I love getting comments on my blog. Don't you?
It's what creates engagement and builds a community around your blog.
When was the last time one of your posts went unnoticed? Long time ago, right? But you aren't getting heaps of comments either. 
What can you do?
Tell me about your problem. What's up with your comment counts? What have you tried?
Every week I get 3-5 emails asking the same question. Here's one of them:
I own a blog with decent traffic and good content. I won't complain about not receiving comments as I do. But they don't really rush into my dashboard every time I open it. Instead, I always receive only a comment or two from my loyal readers. What do I do? I've tried almost everything under the sun.
Before I reveal some killer tips, I wanted you to know that good content won't do.
You need great content to attract comments. As far as your question goes, have you really tried everything under the sun? No, you haven't. Even if you did, you missed out some of the most crucial and smart tips.
Watch Out:- This post is only for people who are serious. Apply these tips only if you can handle loads of comments. 😉
The harsh truth is that getting comments is hard
It is not impossible but it is hard.
But, it is not that tough if you do it the right way.
How in the world do you think that some blogs receive hundreds of comments where as some blog have never received any at all.
What is the difference?
How do some bloggers attract so many of their readers to add a blog post comment – what is their secret?
Black hat? Nah! They won't risk it
Fake commenters? Heck no! They'll never do something that'll damage their blog's reputation.
Then how?
Hard work!
I don't mean you don't work hard. But they took their time. Each and every one of them took years to understand the psychology of commenters. They experimented and experimented and experimented. And finally, they discovered the right way to attract comments.
You can do that too…. But don't do it until and unless you've all the time in the world and you're not interested (or not ready) in taking your blog to the next level right now.
I am here to save you all that trouble. I'll reveal the secret to you. Trust me, I burned a whole lot of money and time in experimenting (more than you could imagine). Back then, even I was clueless just like you.
Comments. err…… how is that useful? Do they really matter?
Comments are one of the most precious assets a blog can have. Large numbers of comments mean awesome engagement. Awesome engagement will indirectly show how worthy your blog is.
Did you know that the your most popular post i.e the most commented post is the second most visited post after the latest post published.
Why?
Because more comments will tell your first time visitors that this post of yours is worth their time and is a killer one. 🙂
It all starts with the first comment:
Do you know what a reader does before dropping a comment on your blog? He looks at the first comment (if it exists). He will react according to the first comment.
If the first comment is positive then automatically your reader will comment positive stuff about your content. What if no first comment exists?
In that case, it is more likely that your readers will shy away from commenting.
So what can I do?
Follow these tips below?
Yes, practice and perfect these techniques.
How to get that first comment and keep the flow going?
Here are some of the tips to learn how to get the first comment and start getting loads of comments that you mayn't be able to handle.
1- Your post needs to be great (at least)
Let me tell you one thing my friend that the days of “good” are over. Who the hell wants good content? People are looking for great content. They prefer awesome content but you can always draw attention with great content.
Though great content can't do the magic that awesome content can do.
Forget about receiving comments if your post is not up to the mark. Your post should not only be helpful to your readers but it should also teach them something new and unique or entertain them.
2- Be emotional. Feel your readers' emotions.
Being emotional works. You need to feel readers' emotions and write content accordingly. Being funny, stupid or over smart always attract comments.
But never ever play with your reader's emotions. Doing so can put your whole online reputation on the line.
3- Write a CTA they can't resist (Call to Action)
What is a call to action?
What can you expect from you readers after reading your post? Nothing! Why? Because you never told them what to do once they finish reading your post.
Before instructing them. Think for yourself. What do you want them to do after reading your post? Do you want them to drop their insightful comments? Do you want them to share your content? Do you want them to bookmark your content? Do you want them to buy products with your affiliate links? Or do you want them to buy your products?
Whatever your motive is, no body will do something unless they're told to do it.
Ask your readers to comment on your post in a creative way.
