Comments Are Important or Not? Blogging Without Comments
Comments Are Important or Not: Blogging Without Comments
Do Comments on your Site Contribute to or Detract From the Content?
Ever since blogging first began, People Have been Asking This Question.
There are some who firmly believe that comments Enhance Your Credibility And Keep You in contact with your Audience.
The opposing viewpoint contends that the time required to process comments is superfluous, particularly in light of the compensation.
Which party is therefore correct?
Sadly, there isn’t a clear-cut solution in this circumstance.
A few years ago, I discussed blog comments, with varying degrees of success.
My aggregate word count increased on every page with comments when I averaged out the number of comments each post, which improved my Google traffic figures.
I was receiving about sixteen percent of my search traffic from comments at the time. That’s not a huge amount, but it’s undoubtedly respectable.
Was the time and work required for comment moderation genuinely worth it?
Let’s investigate.
How enabling remarks on your blog can enhance it
According to Pat Flynn of The Smart Passive Income Blog, if you don’t allow comments, blogging isn’t genuinely blogging.
“A successful blog does not come without its readers,” he said. Making them feel heard is the least we can do.
50 to 100 comments are frequently left on Pat’s postings. Some even receive more than 300 comments.
It follows that he most likely has some experience with remarks.
He’s got a point, too. A blog’s feeling more social can be accomplished through the use of comments.
Once, Michael Hyatt removed his blog’s remarks area. However, he reinstated them after a year because he believed it enhanced the relatability of his blog.
He has gone so far as to construct a community policy that specifies which comments are approved or rejected.
In 2016, Copyblogger reinstated comments, which had been disabled for over two years.
I now leave comments enabled on my entries.
This is because I believe comments can enhance my website in a few ways.
A short list of the best ones is provided here.
- Social proof takes the form of comments.
Copyblogger disabled comments Because they believed the conversation was Taking place Somewhere else.
They believed that their social media pages were receiving more messages from individuals than Their Comments Area.
However, remark systems have changed much since then.
Disqus, for instance, will work with social networking platforms to help Refer back Comments on your Blog.
This means that the discussion can now take place on your blog as well as elsewhere on the internet.
This offers you a fantastic opportunity to develop a community both on your site and within the comment system of your choice.
And that lends your blog a level of legitimacy that you would not find elsewhere.
- You can network and share information by leaving comments.
I’m aware that spam comments will always exist.
However, the majority of valid remarks include knowledge, resources, and other insights that I find to be really beneficial.
Individuals frequently include links to pertinent content on their blogs or from other websites.
They might also share insightful opinions about particular subjects or anecdotes about what has previously worked for them.
Leaving comments on blogs is a terrific way to meet other influencers and discover new blogs.
For instance, I frequently advise people to get in contact with influencers by suggesting relevant themes when I discuss guest blogging.
One of the best places to establish these types of connections with influencers is through the comments area.
You might be thinking, “Hey, this person forgot to mention this point, but I have some thoughts on that,” when you reach the conclusion of an article.
Spreading the discourse can be accomplished by leaving a constructive remark or by including a link to another article.
It has the potential to strengthen your connections with other people and the blogger.
- Comments transform your site into an active, dynamic resource.
Fabrizio Van Marciano compares consuming bread to blogging.
He makes the comparison between blogging and toast without marmalade and butter. It lacks flavor. It is uninspiring.
However, blogging fosters an involvement that tastes as delicious as warm, buttery toast.
Why do you think I typically wrap up my blogs with a question?
I want a response from everyone.
It gives them a means of interaction that goes beyond reading what I have to say. It fires up a discussion.
Frequently, blogging is a one-way street. Talking indefinitely on a subject without any feedback is like shouting into a dark room.
Add comments to your website to breathe some vitality into it.
Transform an article into a genuine dialogue.
But it’s not all grandeur and shine. Remarks have the potential to backfire on uncommon occasions.
These are a handful of the finest ones.
