Blog Friday: Growing Your Blog Comments

When starting a blog one of the greatest moments and achievements for any new blogger is your first comment from someone you don't know. It's like opening a present Christmas morning; "Someone I don't know reads my blog!! Yay!" But if you are wondering "How come some blogs have soooo many comments?" there are two factors to that.
One, this blog is being read by thousands of people every day, or two, the person who writes this blog is constantly commenting on other blogs. And I believe that both are as valuable because even though the second seems like the "hard work" road, you have to understand that it means that others are also reading your blog and best of all they are commenting back. Comments are important because it creates community and conversation, and also because it shows you or the readers you actually care.

So here are some tips that might help your commenting rate go up:

1. Comment on Blogs You Read: A habit I've gotten myself used to is to comment after reading a blog post. Even if the blog is big or small this is a great way for people to know your blog even exists, either the people who come to read that blog or the writer of the blog themselves.

2. Create Relationships with Bloggers who Comment on your Blog: A great way to create relationships with the people who comment on your blog is to comment back on their blog. I've created some amazing relationships with other bloggers through comments, and the way I keep up with their blogs is through Bloglovin'. I've created a separate group on Bloglovin' called "Blog Relationships" with people that comment on my blog so I can read their new posts and comment on theirs.

3. Reply to Comments Left on Your Blog: There are some blogs that have such a huge following that there is NO WAY they can comment back to every single person that comments on their blog. However, let's face it, if you really want to grow the amount of comments on your blog, I'm guessing you have the time to reply to someone who took their time to comment on your blog, or to go comment on theirs. People want to be acknowledged, people want to know that what they said mattered.

4. Leave your Blog's Link in the Comment: Leaving your blog's link is a great way for people to easily trace your blog. You can leave just the link, or if you are commenting on a Blogger blog you can hyper link your link. For example: http://juliwilliams.com or hyper linked: juliwilliams.com This helps people just click on your link and take them right to your blog.

To hyper link:
<a href="INSERT http:// LINK HERE">INSERT BLOG'S NAME HERE</a>
 Like this:
<a href="http://juliwilliams.com">Juli Williams Blog</a>
After you've inserted your link and your blog's name, copy and paste to your comment. *Remember this only works with Blogger blogs only.

I hope this post was helpful, til' next time. :)