While you may know everything there is to know about driving traffic to your blog, what do you do if none of your readers are actively participating? All the page views mean nothing if your blog remains inactive from a community perspective.
Luckily, there are several steps you can take to begin engaging your blog readers and not only get more comments from them, but build a dedicated community of like-minded people who enjoy reading what you have to say.
1. Content Really Is King
We hear this constantly – “content is king.” There’s a reason this oft-used saying still persists today, folks – because it’s true! If you want to engage your readers, the first thing you need to do is make sure you’re populating your blog with content that’s not only well-written, but on topic and relevant to your readers as well.
By striving to write high-quality posts, you are taking the first critical step towards engaging your readers and making them want to comment on what you have to say.
2. Ask your Readers to Respond
In order to get what we want, oftentimes we just need to ask. If you want your readers to respond to your posts, ask them! You don’t have to come right out and say “Please respond to everything I write,” however.
Instead, make it easy for readers to comment on what you’ve written by including a discussion question at the end. For example, let’s say you’ve just written a post about the “5 Best Digital Cameras Under $150.”
At the end of your post, you can ask your readers to respond with their thoughts on your list, and whether they’d add one you didn’t cover. Sometimes, it’s really that simple to engage readers and get them to begin a discussion!
3. Respond to All Comments
When you do receive a comment, take the time to respond to them in a timely manner. The only way to continue to actively engage your readers and ensure they’ll become repeat commenters is to respond to each and every comment they make.
Ignoring your readers is a serious faux pas, and that’s certainly a quick way to keep them from coming back.
While you can reply with a simple “thank you,” it’s nice to add a personal touch to every reply. This lets the reader know that not only do you appreciate them taking the time to comment, but that you read their thoughts and responded in kind.
You can also ask follow-up questions of your readers who comment, thereby driving even more engagement and reader discussion.
4. Network with Other Bloggers
If you strive to follow other bloggers in your niche and become an active participant in their blog discussions, you are much more likely to gain a few new readers who will respond in kind and leave comments on your blog, too.
Not only will networking with other bloggers drive targeted traffic to your blog, but if you make it a point to leave comments on posts that interest you, the chances are good that those bloggers will return the favor and comment on one of your posts.
Building relationships with other bloggers is one of the best ways to increase reader engagement, and should definitely not be overlooked.
These relationships will increase your social proof, which will be especially helpful as you build your brand.
5. Make it Easy for Readers to Comment
If you want to encourage engagement on your blog, you need to make it easy for readers to leave comments! Too many bloggers have annoying set-ups for commenting, such as log-in and captcha forms.
While this might help eliminate spam, it’s annoying for a reader to have to go through this process each and every time they comment.
Instead, make it as easy as possible for your readers to leave comments. A reader-friendly setup will ensure you get more comments than not, and will increase the chances of reader engagement – especially if you follow all of the previous tips, as well.
Creating a Successful Blog
Engaging your blog readers doesn’t have to be a difficult process. These five simple steps are really all it takes to drive reader comments and create a sense of community among your readership.
If you haven’t employed any of these tactics before, it may take some time to notice a difference, but with dedication and effort you can engage your blog readers.
So how are things going with your blog? Are you struggling to engage readers, or are you successfully building your blog?
I just launched my new blog this week. Steps #1 and #4 are the more difficult ones for me, but I’ll have to push myself and get cracking. The majority of what I’m currently executing I learned from you and the Copyblogger team. It’s very exciting!
Huge congrats on the launch Tony, well done!
Thanks for the comments about me and what you’ve learned from Copyblogger. Love the color scheme you chose for your website, they work really well for the niche you’re in!
Thanks Brian, I appreciate the feedback! Got to love the navy blue/orange combo.
Tony, I like your new website. Good stuff!
Hey thanks Charles! I really like what you did on your site. Totally rocked it!
Thanks. It continues to be (and I’m sure always will be) a work in progress.
While I might not realize all the the benefits behind these five points, I seem to have implemented some of them. My site have content and I also have a rather unique way to sort of driving traffic to it via a piece of software. I also ask the readers to respond but so far, I’ve only got one good response and the rest are just spammers trying to promo some websites you often see in spam emails.
I am really struggling hard to win some fans and commenters. Would it be too much if someone can take a quick look at my site and let me know how I can improve it to better engage the readers?
The web address is: http://www.ipUpTime.net
Many thanks.
Brian Dao
This has been a bit of a struggle for me and my blog (confession time). While I do generate a fair amount of regular traffic, the readers simply haven’t been commenting or willing to engage further. This might be due to the type of content I produce, but it’s probably my fault. I’m brainstorming this one still.
