My blog has been getting around 3k hits per day average lately. However, very rarely do people comment. It's nice to have the traffic but wondering what really drives folks to leave a comment on a blog.
1) Ask people to comment. This is simple and stupidly effective for a few seconds of work. (As always, A/B test if you don't believe me.)
2) Engineer it such that the experience of commenting fills a need for people. People use comments to be validated, to mark out tribes, to cast other people out of tribes, to get questions answered, to form relationships, to blow off steam, to demonstrate expertise, etc etc. Figure out what motivates the users, then figure out how giving them what they want advances your interests.
3) Consider carefully whether getting twice as many blog comments as you do currently would improve your life in any way.
rel. to 2), also figure out which one you would actually like on your site. Depending on how you design things, you will get different commenting behavior.
On my perosnal blog I actually chose not to have any comments system, partly because I'm using Jekyll, a static site generator, and I chose loading time over encorporating a PHP or JS comments system, and partly also because, if someone has interesting enough to say, they can take the effort to let me know on twitter/email.
I work for a publishing company, however, and I've found that the single biggest impact on comments, site traffic excluded, is the features your comments system offers.
Of our eight websites, the site with the best rate of comments is also the one with the most sophisticated comments system. Taking last week's statistics as an example, it averaged one comment for every 30 page views, which is one comment for every five site visits. It actually saw slightly more comments than unique visitors. That's a pretty impressive achievement in my eyes, and while not the whole story, it is thanks largely to the way commenting works.
The comments system on that site is a custom solution, created with AJAX/PHP, which dynamicly loads comments on page load. Among the best features are:
- unread comments highlighted a specific colour (on our site, based on user accounts, could be based on IPs easily)
- article lists / home page / etc shows comment numbers next to article links, including number of unread comments for the specific user viewing it
- a panel showing the ten items most recently commented on
- users can reply to a specific comment, this notifies the user they reply to
On this site, the key goals of the comments system are to inrease user experience for regular visitors to the site, and to drive traffic, however for smaller sites such as personal blogs, it could also help in other ways. I for one never comment on personal blogs because I know I'll forget to check for replies - why not allow email subscription for less-frequent readers, or specific notification of a reply directly to a comment a user left?
That's my biggest tip then: think in terms of "how can I make the commenting system more efficient, usably and enjoyable for my users?" - but of course, there are many other considerations, such as writing content that is more likely to inspire user discussion and feedback.
You might just need more traffic. If you take a look at this story on my blog about sleeping on long flights (http://blog.jgc.org/2010/06/how-to-sleep-on-long-haul-flight...) you'll see that it has 14 comments. A quick look in Google Analytics says that it had 22,994 page views. So one comment per 1,600 page views.
I get about 1 comment and 1100 page views a day, which is a similar ratio. Thanks to an Intense Debate/Feedburner bug (FB adds ?=... to the end of the article link in the RSS and ID treats it as a different page for comments) I've noticed I actually get a lot of my comments from my 1600ish subscribers though.
The only reasons I comment on a blog:
1) I am hoping for a response from the author. Usually this happens when it's a 'celebrity' ala Fred Wilson from AVC or something along those lines.
2) I feel bad for the guy not having any comments and try to help him out.
Unfortunately there's a paradox online where people link from sites like HN then come back to the community they trust to comment. Once you have enough people reading your blog that feel passionate about it (not just browse + leave), start adding some calls to action at the bottom. Encourage people to share their own stories and be very specific.
Examples (based on your username):
1) "Have you been food poisoned by croutons? Tell us about it in the comments!"
2) "Do you have a favorite salad dressing? Let us know!"
The first part should always be a question that probes for a personal story. Everyone has their own opinion/story about something, you want to draw it out of them! The second part should be a very positive 'we want to hear from you' type vibe and always include a link to the comments.
"Do you work with a charity in your salon? Leave a comment with your best “feel good” story!"
Obviously this is targeted at salon owners and not HN readers. My first sentence draws them in with a 'does this apply to you?' The second sentence encourages a comment and gives a solid idea of WHAT to comment about. This is super important because people need to be told what to do, especially when commenting. Very few people will respond to a 'leave us a comment' post.
I really don't think bloggers should expect comments. In my experience blog comments fall into three categories.
1. People who want something from the author (notice, funding, what have you).
2. People who think the blogger is an idiot and feel the need to argue with them.
3. Personal friends of the blogger.
There are People who actually want to discuss the issue but they tend to gravitate towards communities where they know they'll get intelligent debate (like HN).
So unless you're a celebrity and big enough to have a whole community established around your blog you should really feel grateful for no comments. It means people don't think you're an idiot and that you're smart enough to not interact with your friends through a blog.
1) Write something is so unfathomable wrong that prompts people to respond, correcting you.
