Do You Get Long And Valuable Comments?

This is a guest post by Jeevan Jacob John from TechPupil.com.

One long and valuable comment is always better than 100 short and useless comments.

Comments are the life blood of a blog.  They add more value and information to the article that you write. People have always placed importance on the number of comments (rather than the quality and length of each comment). The blogging world has always talked about getting more comments (the length and value of it didn’t really matter at all).

We, bloggers have used many different techniques to get more comments for our articles (Commentluv, Keywordluv are all examples of techniques that have already been used, a hundred times). That’s why these techniques aren’t so “good” now (so, we need to improve. We need to do more to get more comments).

blog comments

In this blog post, we are going to talk about getting more (number of) valuable (and lengthier) comments from your active readers. We will also talk about the various techniques through which you can  “keep” your loyal readers.

Note: To apply these techniques, you need to maintain a list (list of new and active commentators).

Give-n-Get  NEW Comments!

Giveaways have always been popular. They help you to get more readers and comments for your blog. Run giveaways for your commentators. Reward them for their effort (yes, I know that there is nothing new in this. But, let me get to the best part). Run giveaways only for “new commentators” (In this giveaways, you can’t reward anyone who is already an active commentator at your site). Note: To run this giveaway, you need to have tracking plug-ins for your blog (IP Tracking and Comment Count).

Redirect your new commentator onto a special page (in which you tell them about the giveaway). You can do this through reply notification and thank you messages. Tell your new commentators that you reward him/her for being active on your site.

Retain Your Loyal Commentators!

Here comes the best part. Once the new commentator has been active for some time (say for a month), add him to your active commentators list. The next step in the process is to retain your loyal commentators. For your loyal commentators list, you can stop the giveaways and start “surprise” rewards.

Here is how it is going to work :-

  1. Tell your “new” loyal commentators that they are no longer “qualified” for your comment giveaways. You also need to tell them about the surprise rewards program (to ensure that the loyal commentators stay loyal).
  2. Run surprise giveaways every few months (don’t tell it your list). Run it and announce the winners (in a post or something).

Let me tell you why you should keep it as a surprise :-

You don’t need to run the contest/giveaway every month. Instead you could do it for every 2-3 months (be sure not to follow a pattern). This allows you to retain your loyal commentators, get more valuable comments and save money (you don’t need to spend on rewards, every month).

Get New Subscribers While Doing this!

Now, you can also apply the same techniques for getting new subscribers. For instance, you can run surprise giveaways for your loyal subscribers who actively participate in your list (by participating in list discussion etc.)

You can also get new subscribers by adding a twist to these techniques. You can convert your loyal commentators into loyal subscribers by telling them that the rewards are only for people who are on your list (or that you have special rewards for people who are on the list).

You can always read my article – How to awe your visitors to subscribe? to learn more techniques to get more subscribers.

Ensure The Value Of The Comments

Now, when you run comment giveaways, it is very common to get more spam. So, you need make sure that you mention quality of comments as a requirement for participating in the giveaways.

Let YOUR Comments Be Long!

As usual. If you want to get lengthy comments, you need to do so. Consider comments as Mini guest posts (you get the same benefits – saying that the site supports Commentluv and Keywordluv). Note: I thank Ryan for this idea. Write comments that are valuable and that trigger response. Ask questions in your comments. It is a good way to ensure replies.

So, Do You Get Long And Valuable Comments?

Use the techniques that I mentioned above. Just experiment with it. I can guarantee that you will get results. Also, let me know what strategies you are using to get long and valuable comments. Does your blog have a loyal commenter base? Are you trying to build one? Then the above techniques can surely help you.

I hope that you find my articles useful. Do let me know of your comments and thoughts about it. Thank you for reading! (If you don’t mind, please do share this post as I am participating in the guest blogging contest). Thanks!

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64 thoughts on “Do You Get Long And Valuable Comments?”

  1. Hi Jeevan, Comment giveaways are a pretty intriguing. I have a contest coming up (don’t tell anyone, it’s still in development) but comment giveaways sound like a pretty good idea. I can see how that can create interest in a variety of ways. It would be pretty easy to build on too.

    1. Hey Brian,

      Thank you for stopping by!

      Oh, Best of luck with organizing the contest! I hope that you get good results with it. Surprise giveaways can especially help us to produce the same effect without actually running the contest!

      Thank you for the comment! Appreciate it 😀

  2. Hey Jeevan,
    I just wanted to thank you for the post. Very well written and good tips.
    I think you touched on a very important point about keeping your loyal commentators around. After all these commentators are the one that usually spark up a good conversion in the comments section and get others involved.