4- Ask a question which is easy to answer.
Complicating things and puzzling readers is good. In fact, it draws attention. But everything should be done in limit. Over-complexity will make a reader close the windows.
Majority of the time, try to ask questions which are easy to answer. And ask your readers to answer the question through the comments.
Try it! You will see a remarkable increase in the number of comments published on your blog.
5- Publish less
Weird, right? Everyone is asking you to churn out more and more content where as I am asking you to publish less.
If you've lot of new content to read you will overwhelm your readers. I am not asking you to stop writing. You need to write daily and publish guest posts often.
The less you publish the more comments your posts will attract.
In other words, the number of posts you publish is indirectly proportional to the number of comments they receive.
Makes sense.
6- Ask for links
After you publish high quality post, go and check the blogs in your niche that would like to share the post with their readers and ask them for a link to your post. Do this to seed the conversation on your blog.
This will send you more traffic, comments and build your audience faster.
As I said, publish less, but promote the heck out of every post you write.
7- Bribe them
Tell me, do you think that there is a better way to attract comments then to give them something in return?
Bribe Them. Give your commenters something in return. In return for their comment.
Reward your top commentators. Reward who leaves high quality comments on your blog.
You can reward them with anything, a banner on your blog, a link to their blog and many other things. Just try to be creative and you'll get more comments.
Last Words:
I know I missed something here.
And I also know that readers here are smart enough to guess that stuff and help others by sharing them through the comments.
Hi Ahmed,
I love the beginning of the post and it grows towards revealing secrets. You are well successful to tie up the readers till to the tips!
Rewarding commenters really works great. I implement it in my blog and and do you believe the top commenter made 100 comments in 30 days. Look at the sidebar of any post (not the home page) and you’ll wonder if anyone can go up to that extreme? The rewards worth, doesn’t it?
The problem isn’t in getting a lot of comments, the problem is getting high quality comments.
Check Derek Halpern, he have 200+ comments on every post all of them are of high quality. That’s what you should try to get.
I’m glad that you loved how I write, I’ll be writing on that soon 🙂
I’m sure you’re going to love my blog 🙂
Hope nothing is missed here Ahmed.
This is your second great guest post am reading, right? hope the first one in guide n news.
Yeah, I too love to have so many comments for my blog posts and reply them with care.
In simple statement I can say about the blog and comments is ” If your blog have no comments, I guess there are no readers for your blog”
All the points are nicely explained, hope am following most of the ways.
Specifically its good to read about the first comment, thanks for sharing the genuine details to get more comments.
Will try the missed ways Ahmed, keep sharing the useful stuffs 🙂
I guest posted on a lot of blogs, and I have more coming on Traffic Generation Cafe, problogger and many others.
SO make sure to check them 🙂
Why don’t you try to go with the missed tips and tell me the results. This always encourage me to get more great content like this.
Hi Ahmed, and nice to see you are Ileane’s blog,
Ah…getting more comments, isn’t that what all of us want! But sometimes I DO wish that I got a little less of them on my blog, because they DO take a lot of time replying to, especially if you are the person who replies to all the comments 🙂
I agree with all your ways mentioned, and if your content is good – the comments will come, but you need to also reciprocate if you are newbie and want more comments, which is something most new bloggers fail to do, or perhaps they don’t know about this fact at first.
I also believe in leaving valueable comments, that are related to the post, instead of the 1-2 liners. It could be that people don’t have the time and patience to write long comments, but if you could spare a few additional seconds, your comments are surely going to be noticed as compared to the others, and if you have CommentLuv plugin on your blog also, the link you leave at other blogs also helps get you traffic to your blog.
Ah…I could go on and on about blog commenting, but the one thing that I’ve learnt along the way is that IF you comment from your heart, there is not way you won’t make good connections, something that we all need and value much more than a simple comment – isn’t it?
Thanks for sharing. Have a nice weekend, both of you 🙂
I always see your valuable comments on many of the top blogs. Glad to see yours here too.
