Small Business Owner Insights

From almost day one I have had some great participation on this site (after all, one of my goals is to make this a true interactive website for small business owners) and as it stands right now, I have a bit more than 4 times as many comments as I do posts (or, put another way, an average of 4 comments or trackbacks per post).

I admit it: I like comments. I enjoy the feedback and the, for want of a better term, validation that comes with receiving comments on what I have written.

Also, when I am surfing around the blogosphere, If I see a blog with no comments at all, I often assume that no one is reading the blog and move on.

(If a blogger blogs and no one comments, does anyone read it?)

I have found 5 ways to increase comments. I am sure there are more, and if you know of any, I hope you will share them in the comments!

1. Ask for them! Like I just did one sentence ago. Granted, this only works if more than 5 people read you blog, but still, my momma always said if you don’t ask, you won’t get.
2. Engage the audience. Ask questions, seek input, etc. Why should they comment if you already know it all?
3. Interact. As one of my goals is community, I find the best way I can do that right now is by answering questions, responding to post and so on in the comments. Eventually, I hope that the readers will take on more of this by responding to each other.
4. Design your site for interactivity. If you look at my sidebar, you will see we reward our top commenters, we post recent comments and we have our MyBlogLog widget running so you can see who has been by. We want you to come in and play. It really is all about you. Here is a list of my favorite WordPress plugins that make it all possible.
5. Do-Follow. As I have explained before, we allow Google to follow our comments and outgoing links. This rewards those who comment here with a full link from my site, plus being on the do-follow list has brought me a ton of traffic. (yes, I realize that technically, this is part of #4, but I thought it so important I gave it it’s own topic.)

As an aside, I know some people are against the whole do-follow thing, primarily either because they believe it will increase spam commenting or because they are worried about how Google will treat all the outbound links. My answer to this?

1. I delete any spammy comments, so not a problem . I think I have had maybe 2 that were obvious spam attempts.
2. I write for people, not for Google.

I know all these methods depend on having someone coming by your site in the first place, but traffic building is a post for another day (perhaps even another blog). If you get desperate in the meantime, Kumiko mentions some evil techniques from the dark side on her money making blog.

So tell me, how do you increase comments on your blog?