Let your commenters know you appreciate them!
August 13th, 2007 by ses5909Looks like you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed so you don't miss a single conversation! Thanks for visiting!
As bloggers, the best kind of visitors are return visitors. In the business world, it is much easier to keep a current customer than to get a new one. So how do we turn our new visitors into return ones? Well, we need to make them feel welcome!
When people come to our house for the first time, we go out of our way to make them feel welcome in our home. We offer them a drink or something to eat, clean up a little beforehand and when they leave, we thank them for coming. You really need to treat your commenters the same way. It’s a great thing when someone takes the time to first READ what you had to say much less make a comment, so when that happens we need to let them know we appreciate their time and encourage them to do it again. So how do we do that? There are plenty of ways!
- Respond! - When someone writes a comment, take the time to comment in return. You don’t need to respond after every comment, but at least thank everyone for commenting and if a comment requires some feedback from you, make sure you provide that!
- Send a thank you email - I know, I know. You have to comment AND send a thank you email? Well no, but sending a thank you email the first time someone comments on your blog is a really nice thing. There is a great Wordpress Plugin called Comment Relish that does just that. I don’t know if the other platforms have something similar, but the commenter will only get a thank you the first time they make a comment, so don’t worry, you aren’t spamming them. It’s just an added touch and when there are 1000s of other blogs out there that your commenter can read, you want to make sure that you stand out from the rest!
- Share the link love - Most blogging platforms have the nofollow tag in your comment section so the commenters don’t really benefit at all from your posting the comment. There are plenty of plugins out there that remove the nofollow tag from your comment links. There is a lot of controversy out there regarding this right now though because people think people are commenting JUST for the link or that it encourages spam comments. This is up for you to decide. I choose to thank my commenters by installing the Link Love plugin. What makes this plugin different from other dofollow plugins is it only removes the nofollow tag after someone makes 10 comments. This is modifiable and I have mine set to 3.
- Thank your top commenters - You can do this by periodically by either emailing them, making a post thanking them or there is a plugin that many people use called the Top Commentators plugin. This basically puts a link in your sidebar to your top commenters. I don’t use this one personally; I’d rather use one of the dofollow for all of my commenters; not just the ones that are extremely active.
Now, tell me, how do you reward your commenters?
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August 13th, 2007 at 5:04 am
I was just thinking about this the other day! People have been commenting on my blog and I show the love by visiting theirs and commenting on their posts. I have also emailed readers and then responded to the discussion they have opened up in my comments section. It’s what I call comment etiquette
August 13th, 2007 at 6:24 am
I’m glad you wrote this. I feel like now I know how to be nice to my visitors.
I hope I have been but there was a new visitor the other day and I didn’t comment back(too busy!). I think I need one of these plugins!
August 13th, 2007 at 8:52 am
Nice points. Thanking your commentators is a big part of running a blog, because without them, you don’t have a blog. Commentators like to know their thoughts didn’t go unnoticed. I say thanks to all my comments in the form of a comment in the same article and I have a top commentators list on each page of my site, so if you comment, you get a free link back.
I’m planning on starting a monthly post where I specifically thank all my top commentators too.
August 14th, 2007 at 7:36 am
Excellent entry. Previously I haven’t really done a whole lot to thank my visitors other than mention a comment here and there. Lately, I’ve enabled both the ‘follow’ attribute as well as the top commentators plug in and I’ve seen a huge spike in happy participation. Coincidence?
I think that you bring up a couple of great points in this post, especially with sharing link love and responding to their comments. Showing your readers that you are human is a must.
August 14th, 2007 at 9:20 am
@Megan - Comment Etiquette…I LIKE it!
@mccormicky - Happy to be of service ma’am
@Deron - You have excellent “comment etiquette”. I’ve seen it in action!
@Paul - Thanks! and I definitely doubt it is a coincidence!
August 15th, 2007 at 3:08 pm
I’m thinking about outsourcing my appreciation section. Save me some time
August 17th, 2007 at 1:12 pm
Only you Mark!
August 18th, 2007 at 7:55 am
Thanks to this post I am sending a thank you email to people that visit my blog at http://www.fam5.com.
Keep up the great work and always look forward to reading your blog.
Thanks
JB
August 18th, 2007 at 10:40 am
I am sad to see that this blog does have a nofollow attribute on the external links. It would be even better to thank the commentators by giving them a “clean” link. I have placed the “You comment I follow” banner on my site and also disabled the nofollow attribute.
Putting a clean link to my commentators is something good. Also the top commentator’s plugin is an awesome one to use. It’s set on 1 so far (they make 1 post and are in the top). I’ll increase the ‘requirement’ as we grow and hope I’ll be able to keep it there, even after having more and more visitors. I also struggle to get into such charts in other blogs (with thoughtful comments), but it’s another great way to earn your link on the index page.
I agree .. we have to learn to share some “link love” and do it nicely. We are growing our blogs through the people who come and comment. It’s nice to share something in return
August 18th, 2007 at 1:05 pm
@Jeff - I’m glad this helped!
@Dojo - I actually do follow, but I use link love so in the no follow tag gets removed after someone has made three comments on the blog. For example, if you look at the source behind Paul’s link above, you will see that he doesn’t have a nofollow tag in his. You can read more about this particular plugin in the post above
But I do agree, link love should be spread and I’m definitely interested in doing that!
August 19th, 2007 at 2:16 pm
[…] - Sara says let your commenters know you appreciate them! […]
November 13th, 2007 at 10:58 am
[…] think this makes a nice-follow up to Sara’s post let your commenters know you appreciate them, because, right now, I definitely feel appreciated! Thanks, again, Amit! You’ve made my […]