For getting a lot of comments, you don’t need to care about them always. You don’t need to keep responding to them, yes, that build relationship, but you’ve a lot more to do.
Danny Iny wrote a post about when you should care about comments and when you shouldn’t, I think it might be a great read to you. http://www.famousbloggers.net/care-about-comments.html
Thanks for sending the Danny’s link here, Ahmed and I do agree with all that he wrote.
I agree, you don’t have to care about certain things to get more comments, but when and if they come on their own, how can I not care about those who visit my blog? I appreciate and value each person who comes by my blog to read my posts and comment!
However, I just have this one question – that if a person takes time to read your posts and leave you a comment, isn’t it the basic courtesy to take out some of your time and reply back, which is a way of thanking them for visiting your blog, and commenting that again many people don’t do.
I agree, most people think it’s a waste of time or they are busy with other things like sales or marketing, but I think one does need to be a little polite enough. I still feel guilty of a few comments I’ve not been able to reply to those who visited my blog. Or perhaps some people are just like that, and it does depend a lot on your personal choice too – isn’t it?
Thank once again 🙂
I agree with what you say.
I comment on genuine comments like yours, that share new info to the post.
Spam commentators won’t care, if you respond to their comments or no.
I am totally agree with all your points but I really like #3 and #4. CTA is the best way to get more comments on your post. I also write after the end of my post ” If you have any question or suggestion then feel free to leave a comment “. Writing a CTA is the best way to know if your readers have any question or suggestion for your post. CTA is most important for any post. Thanks for these tips.
I’m glad that you liked it. Yes, CTA is the most effective way to get more comments.
I tend to agree with most of your points, especially bribing them! We’re in a time where time is scarce so it really comes down to ‘what’s in it for me’ so if you reward your leading comment makers, there’s a good chance of increasing the level of engagement on your blog/site.
If nothing else work, try it.
I hope that it works for you.
Great tips on getting comments. You need to work hard as rightly said. Also commenting on other blogs and sharing them is extremely important. Sometimes you just can simply ask others to comment on you blog, you’ll be surprised that people are willing to spend a few minutes of their time. But at the end of the day, you need to quality content to attract comments.
Compelling content is essential to get comments, after that you try to apply the tips above to get results.
Thanks Shalu for your comment.
Hi Ahmed,
I’ve been really glad about your article because I had been searching for some useful stuff or info about commenting and other blogging possibilities for pushing my fresh designs and projects. Really interesting and some kind of shocking facts about the actual scene, I’d also call it a trap for dummy users. I’ve just started my 3D printing blog and I’ve already uploaded some of my design for free and I want to make some promotion for the tutorials and concepts I’ve made. I’m a newbie to the online marketing scene (I’m an engineer and a 3D printing enthusiast) I just wanna share my projects with people interested in these amazing ways of additive personalized manufacturing. I’ve only got a few comments on my blog, I want to try your points in action and see what happens. Thanks for sharing the useful tips;)
best, Peter
I hope your business is going well, make sure to contact me, if you need any help 🙂
Try the tips and tell me the results. I’d be happy to help you with this.
Peter, I think you will need to build social media connections on platform such as Linkedin were it is easy to get people in a niche as yours-the 3D design niche.
For LinkedIn you can check Kristi Hines http://www.kikolani.com she writes excellent article on using LinkedIn to build connection.
You can also use pinterest to pin your design. You can also read Hey Bloggers-Are You in the right social network on Basicblogtips.com
THank you so much for the great tips, I think I have to try LinkedIn as well. I’ve already created a Pinterest site but I am afraid sharing my designs because I already met my designs claimed as others (they have been stolen) after sharing ’em on a free 3D model site. But I’m going to check out the post you’ve mentioned on kikolani as well, thank you once more for the useful advices!
