Are Comments Important?
There are a lot of people who have the issue of choosing between leaving comments on or not?
Pajama Mommy is having the same issue. We have a ton of readers every day, contact form is being frequently used but the comments aren’t. I cannot begin to understand why not but I always wondered of its importance. If someone has something to say they would write to the editor. However this is not the case with a blog.
A lot of professional bloggers or online communities although use blogging platforms, are trying to stray away from the tradition blog label. A lot of people aren’t taken seriously when they are labeled as a blogger. This may spike some controversy so please hear me out.
Pajama Mommy calls a lot of Public Relations company to obtain your free gifts, product review samples, and all around news on products around town. I represent myself as Amanda the owner of Pajama Mommy Community, rightfully so, I am well received 99% of the time when I announce my stats. That’s the most important piece of information but is being titled a blogger important? Blogs typically have comments. However is a blog no longer a blog without a comment field? Some personal blogs have gone to the point where they have removed all comment fields. This annoys some people but I do offer happy alternatives for those who want to eliminate the blog feel and promote the professional feel.
- Write your articles as you would talk to someone of the clergy. (I went to Catholic school so its my first instinct.) I am not the best at setting up my sentences ts been a while since I had a grammar class, however I do not use profanity and I write to you, my readers with respect. Ditch the slang, and profanity.
- If you keep your comments invite your readers to comment and you reply back. When comments were first started it was a sin for the owner of the site to comment on their own site. It was a big no-no. Now it is engaging your readers. Make sure you engage not only reply the comment on your site but comment on their site with your reply. They are more likely to come back.
- Keep comments but remove the link from the index page. If you are a do-follower you can check out Jenny’s website which she has a little note on her comment page announcing she uses do-follow. Do-follow does entice some users to comment. The good part is removing the link from the index page takes the pressure of the interaction of the post. It means if you want to reply great, if not that’s okay with me!
- Only allow comments on certain articles. This is where it gets tricky, for some people it works for some people it doesn’t. If you only allow comments on certain articles and you’re a political blog, make sure you don’t just allow people to comment on posts praising your point of view, allow users to voice their opinion on other important articles.
- If you do take comments completely off your site/blog make sure you let someone know about it in an about page. About pages and contact pages are very important. With no comments make sure you state the reason why on both. This is of course a just-in-case measure. I always read about pages,and I always check contact pages. I have been to so many blogs where I definitely wanted to interact with the owner and all I was allowed to do was comment, however it didn’t pertain to the post and offered nothing to the blog. I just wanted to meet the owner. This is a big pet peeve of mine, if I don’t see an about page or a contact page I typically don’t return. I feel that its the Almighty Oz behind the curtain and thats not cool with me.
Pajama Mommy will be under going comment changes. We are a dofollow blog, however comments are great but more readers use my contact form. So we may just try taking the comments off the index page and allow the users just to comment on the individual page. This promotes subscribing to the post, frequent post checking, and bookmarking the post. If you really want to participate in the discussion.
After reading this I see that I need to put together an About page and link to it. I’ve seen it on other pages and blogs, but haven’t taken the time to do one myself. I guess I could spend more time on my profile as a start.
Thanx for stopping by Pajama Mommy. I definitely think an about page is key. I like to know who I am reading about and if we have a lot in common or as I have tried before on certain sites with no avail would like to notify them of special guest blogging spots etc. It definitely is an issue.
I don’t know if comments are important. I enjoy commenting on here because I like to contribute something to the post. But I can see by your rankings your site is popular with or without comments. So at that point does it matter?
I believe there is nothing to worry about. The problem is getting the people involved. And that is a difficult thing to obtain everywhere and not only on the internet or your blog.
I would like to say it does matter. But then again we may run the website on WordPress but its a content management system I love. Comments aren’t important but its nice to see the readers interact!
I dont have comments on my site and it doesn’t bother me. I just want to write to write. If no one comes than thats fine but if people do come well they can always email me!
Yes I noticed many people who blog do it because they just enjoy writing. I don’t have the same passion yet
I don’t think comments matter one way or the other. People are obviously reading, which is the first step! More times than not when they find a topic they share interest in, they will comment.
I think comments are great to contribute thoughts to a post but i must admit that I’m receiving a lot of ‘lame’ ones. For those comments are aren’t relevant to the post, I remove them
Comments are awesome! Too bad I stopped getting them.
I always wonder. Larger magazines are inserting comment but without the URL’s which is okay but I think is a little lame. I don’t know if I want comments or not still. Its a tough debate.
Good and really useful post for all readers and specially for me, thanks!
[...] Head Mommy added an interesting post today on Are Comments Important?Here’s a small readingPajama Mommy calls a lot of Public Relations company to obtain your free gifts, product review samples, and all around news on products around town. I represent myself as Amanda the owner of Pajama Mommy Community, rightfully so, … [...]