2) Write about something that appeals to people's ideologies, and be sure to go against the most popular creed. Examples: "HTML5 is bad"; "Apple is Evil"; anything about how some aspect of programming should be done
I've enabled the Backtype Connect WordPress plugin until I get more comments on my blog - the plugin pulls conversations from social media sites and Twitter mentions and posts them as comments. This makes it seem like posts have a ton of comments when in reality, they only have a handful. It's a slightly deceptive but I think the psychological effect the reader has is worth it (but I could be wrong).
Personally I find that when I see twitter posts like "RT" and links to the post.. it influences me to NOT comment because I know those people aren't going to talk back.
Aside from content and traffic, it's important to lower the barrier for people that may want to comment. I'm not sure what you're using now, but nobody wants to make an account, and people generally like being e-mailed if someone replies to them. DISQUS is a very easy win there. The list goes on, but I don't want to turn this into an informercial.
Some of your features are great, but my personal view is that your solution is suitible for people who don't understand how to get the best out of their websites. I'd far rather maintain full control over the features I do/don't have, and full control over the database and how I access that data.
I see what you are saying, but that is not the result I have observed. Most sites that I have seen using disqus don't have a lot of comments, or they at least not a lot of valuable comments. The best commented sites I have seen have been basic wordpress sites.
I don't think that means that people like to make a new login for each site, I think it means that there is more to creating a contributing community on your blog than lowering the barrier to entry.
Also consider that blogs get different comment rates depending on what they are about.
My wife's blog gets about 10+ comments per post with only 100-300 uniques per day. Sometimes a traffic spike will bring in a bunch of extra hits, but the amount of comments left after the spike depends on who was coming in. If it was a bunch of web developers or something: zero comments, even over thousands of hits.
A minor conclusion I draw from this is that blog comments come from community people, visitors and fans who keep coming back.
The "jadedness" of the community is a far bigger factor though. Some people are on a quest to consume, and not necessarily to participate.
Get people to know to comment. Right now you are falling prey to the empty restaurant effect. There's a cognitive barrier to be the first/only person to comment on a site that is perceived to be empty. So have some friends of yours comment as a favor to you, and other people will start. This little site that I run (http://impishidea.com/) has only somewhat higher traffic than you currently, but gets a lot more comments. The "8 new comments today." counter was a big help, because people were able to see evidence of new comments.
They are great if you can build a community of regular posters. A lot of the financial bloggers have great comments, sometimes more valuable than the post itself. Check out http://www.nakedcapitalism.com.
I think that is the reason that tech crunch and MSNBC get no valuable comments, and blogs like the one above get great comments.
For the most part I would agree with you, however every now and then you do see some truly interesting follow-ups, feedback and discussion in comments. It depends on the subject of your blog, the subject of the specific post in question, and the type of readers you have, really.
Good point about the traffic. I was going based on daily traffic not on total traffic to that specific post.
My blog is a special interest photo blog so that might also have something to do with it.
Perhaps because we decided to have little commentary, and focus on the photos, the reader also feels no commentary is necessary.
Often you need someone to start the conversation and set a positive tone. ProComments http://www.procomments.com is an option (full disclosure: it's my startup).
The service is 100% confidential and provides intelligent comments that add value and insight to your blog post.
ProComments also provides comments for YouTube videos and Facebook pages.
Often you need someone to start the conversation and set a positive tone.
Do you have any stats to back this up? Unless the responses you're providing actually contribute to the conversation in a meaningful way, I really don't see how just "getting the ball rolling" does any good.
Interesting concept, wouldn't want it on a blog of mine, though.
Out of interest, do you just offer to post the first comment, or could someone for example ask for 100 comments on a single youtube video, making it look like lots of users commenting on it?
[+] [-] patio11|16 years ago|reply
2) Engineer it such that the experience of commenting fills a need for people. People use comments to be validated, to mark out tribes, to cast other people out of tribes, to get questions answered, to form relationships, to blow off steam, to demonstrate expertise, etc etc. Figure out what motivates the users, then figure out how giving them what they want advances your interests.
3) Consider carefully whether getting twice as many blog comments as you do currently would improve your life in any way.
[+] [-] lkozma|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] corin_|16 years ago|reply
I work for a publishing company, however, and I've found that the single biggest impact on comments, site traffic excluded, is the features your comments system offers.
Of our eight websites, the site with the best rate of comments is also the one with the most sophisticated comments system. Taking last week's statistics as an example, it averaged one comment for every 30 page views, which is one comment for every five site visits. It actually saw slightly more comments than unique visitors. That's a pretty impressive achievement in my eyes, and while not the whole story, it is thanks largely to the way commenting works.
The comments system on that site is a custom solution, created with AJAX/PHP, which dynamicly loads comments on page load. Among the best features are:
- unread comments highlighted a specific colour (on our site, based on user accounts, could be based on IPs easily)
- article lists / home page / etc shows comment numbers next to article links, including number of unread comments for the specific user viewing it
- a panel showing the ten items most recently commented on
- users can reply to a specific comment, this notifies the user they reply to
On this site, the key goals of the comments system are to inrease user experience for regular visitors to the site, and to drive traffic, however for smaller sites such as personal blogs, it could also help in other ways. I for one never comment on personal blogs because I know I'll forget to check for replies - why not allow email subscription for less-frequent readers, or specific notification of a reply directly to a comment a user left?