Rewarding the top commentator is a good idea , this may attract many comments for sure . But is it a right idea to attract comments on a blog just through rewards? . One suggestion that can tried to turn a visitor into regular visitor and make him/her comment back is to reply on his comment or leave a comment on his/her’s blog .Thanks for sharing the information .
-Pramod
Commenting is a good way to build relationship. Either with your readers, or with other big bloggers.
Spam commentators won’t matter, if you commented on their comments. So, check the high quality commentators and thank them personally.
Has anyone tried closing their comments after a certain amount of time? I started doing this a while ago, after 30 days I close comments on a post (any comments after 30 days is 99.9% spam anyway) and I have actually seen my comment count increase, I don’t think this is a coincidence. 🙂
I think this could also be a great thing. Blog Tyrant use this tip and he says that it works.
Ahmed, I noticed too that when I started to post less often I got more comments. I think it was because it gave me more time to go around and comment on other blogs and share more on social networks. Of course CommentLuv Premium also was a huge factor when I started to go from 10 comments to 70.
I haven’t asked for links, do you have an example of that? Not sure how I could go about that one. I do use the top commentor plugin, it’s rewarding those that comment the most in the past 30 days. I also like the comment above, closing comments after a time period to increase them, interesting!
Hi Lisa,
Posting more is a waste of time. Post less and try to promote the heck out of it. That’s what you should do.
If you’d like to learn more about how to ask for links, check out this post: http://socialtriggers.com/email-people/
If your content is sharable and liked by people and if you are trying to solve their problems in your articles. then you will definitely gonna get a lot of good and positive comments on your blog post.
Yes, keep sharing compelling content.
CTA is great and i don’t mind begging my readers,
when it comes to emosion, i’m the funny type, stuffs like this makes the post intereting and encourage comments.
You focused only on contents, don’t you think plugin matters, like comluv, top commenters, and recent comments, it encourages comment too. what do you think about it.
I’m not a fan of using plugins like these to get more comments.
If your readers will comment to get the link, I think that 99% of the time, they will be spammy.
That said, why don’t you try it yourself.
Very nice tips and tricks to get more and more comments on any blog, These tips are really easy and practical. Actually i was not familiar with these things, Now i will adopt the question asking strategy to attract visitors and get comments.
Interesting tips, I’m going to try them out.
I would link to know that any site like bloggers.com to meet with bloggers
Most of the comments on your beautiful article are quite long yet interesting. I am also struggling to generate comments for my blog post but your article has given me new hope to work towards it. I hope everything works out well after applying your methods/tricks. Keep the good job going..
hey Ahmed
Really an awesome article.
This is one of my fav article. I like your way of explaination. You have cleared everything.
This is quality content, I think I have to implement Call of Action techniques so that i will receive comments.
Thanks for sharing such a great article 😀
Its nice for someone to admit that getting comments is not a cake walk when I first started I seriously thought something was wrong with me.I found the best to get comments besides all out bribery is to ask a few questions at the end that they cant help but answer.Or start a post and dont finish it completely
Great tips on how to get more comments! I always get very happy when my readers comment on my blog . I try to ask them a question or two at the end of each article I publish. It does help a lot most of the time. But your content has be truly interesting and engaging in order to get comments. Here is another trick. Go and visit other people’s blogs and leave a comment there. Some of them will come back and return the favor. Give first and you shall receive.
Great tip Elena!!
Hi Ahmed
Thank you for the informative post ! The tips are useful and easy to implement. I think the key technique is providing great content to readers, and they’ll show their opinions through comments .
Thanks for this nice post. I am on blogspot and it is really difficult to grow a community on blogspot. Due to spamming, i have enabled capatche and i think it is frustrating for user to fill it and click on publish comment.
I think we must do this but to avoide spamming we have to use some stop spammers and also have to use capatcha or any other tactis, i love your this post to get more comments, thanks so much
Do you have tips on how to Ask for links?
