Tips For Getting More Comments | Bloggers Lair | Yakezie Forums

I've had a similar experience lately.  If I'm being honest with myself, a big part of the reason is that I have been slacking when it comes to commenting on the blogs of others.

It could also be in part because of the holidays.  Finding time to comment takes a back seat to keeping up with new content.  Other bloggers, who are the ones who comment the most frequently, could just be more pressed for time.

In regards to commenting on other blogs, what I've noticed (both on receiving and giving) is that it can require a little bit of persistence.  If I see a new person comment, I might not click back to their blog right off the bat, but if I notice that they're commenting regularly, after the third or fourth comment on my blog I will probably click back and give them a look-see.  I agree it's a low ROI but the advantage is that when it works, you tend to get more loyal readers.

As far as your question, one thing I'd recommend is to look at engagement as a whole.  A few years ago, commenting was pretty much the only way to show another blogger that you were trying to engage with them on a 'public' level.  Now, with the explosion of social media, there are other ways. 

My personal goal is to interact with 10-15 other blogs per day.  A few years ago that would have meant 10-15 comments.  Now, I spread that out over comments, Twitter re-shares, Facebook shares, Google+ shares, etc. 

The point being is to ask yourself whether the reduction in comments is offset by an increase in social media interaction.  I know that I probably comment less on your blog, but I know that I re-tweet and such quite often.  In that case, is social media as 'valuable' as comments? 

Thanks MB!  Always interesting to learn about a different perspective.  To me if a blogger takes time to comment, I will return the favor no matter how big or small the blogger is.  I have a blogger who runs a cooking website who sometimes comments on my blog – I read, forward interesting receipes and comment even though my wife doesn't want me anywhere near the kitchen!  

There are times I may not comment if I can't add anything meaningful – for example Canadian tax laws.  In that case, I either tweet the post or wait till the next post from the blogger.  

Of course, I do all this 90% of the time.  I'm sure I've missed a few, but mostly due to forgetfulness rather than anything else.  And I also realize I won't be able to do this if I run a PR6 blog!   

But for now it is manageable, and I will continue doing so.  BTW, Daniel, you were one of the first to reach out to me two or three years back when I was a no-name blogger!  Thanks for that! (I may forget a face, but never a blogger!!) 

It's funny, I actually logged into this forum to ask the same question. 

What happened to all the commenting?  seriously?  I put together a fall/winter team and I've had over 40 PF bloggers sign-on, but commenting on my blog has completely died out.

I so miss my summer team, gave and received lot of love, but the winter team is nothing like the summer team for whatever reason. 

I'm going with Money Beagle's advice and sticking with 4-5 bloggers to comment.  Hope it works.

Thanks.

Daniel, I appreciate you bringing up this topic. Money beagle, I completely resonate with your response. I've moved towards a much broader engagement approach due to time constraints and the breadth of my web business (transition from a blogger to an online business entrepreneur). 

I tweet, retweet and interact a lot on twitter. I also use linked in, facebook, and twitter. I also interact on several other forums when  time permits.

With a limited amount of time, and commenting being so time intensive, I like the opportunities across social media platforms. Also, it gets one's website in front of a lot more eyeballs.

WRT to the commenting groups, I try to weigh in once a week or so, but I've also been on the road 75% of this fall, so I've been kind of lax.

Thanks for bringing up this topic!

Like others have pointed out, I go out of my way to comment on the blogs of people who comment on my blog. Then I go through my list of bloggers I think have interesting content and leave comments. It does take time. It is likely that your comment numbers will drop, as you've observed, if you don't leave comments.

I think everyone is bringing up great points and I've notice that I have less comments now then a month ago too.

I do make an effort to comment on blogs that comment on mine blog. Each day, I set a goal of commenting on 5-10 blogs and I typically will tweet and pinterest each one day. To be fair, I start with the blogs would commented on my recent articles then go to my list of "Favorite Blogs" and comment there. That means that I'm not meeting at many other bloggers though.

So starting today, I decided to use the list of Yakezie members to read current articles and comment there. For everyone on this thread, I'll make an effort to comment on your blogs today too. Some of you I've "met" on your blogs but admittedly, I've forgetten to comment on lately too.

To all those who comment on my blog reguarly, thank you!

Happy Holidays to everyone!

I've never been too concerned with comments.  When it comes to finances, I feel I get a majority of my reader interactions via email because they are more willing to open up about stuff.

Sure it's nice when other bloggers leave comments, but at the end of the day they aren't your target audience.

If I had any suggestions for your blog is to use pictures to help tell the story.  The right picture could help engage the casual reader more and entice them to leave a comment.  

In my experience, comments tend to come from other PF bloggers and this is almost always instigated by you leaving comments on their sites. While this is useful for many reasons, it probably isn't the objective of your site and therefore isn't something that I would be overly concerned about.

SweatingTheBigStuff said:

I don't know why, but people have stopped commenting on my site in the past few months. Is that because the writing isn't engaging anymore? Look at my feed, I think the posts apply to a lot of people and have a personal twist to them, but the comments have disappeared.

Google traffic hasn't changed much recently, but I really would like to network with people more and commenting is usually a great way to do that. What can I do to bring that back? I'm going to be trying to comment on other blogs more often, but in the past when I've done that, it hasn't led to many responses, so it dropped on my priority list.

Please let me know if you have any tips!

I think Sam (Financial Samurai) receives the most comments from what I've noticed. So, I would recommend reading his articles (although I'm sure you already do) and focus on the topics that he does. His articles are always interesting and they often challenge us to think/reflect. 

After reading your 3 most recent articles, for example: How you received $1400 via Credit Card rewards….I'm not sure what I would say to that besides: "Wow, that's awesome." 

I bet if you write an article that's controversial, you'll see an increase in comments. Paying off your mortgage versus investing always gets PF bloggers riled up.