When receiving Feedback isn’t Really Helpful
Do comments function on every blog 100% of the time? Not always.
Many well-known bloggers continue to exist without comment sections.
On his blog, Seth Godin does not accept comments. Never has, and never will.
Another well-known blog without a comment section is Zen Habits.
Thus, opinions on whether or not blog comments are always beneficial are divided.
Sometimes the effort may not be worth the results.
Here are some explanations for why you might want to disable the comments.
Comments tend to attract a lot of spam.
Spam is one of the main problems with comments.
Usually, you may identify it by the peculiar “from” names. Frequently, these will have strange, meaningless words in the comment section.
No matter how large or tiny your blog is, you will nearly always receive spam from bots.
However, spammers are easy to spot.
Typical indicators of spam bots are:
- Commercial keywords in place of a real name in the “Name” section or URLs that look spammy
- Completely irrelevant remarks that are unconnected to the subject of your post
- Remarks in a language other than the one you posted in Mostly link-based comments
- The good news is that moderating these comments is not too difficult.
You may configure your discussion comments on a WordPress blog, for instance, to weed out spam bots.
Conversely, human spammers are a little more difficult to identify.
They usually go by regular names, and they might even be Actual Blog Readers.
However, their main concern is putting links pointing back to their own website, not answering queries or discussing the content of the post.
In the realm of commenters, they are the “check-me-outs.”
It’s not harmful to provide backlinks to other websites or blogs.
Occasionally, people do this action because they believe their writing on the subject covers a point that the post neglected.
However, it becomes spam when done just to increase traffic.
It is far more difficult to moderate these comments. Sorting through all of the other legitimate comments to separate the manual spam ones takes a long time.
And that brings me to my next point.
It may take some time to moderate comments correctly.
It might be a huge time waster to moderate your comment area.
Not even plugins and technologies for spam control will catch everything.
However, a 99.95% accuracy rate against spam bots does not guarantee that your human spammers will be caught.
A human spammer is a commenter with an agenda, just like any other.
This implies that it is up to you to filter those remarks.
This is particularly true if posts don’t appear in your comment section until they have been approved.
Occasionally, commenters leave multiple comments because they are unaware that their remarks must be approved before they appear.
This simply jams your comment system and increases the amount of time you have to spend moderation.
Fortunately, commenting platforms such as Disqus do offer some additional features to help ease this process.
Of course, not all of the spam comments will be caught by these, though.
Thus, it will unavoidably remain a daily task for you to go through your comments.
Not all comments generate traffic or interaction.
Upon conducting my experiment, I discovered that my comments section did indeed generate some traffic.
However, this isn’t always the case for all blogs and writers.
One security company discovered in a 2016 analysis that 51.8% of website traffic originates from bots.
This includes useful bots (like Google’s bots) and other web crawlers that gather useful data, such as Facebook’s Newsfeed Crawler. But spam bots are also a part of it.
It’s likely that a significant portion of the traffic to your website that originates from the comments section is created by bots, whose posts are automatically blocked.
The well accepted “90-9-1” rule, which asserts that 90% of people will have nothing to say, 9% will have something to say, and 1% will have the most to say, should also be taken into account.
In other words, 90% of visitors to your website are probably just “lurkers” who won’t leave any comments.
Your traffic will only account for 1-9% of total participation.
It’s possible that 1,000 people view your content, but only 10 of them will leave a remark.
It’s possible that those few commenters don’t represent your intended audience or don’t offer insightful criticism.
For certain blogs, this might not be worth it in addition to the time involved in moderating.
How to choose how to respond to your remarks
Though not everyone may share my enthusiasm at having a comment section on my site, I do.
“What matters the most to me?” is a crucial question that you must ultimately ask yourself.
What is your desired duration for comment moderation?
Spam will always need to be moderated.
It will take time to approve or reject comments. Some, although not usually a lot.