By the way, I just saw a video of Matt going against link exchange. Is this what you are talking about?
It is very important to understand the readers’ emotions and write your posts keeping them in mind. This makes the blog more reader friendly and people are happy to leave comments. Also awarding the comments like ‘best comment of the day’ will surely help.
Comments are the holy grail. I seem to get a few on my posts but not as many as i would like. I think the main reason is the content is more informative than engaging and people can’t really relate to it or follow a story. I should try more emotional or story driven posts then perhaps I will get more engagement. Thanks for your tips
Ohhh! Just what I needed! I’ve been working on creating great content and having CTAs. I need to ask people to share my links, though that is hecka scary. I never would have thought about bribing them, that’s a pretty cool idea! Thank you so much!
I might try a promotional thing like this very soon. This inspired a great idea I pulled out of my..mind! 🙂 – Scott Craighead
Nice tips and advice Ahmed. First, thanks for the link luv. 🙂 I’d like to add another perspective to the idea of fewer posts. Personally, I think a blogger should write as often as they like as long as they can do it with fantastic content. We hear some bloggers advising others to post daily, or multiple times a day, to keep the traffic flowing. Many of the same people say write shorter posts. I say, write as often as you like so long as it’s not compromising quality and a post should be as long as it takes.
If you have enough readers, you can never “overwhelm” your readers. The reason comment numbers go up when there are fewer posts is because it spends more time on top gaining exposure.
I recently wrote about “Comments Aren’t Everything” and “Numbers Do Count”. Both are true, for different reasons, but one thing every blogger should absolutely understand… Never allow secondary benefits to derail your primary objective. In other words, if the primary purpose is to generate comments, by all means, let that metric determine how and when you blog. If, however, we’re blogging to convey a message, profit, educate, build influence, or any number of objectives, then that aspiration should determine the how and when. Interaction does count and we absolutely should strive for that but not at the expense of our main focus and direction.
I didn’t mean to lecture, it’s just my opinion. Great tips though Ahmed, I just have that one little difference opinion. 🙂
As far as bribing readers to comment, is $50 enough? lol I just offered exactly that; or at least a chance at it.
Thanks for your great insight.
Actually, it’s not only a matter of overwhelming. You couldn’t have the creativity to create “epic” posts everyday.
If you could have one great article per week or even every 2 weeks and you spend the rest of the time promoting it, this would be more effective.
If you still want to create more, why don’t you post them on other blogs?
I’m glad to see you Brian here. Thanks for the comment. Hope to hear what do you think.
Hello Ahmed Safwan,
Thanks for sharing this informative article for me. i think this is the very helpful post for all the newbie blogger’s who just started Blog.
They always love to enjoy comments on New Blog.
Thanks for Sharing Ahmed 🙂
Thanks for the wonderful tips. The tip that I liked most was Be emotional. Feel your readers’ emotions. Yes I agree that in order to get your reader’s attention you have to feel what they are saying and be sensitive to their feelings. Will surely apply these tips in my blog.
Hi Ahmed,
Interesting Post and i like your tips well i am not professional bloggers but i am going to start blogging so i think this is useful techniques for me specially for newbie. ac. to me Your topics should be interesting and your content should be unique then you can get more comments well i must say thanks to you for sharing with us.
Hi Ahmad thanks for your great content,blog readers and their comments are the assets of blog,no doubt it is hard to catch the attention of loyal blog readers for comments but in my view point two points are important (as you have mentioned)
one is the long tail keywords enriched quality content and second one is CAT.
Actually author have to provide some thing unique and attractive content for its readers.
I sometimes get loads of comments and then nothing for a week. I’ll try your tips.
I agree with you. For getting more comment you have to write a great content and have to ask a question in last portion of your content.
Hiiii Ahmed Safwan,
i have read many article on this topic but this article is really very great and detailed. all points are covered very nicely. i am going to apply some tricks which i have learnt from your article.
thanks again……!!
