haven’t been that strategic in your approach?

Trust me, your content doesn’t stink and you’re not boring [Want to read more about "boring"? Seth Godin has some choice words.] … it’s just that your post might be “incomplete” or “too complete”.

Here are some 3 simple tips that work:

1. Make your posts short

When I mean short, I mean don’t make them essays or long-winded pieces of prose. Keep them short and sweet.

I have a standing rule that each post needs to hit at least 200 words or more (WordPress does this automatically on the bottom left hand corner of your posting screen…!).

Apparently this has been empirically-proven to be a good balance of content and length. If it’s less, than it was on purpose. If it’s more, then you probably need to start thinking about making your post into a “series”.

2. Always have a “Call to Action”

What this means is that you must have something that tells the reader that they need to “do” something. A question at the end of each post helps.  A challenge can be good too. Something that solicits a “response” from the reader. You have the make the blog post interactive, not your reader!

3. Styling matters

Paragraphs are your best friend.  Long sentences stink. Hit that “enter” key please…! Our eyes get tired of your long paragraphs! Bullet points are also pretty cool. Use styling!

Whew. Now you’re an expert.

Do you have any that you would add that you’ve seen work?

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John Saddington

John is the Chief Editor @ The 8BIT Network and Senior Blog Junkie here at ChurchCrunch.He enjoys Triple-Tall Americanos, developing Wordpress Themes, and a few other Random Things.

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16 Responses to “3 Tips to Make Your Blog “Commentable””

  1. Ron_Tuffin
    Thursday, January 15, 2009 at 12:41 pm

    I use a technique I picked up from http://www.ragamuffinsoul.com/where you imbed the permalink to the individual post in the final question.

    i.e. in this page I would have linked "Do you have any that you would add that you’ve seen work?" to this post.

    That way when someone gets to the end of the post they can link straight to the comments no matter where they are reading the post from.

    Reply
    • human3rror
      Thursday, January 15, 2009 at 3:44 pm

      great thoughts here. definitely. that's a good addition!

      Reply
  2. Bill
    Thursday, January 15, 2009 at 2:52 pm

    Great post! I've been thinking about this very thing as my 3 month old blog has very few comments, but seems to get decent traffic. I've tried ending with a call to action on some posts, didn't seem to make a difference. It probably has to do with the type of traffic that comes in I suppose.

    Reply
    • human3rror
      Thursday, January 15, 2009 at 3:44 pm

      get the word out.. you're on twitter, facebook, etc?

      Reply
      • Bill
        Thursday, January 15, 2009 at 10:42 pm

        StumbleUpon and Delicious are the only SM sites that I've been doing. I suppose I should start on Twitter, but I just haven't gotten my head around on how it fits into my life right now. It's just the time needed to do all this I suppose. It's hard enough to keep up with blog posting, much less post on all the other sites. Oh well, life of a blogger I suppose.

        Reply
        • human3rror
          Saturday, January 17, 2009 at 5:25 pm

          there are strategies to keep them up… maybe i should write about that…

          Reply
          • Bill
            Sunday, January 18, 2009 at 3:43 pm

            That could be an interesting post. Something that I surely need to learn.

            Reply
  3. nick waters
    Thursday, January 15, 2009 at 3:29 pm

    Visuals add urgency/importance to any post's length, "call to action", and style. Be visual (photos, videos, graphics, etc.)!

    Reply
    • human3rror
      Thursday, January 15, 2009 at 3:44 pm

      well said here. pics always make it better!

      Reply
  4. tommy
    Thursday, January 15, 2009 at 10:30 pm

    I do love Intense Debate. Posted about it on my blog: http://www.nerdlets.org/2008/11/26/new-feature-at...

    By the way, the RSS feed for this blog seems to be out-of-whack. I'd love to subscribe, but

    Reply
    • human3rror
      Saturday, January 17, 2009 at 5:25 pm

      did i fix it? check.

      Reply
  5. tjgillies
    Friday, January 16, 2009 at 10:34 am

    i refuse to comment on this post

    Reply
  6. Dewitt
    Tuesday, May 19, 2009 at 9:58 am

    Now I see…Thanks John.

    Reply