I have been trying to do several things to increase blog commenting on this blog over the past couple of months, some worked and some didn’t work. One thing that worked well for me was to do various things to make my blog develop a little bit of a personality.
That might sound like a weird thing, after all blogs are not humans or animals, but it really can help if you make a couple of changes to your blog. Changes that will only take a couple of minutes and can transform it.
1. Write An About Me Page & Include A Picture
Your About Me page is an important page to have on your blog. Way too many people just leave the default blurb that comes with that page and this is wrong. Lots of people will read this page to find out about you and why they should be reading your blog and taking your advice.
It’s the place you use to sell yourself to your readers and visitors. And if you add a picture of yourself to this page then that is even better as they can put a face to the writing.
2. Don’t Be Afraid To Publish Personal Opinions
You do not have to write your entire blog in a third person style. A quick read of this blog will show that I often publish posts that include my personal thoughts in them and personal opinions on various companies and products.
This helps your readers see you as a human and not just another cookie-cutter blogger or, worse, a bot.
3. Treat Your Commentators Like Friends
When I say treat your commentators like friends I don’t mean go out drinking with them on a Friday night or invite them round for dinner on a Sunday afternoon.
When someone leaves a comment on your blog, they have taken the time out of their day to do this and the least you can do is take the time to leave a friendly reply that does not look like it is an automated response.
4. Turn Avatar Display On
I really like this little feature. It is the feature you enable in the admin panel so that when people leave a comment there is a little image that pops up next to their name. They can add their own image or a default one is used.
This is a great way to get you and your brand some exposure because there is a 99% chance that you leave comments on other blogs and they will all use the same picture of you. I have not changed my picture in ages because people associate my picture with this blog.
These were just a couple of ways, maybe you can think of another way that I have omitted from the list? Why not drop me a comment and let me know?