That's my biggest tip then: think in terms of "how can I make the commenting system more efficient, usably and enjoyable for my users?" - but of course, there are many other considerations, such as writing content that is more likely to inspire user discussion and feedback.
[+] [-] jgrahamc|16 years ago|reply
Another blog post, about messing around with an Ikea train set (http://www.jgc.org/blog/2010/01/more-fun-with-toys-ikea-lill...) received 26 comments and has 56,373 pages views. So one comment per 2,200 page views.
One last example about squaring numbers in your head (http://www.jgc.org/blog/2010/03/squaring-two-digit-numbers-i...) has 15 comments and 21,380 page views. One comment every 1,400 page views.
So, more traffic helps. What's the URL of your blog?
[+] [-] petewarden|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bdickason|16 years ago|reply
2) I feel bad for the guy not having any comments and try to help him out.
Unfortunately there's a paradox online where people link from sites like HN then come back to the community they trust to comment. Once you have enough people reading your blog that feel passionate about it (not just browse + leave), start adding some calls to action at the bottom. Encourage people to share their own stories and be very specific.
Examples (based on your username): 1) "Have you been food poisoned by croutons? Tell us about it in the comments!"
2) "Do you have a favorite salad dressing? Let us know!"
The first part should always be a question that probes for a personal story. Everyone has their own opinion/story about something, you want to draw it out of them! The second part should be a very positive 'we want to hear from you' type vibe and always include a link to the comments.
Here's a (shameless plug) example from my blog: http://getmochi.com/blog/fighting-the-gulf-oil-spill-one-hai...
"Do you work with a charity in your salon? Leave a comment with your best “feel good” story!"
Obviously this is targeted at salon owners and not HN readers. My first sentence draws them in with a 'does this apply to you?' The second sentence encourages a comment and gives a solid idea of WHAT to comment about. This is super important because people need to be told what to do, especially when commenting. Very few people will respond to a 'leave us a comment' post.
[+] [-] SamAtt|16 years ago|reply
1. People who want something from the author (notice, funding, what have you).
2. People who think the blogger is an idiot and feel the need to argue with them.
3. Personal friends of the blogger.
There are People who actually want to discuss the issue but they tend to gravitate towards communities where they know they'll get intelligent debate (like HN).
So unless you're a celebrity and big enough to have a whole community established around your blog you should really feel grateful for no comments. It means people don't think you're an idiot and that you're smart enough to not interact with your friends through a blog.
[+] [-] not_an_alien|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mdolon|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bdickason|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bretthoerner|16 years ago|reply
Aside from content and traffic, it's important to lower the barrier for people that may want to comment. I'm not sure what you're using now, but nobody wants to make an account, and people generally like being e-mailed if someone replies to them. DISQUS is a very easy win there. The list goes on, but I don't want to turn this into an informercial.
[+] [-] corin_|16 years ago|reply
Still a nice service for some, though :)
[+] [-] mattmiller|16 years ago|reply
I don't think that means that people like to make a new login for each site, I think it means that there is more to creating a contributing community on your blog than lowering the barrier to entry.
[+] [-] clord|16 years ago|reply
My wife's blog gets about 10+ comments per post with only 100-300 uniques per day. Sometimes a traffic spike will bring in a bunch of extra hits, but the amount of comments left after the spike depends on who was coming in. If it was a bunch of web developers or something: zero comments, even over thousands of hits.
A minor conclusion I draw from this is that blog comments come from community people, visitors and fans who keep coming back.
The "jadedness" of the community is a far bigger factor though. Some people are on a quest to consume, and not necessarily to participate.
[+] [-] SlyShy|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jrockway|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mattmiller|16 years ago|reply
I think that is the reason that tech crunch and MSNBC get no valuable comments, and blogs like the one above get great comments.
[+] [-] corin_|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] philwelch|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tptacek|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] crouton|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] enki|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] NEPatriot|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] revorad|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] phreanix|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] crouton|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rradu|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lleger|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hotmind|16 years ago|reply
The service is 100% confidential and provides intelligent comments that add value and insight to your blog post.
ProComments also provides comments for YouTube videos and Facebook pages.
[+] [-] tcdent|16 years ago|reply
Do you have any stats to back this up? Unless the responses you're providing actually contribute to the conversation in a meaningful way, I really don't see how just "getting the ball rolling" does any good.
[+] [-] corin_|16 years ago|reply
Out of interest, do you just offer to post the first comment, or could someone for example ask for 100 comments on a single youtube video, making it look like lots of users commenting on it?
[+] [-] napierzaza|16 years ago|reply