It’s good to allow comments on your blog posts!

Over the years, we’ve set up a lot of WordPress sites. A lot. I wish I’d started keeping track, because what’s in our portfolio is pretty far off the number of WordPress sites we’ve created. I would say that the majority of these sites do not have blogs on them, but for those that do, I really encourage people to allow comments.

Why?

A blog starts a conversation. You put your thoughts out there, and then you provide an opportunity for people to respond to those thoughts in the comments. It also allows you to find out more about what your readers want to know, what they think about your writing, and allows you to grow and get better at publishing content. Not only does it allow the readers to interact with each other and learn from other readers, but you get to learn from your readers. That’s the real value.

And if you have comments open, it’s important that you respond to those comments. For example, I once knew a blogger who responded to each and every comment…. via email. She got a lot of comments too, but instead of responding on the blog, she sent each commenter an email. And while I like the thought behind that, that personal touch, it doesn’t give your readers the opportunity to see how you’ve responded to other questions or comments.

Have you ever gone to a blog post that has a tutorial about how to do something and had a question? Then you look into the comments and find someone else had the same question? I have! But what makes me crazy when there’s no response to that question, or even worse, the author has responded saying to email them for more help.

If the original poster had responded to the comment with the answer to the question, then everyone who has the same question would have the answer. It makes me crazy when I see a commenter with the same question as me, but with no answer from the author! Share the knowledge so we can all learn!

Now I’ve had a few clients over the years who haven’t wanted comments open for one reason or another. Maybe they are just posting to share information. One said he’d prefer to respond via Twitter rather than in the comments. And as a faithful Tweeter, I get that… but I disagree. Twitter is a fluid engagement. Your tweets will eventually fade away, but years from now someone could land on your blog post and have the same question. Plus, most of your Twitter conversations are not going to be seen by fellow Twitterers (unless they are all following each other) so you might end up answering the same question a few times over.

And for you blog readers, if you are reading a blog that has good content, then you should take a minute and leave a comment. I myself have been known to be something of a lurker, but I have been making a conscious effort to put my more comments out there. There are a number of reasons to do this. If you are reading good content, it’s nice to let the author know you appreciate their work. Maybe you have something to add to expand the conversation. Maybe you have a different way of doing something that you think the author or other readers would learn from. If you are a blogger who reads other blogs, having insightful comments elsewhere will also increase click throughs back to your own blog. So commenting is good!

Got a comment for me? Go ahead, let me know!