    1. Hey Satrap!

      You are welcome and thanks!

      Yeah, a blogger should be doing all sorts of stuff to keep the loyal commentators around. They sure do post great comments (and encourage others to join the conversation).

      Anyways, thank you for the comment! Appreciate it!

  3. Hi Jeevan,

    You come up with something new and effective method to gain more and valuable comments. However, it will add a lot more work on the part of blog owner. I guess we don’t have any plugins yet that lists the comments or comment author based on the length and number of comments. If there was any plugin to do this task automatically, it would be far easier.

    Anyway, the idea of surprise giveaway should work to retain loyal commenters. Going to implement some of your suggestions. Lets see how it turns out.

    1. Hi Suresh,

      Yeah, it will put a lot more burden on our shoulders. I do hope that someone will come up with a plugin that does this automatically (If we are lucky, Andy may very well come up with it in the next generation of Commentluv Premium Version). 😀

      Do let me know of your results!

      Thank you for stopping by! Appreciate your time and effort!

  4. I find a good way to increase the number of and lenght of comments is to sometimes be deliberately ever so slightly controversial! Then engage with the respondees. Once “lurkers” see you are willing to engage in the comments section then they will be more likely to put across their opinion because they know it will be addressed.

    Also keep your cool! Some blog authors get very upset when somebody expresses an alternative opinion to the one the author has expressed in his post. While it might generate a heated debate initially, people will be less likely to revisit your site if they think you are a hot head!

    1. Hey Tony,

      Thanks for the comment! Yeah, its is a good technique to get valuable comments. But, you have to be very careful when being controversial. You may even lose some readers while you are at it.

      By the way, what you think about the giveaway technique? I think we could mix that with the controversial one? What do you think?

  5. I dont get long comments at the moment unfortunately but I have seen some sites that have generated great comment trails by reiterating at every step of the process that comments MUST contain substance in order to get approved. Continually reiterating that is a must and I think that’ll naturally help a lot of sites avoid the ‘good post’ comments

    1. Hey Sandip,

      Yeah, that is a good way. How about trying the giveaway technique? You don’t need to spend money with it 🙂 You could just write a valuable book or a product and give it away to loyal commentators. You could try the method. I think it will work? What do you say?

  6. I particularly liked your first idea of give and get comments which is really a good idea i guess. But my question is what should we do with respect to dofollow and no follow. Should we enable that or not? I fear if I will get more spam if I enable dofollow. Please suggest.

    1. Hey Sam,

      That is a hard question to answer. That is also a big debate that is going on in the blogosphere. I suggest that you go with your opinion. Dofollow can be useful, but it does have many disadvantages (there is not a single thing in this world that doesn’t have any disadvantages). You could try it for a month and compare the results with the previous month statistics (comments). See how it works out for you. Then, enable or disable it as your wish.

      Hope that helped!
      Anyways, thank you for the comment!

  7. Thank you for these amazing tips, I do know for sure that organizing contests is one way of getting people to come to your blog, I didn’t think of it as a way of building a base of loyal commentators. Although these tips do bring people to your website, I personally think that a loyal base can only be built and sustained if you continuously post meaningful content which satisfy the needs of your readers, after all they are mostly coming to your website to look for information, not primarily to comment and win contests.

    1. You are welcome, Scott!

      Yes, I do agree! You need awesome content to go along with these techniques. I am not ignoring the value of content. I just wanted to focus on these techniques (content has been talked too much about).

      These are incentives. Incentives that motivate your readers to take action (in this case, to comment). I hope you get the idea!

      Anyways, thank you for the comment!

  8. I’ve started my new blog month and a half, and I’m happy that i’m getting good comments!!

    What’s more, I’ll make a use of your giveaway tip, I guess it will increase the comments dramatically.

    Thanks a lot for the helpful post.

    1. Hey Faissal,

      I am glad that you are happy (when you are happy, you will be more willing to participate, write better posts and network with your readers).

      You should! Don’t forget to let me know of the results!

      Thank you for dropping by! Appreciate your comment!

  9. unfortunately the only comments i get are from spammers who dont want to discuss my topics they just want to let me know about great deals for vacations or for how cheap they can get me pills to make my erections better. my erections are fine thanks for the concern.

    i will try your tips and have a few giveaways and let you know how it worked.

  10. Personally, I don’t like long comments because sometimes it is just an affirmation or negation of what is written. If they want their own article why not submit a guest post instead?

Comments are closed.