I’m getting ready to reorganize my main blog on June 1st and, hopefully, this will alleviate some of the problems that have plagued me in the past.
I’ve come to the conclusion that a lot of people are a) not interested in certain things I write about and b) more interested in other things I write about. What that tells me is that I need to focus and hone in on the topics that spark conversation.
This became evident to me a while back when I tweeted something personal and received a few replies, yet when I asked about a particular Appel product, I was inundated with responses.
Yes, it does seem that blogging tends to be a bit of trial & error.
For some bloggers, one approach works extremely well. For others, it’s a dead end. It seems that the blogging niche, the type of content consistently generated, and how it is all packaged together determine what works well and what doesn’t. The, um, fun part is trying to discern the best approach for each person.
Charles
I have a couple of blogs.
First one is a Public Speaking blog that gets hundreds of comments on a single post and never made me a penny.
Second site is a web design blog where I have Copyblogger affiliate links. I get very few comments, but the affiliate earnings are starting to do really well.
There is a saying in golf that you drive for show and put for dough.
Maybe there should be an equivalent saying for bloggers.
“The affiliate earnings are starting to do really well…”
That’s outstanding Keith, congrats on that.
Maybe you’ll be ordering Synthesis Hosting after all!
Charles, when you reorganize the blog, you might want to consider bridging the gap between the end of posts and Disqus comments. The tags seem to take up a lot of space. If it were me, I’d simply leave ShareThis, Feedburner, and the Genesis box (if you’re really bold, leave out the Genesis box and throw a 250×250 on the sidebar). This might make it easier for more people to comment.
Just my two cents
I really like what you did with the site!
Tony, that’s very helpful. There is wisdom in many counselors. Other eyes see what mine just plain miss. Thanks!
It’s not easy, that’s for sure. My blog is well designed with your eleven 40 theme and it becomes more popular but the high numbers stay out. I use disqus for my comments, is that a mistake? A good commenting box is hard to find for wordpress i think. Genesis with eleven 40 is not compatible with buddypress i think? With disqus you have facebook login etc but will that make a change? I’m writing articles in dutch so my audiance is not that big but i believe it must be possible to have a succesfull dutch blog. Or maybe i have to translate it to english but that’s also not easy? So what to do? LOL
Robby, I use Disqus and love it. It seems to be the preferred commenting system by many high-profile bloggers out there.
There are translation plugins/services you could use. Who knows, I may love to read you stuff, but I don’t speak Dutch.
However, the translation keeps in english on top of the post, very strange. Where can i adjust that?
Lots of talk about Livefyre being the way to increase / get comments moving.
I did try it some time ago, but had a few technical problems – reverted back to native WP comments.
Tempted to give it another try.
Any thoughts?
Oh man, Livefyre is the way to go! In my humble opinion, of course. Simple design, works seamlessly with social media, and the new Livefyre 3 coming out soon has some awesome features, including a rich text editor (brilliant!).
Thanks Tony
Might give it another try?????
I have a friend who swears by it, bit I’ve never used it yet.
Certainly, asking for commenting at the end of your post is very crucial if you want your readers to comment and I am agree with you that content is the king, if you are producing content that mostly help your readers to solve their issues than you got to able your readers trust and certainly if you responding in comments that makes your credibility through your blog.
Great tips and thanks for sharing!
I’ve been learning how to blog for a while now but really have not written anything on a regular basis until recently. My blog has been redesigned and more work will come soon to make it look better. I’ve implanted some of the points you’ve mentioned here but still have a lot of work to do.
I recently changed the direction of my blog from random thoughts (never good) to focused posts about the writing process. So you could say I’m at the beginning stage of building the blog and readership. These tips are perfect reminders, thanks!
Heh, welcome to my world.
I’m starting to think that random thoughts are meant for social media, and anything but (ie focused posts) belong on a blog.
That’s a great way to think about it. The random thoughts HAVE to come out somewhere.
Definitely great tips. Maintaining a good number of visitors in your blog should be your prime and basic thing to do. Only then your blog will get success. For that it is important that you convert your visitors into daily visitors. They will visit if you keep you contents upto dated and also the article should be helpful. Same with the case of comments also. A good comment ( or a helpful reply ) to the users comment will engage the readers and if he finds it useful, he will visit again. In this way your blog can be successful. Thanks for the share.!!
My daily pageviews are slowly rising! Thanks for the tips
Would like to add “update regularly” – obviously keeping quality very high one your list. Encourage your readers to submit a blog post. Also try and attract guest bloggers and even use your friend network to add different perspectives.
my 2 cents!
@thehaironfirepm