At the absolute least, especially if it’s a personal blog, you should be responding to comments even if you’re not regulating spam.
You might want to either keep your comments disabled or hire someone else to do this if you are unable to dedicate time to it on a regular basis.
To what extent do you think your comment sections are valuable?
Not every remark will be beneficial.
You might receive excellent feedback like this, which can help you make your postings even better:
Additionally, you might get some general recognition:
But most of the time, all you’ll receive is the typical “Thank you” or “Nice post!”
Even though it’s always good to have people enjoy your posts, they don’t always offer much value.
To find out how you truly feel, you must consider the benefits vs the drawbacks.
The majority of my commenters are kind and helpful, so I’m happy to do it.
Do you think people would rather communicate with you on social media?
Even though many comment systems include social media, it’s still critical to monitor engagement channels.
Michael Hyatt discovered that he was receiving more interaction on social media than on his blog when he first disabled his comments.
His social media accounts continue to generate a good deal of engagement.
This could also apply to you.
You might discover that you have more direct access to your audience through Facebook or Twitter than through blog comments.
However, like Michael, you could discover that blogging and social media interaction are helpful.
Choose a comment system that is integrated with social media platforms if you enjoy the concept of interacting with your audience.
How to promote constructive criticism on your blogs
You will need to figure out how to promote non-spam comments if you wind up on Team Comments.
One thing you will need to consider is traffic volume, as just 1% of your total audience is likely to leave a remark.
Your comments section will probably be minimal if you are only receiving 100 visits each day.
You may receive 10 or so comments for every 1,000 visits (probably less).
However, if you attract 10,000 or even 100,000 visits, you should see a respectable level of engagement.
Therefore, increasing blog traffic is the first step.
Additionally, you want to eliminate as much spam as you can from your comment box.
As I previously stated, if you have a WordPress website, you may utilize plugins to filter out spam bots and other types of spam.
Popular anti-spam plugin is called Akismet. Additionally, it was created by WordPress’s co-founder.
You should first go to “Plugins” and then “Add New:” to obtain Akismet.
Find the plugin by searching, then select “Install Now.”
Next, select “Activate Plugin.”
After the plugin is activated, select “Plugins,” then Akismet, to access the plugin’s page.
Click “Use this key:” after entering your API key in the “Manually enter an API key” bar.
You will need to obtain an API key if you do not already have one. The “Get your API key” button can be clicked to initiate the process.
By adding CAPTCHA to your comments, you can also enable Captcha, which will significantly enhance your spam-blocking.
To leave a comment, visitors must either register or enter a code.
However, you might want to use caution when utilizing this feature.
Although CAPTCHA can help prevent spam, it also requires more effort from the commenter.
It might keep people from posting, which would be detrimental to interaction.
Encouraging people to post comes next, after you’ve found out how to keep spammers at bay.
Like I do, you can accomplish this by asking readers to comment on your content.
In order to encourage discussion, I normally end my posts with a question, but occasionally, readers may leave further comments.
I try my hardest to answer everyone of the comments.
In addition to starting a real dialogue, this makes comments feel heard and valued.
Additionally, you must give users a sense of appreciation if you want your comment section to succeed and not just be spam or void of space.
Thus, reply to remarks and give individuals credit for interacting with you.
Spending a small amount of time interacting with your audience can have a big impact.
In Summary
Should you leave a comment or not? That is the query.
As previously stated, you ought to respond to it in a way that suits you the best.
While many well-known bloggers do not use their comment area, many also keep it active.
Personally, I adore remarks. However, you might not.
Ultimately, it will be up to you whether or not to use comments.
Determine how much time and energy you have to spare, as well as the overall benefit that comments would have for you, your site, and your readers.
Start by examining your traffic and engagement numbers if you’re unsure.
Go ahead and do it if you have the traffic and your followers are already interacting with you on other platforms.
It’s best to interact with your audience in as many ways as possible.
even if you occasionally need to regulate some spam.