Hello,
I have been searching for a long time for a good resourceful blog and yours is one of them. I am a new blogger and i wanted to drive traffic and i want my reader place comments in my blog but i think i have some problem with my writings so they don’t. I have come to learn lot of new ideas from this blog post and i will use it in my blog.
Thanks for your nice share , Dude…
Agreed, publish more doesn’t get more stuff in return or comments but it turns out people will get sick of content overloaded which can be hard to get people to continue to leave comment on post.
I agree with you and think that if we our article would hit the emotions of our readers than they would engage more to give their own point of view.
I definitely agree, Ahmed: getting that first comment is hard, but it doesn’t get much easier after that; wish it did.
Another important thing to keep conversation going is by using a plugin that lets readers know their comment got a response.
I am pretty sure Ileane uses ReplyMe function of CommentLuv Premium for that; I do as well.
PS Thanks for the shout, Ileane; right back at you: http://www.trafficgenerationcafe.com/weekly-marketing-skinny-august-17-2013/
Hi Ahmed,
Actually I am very thankful to you because I am searching for this article. I need some idea which can increase comments in my blog. Thanks for sharing. And if you know anything else about this topic then please let me know.
I agree with you. I have created many blogs and i didn’t receive more comments and sometimes only few comments i get. I was worrying about my blogging technics.But now after seeing your blog i got some idea.Thanks dude
Great Stuff to increase the comments. The attractive title plays a major role to read article and to comment
I agree with you that a first comment really makes a difference. I usually comment for posts that I can relate and that I know I have something to share about.
hi
Ahmed
commenting on the article is not only important for the commenter but equally important for the writer because it tells the capability or say proof to the writer that how much readers are engaging with the article stuff.
Hi Ahmed,
Thanks for giving us some good tips – I like your point about not publishing too often – quality’s more important than quantity when it comes to attracting comments. I think it helps if you respond thoughtfully to comments, because that encourages people to come back and comment again. I also think it’s good to have a ‘ReplyMe’ service, which notifies people of responses to their own comment – this can encourage them to make further comments and can help get a conversation going.
I don’t really like the term ‘bribe’ – I prefer to think in terms of rewarding other bloggers – for example, mentioning and linking to other bloggers in your posts is a nice way to thank them for commenting. Giving other bloggers a mention, when it’s appropriate to the theme of your post, is also a good way to encourage them to comment in the first place.
I think the commenting system you use is also important – I don’t personally like third party commenting systems, like Disqus, G+ and Facebook comments – I know a lot of people are put off commenting by these.
The CommentLuv plugin’s a great tool that can encourage people to comment, by rewarding people with a link back to their own posts – I realise some bloggers are concerned about problems that can arise due to dodgy links, but there are ways of managing that, and I think the benefits outweigh the disadvantages. I’ve discovered some great blogs by following their ComLuv links.
Also, much as I hate to criticise the blog I’m commenting on, I don’t like it when blogs run two or more commenting systems like this one does at the moment, with Google+ alongside WP comments – I think it’s confusing and messes up the comment stream -sorry, but that’s just my view 😉
Thanks very much for an interesting and thought-provoking post
Hi Ahmed
nice points u had mentined here , as I have created many blogs and i didn’t receive more comments dnt knw why but after seeing these tips i think that soon i will get lots of coments on my blog thnx for sharing these nice idea bro will shar eit wid my other blogger friends too.
regards
rajat
Hi Ahmed,
Thanks for such nice and great ideas. As a new blogger I was getting a bit of traffic but no comments, now I can try something new to get some comments.
Rightly said that in such competetive world no one wants good stuff everyone wants great and best stuff. So try to be funny and emotional.
No. 4 and 5 I liked the most.. we always need to leave something for our readers to discuss in the comments. and asking our readers to put a comment is again a nice way to attract their attention for commenting. It helps in throwing away the shyness of the readers to leave a comment.
Nice post I must say.