Most people and friends who just have recently started a blog normally ask me “why is my blog not getting comments? I look at my Analytics and I see the traffic but no comments” I responded then “time will come and just be patient”. But then at the back of my mind there are a lot of things going on so I decided I need to post my thoughts here. Ok, getting in into the number of comments into blogs, most people, I think are so wrong into thinking that the number of comments to blogs justify how successful a blog is. Although comments are for sure one of the things to look at when analyzing a blog, I think it only plays a very small percentage on it. I am now blogging for almost a year overall and about 7 months with a blog kinda related to internet marketing and make money online and I really have seen it all with this niche.
I used to have a basketball blog and it drives traffic like crazy before and it only receives 5-6 comments a day. Now I got this Melvin Blog that gets an average number of traffic and yet I almost always get 10+ comments per post. Does it mean its a successful blog? No way! How about blogs getting 20-50 comments per post? Not either!
Blog comments can pretty much be gamed and by saying gamed, I don’t really mean blackhat. Sure I have 150-250 good friends and only 5-6 of them knows I blog. Only 3-4 of them read this blog. So you see, it really depends. Now if you have 200 close friends that are addicted to blogging as well, then chances are you’re going to get nice number of comments.
Most people reply to each and every comment in their blog, some comments always on a blog that comments on them and so. But the thing is that it really just plays a small role on determining a blog’s success. Don’t get me wrong, sure it’s nice to have people that always care to say something or people that share their stand.
It also works well on the eyes of advertisers and so. Maybe we can also add the fact the maybe the blog’s content isn’t as great as others that’s why its not returning the expected number of comments. It’s all true but the main point is you cannot take a look at the other blogs who get 100 comments and say they are an established blog! You can’t say I’m a smaller blog because I get fewer comments.
I know you also know a lot of blogs that are getting thousand uniques a day and do not get much comments but certainly there are a number of factors to look with how commenting really works, why people comment on posts/blogs, and if it really makes a blog successful or just makes it look successful.
I think it depends on how to define success of a blog. If the blog’s purpose is to be popular, then comments are very valuable.
However, if your main purpose is to make money only then it does not matter if you have comments or not. As long as there are unique visitors who click your ads, or purchase through your affiliate link; you don’t need their comment.
In addition, comments are sometimes distracting us. Besides reading them, you can’t afford to reply sometimes. The time you spend for them can be spend by finding another potential customer.
Although it feels good to have a lot of them, there is a very small percentage that you can make money from them. Not unless that you are selling ad space on your blog, as these advertisers also look them as potential customers.
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Do Comments Justify the Success Of a Blog? Perhaps. But it depends from which side we want to look at them.
If we want some more discussion on the blog and make it look more “life” I think comment is justify this succeed (IMO)
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I believe that comments count is an indicator of how well / bad a blog is doing. Even if your intention is to make money, if you can’t entice people to comment on your posts then chances are that you won’t be able to convince them to buy products / services from you either.
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Success can have a different meaning compared to other people. I guess if you defined a goal – “I’d like to have 5+ comments on each post.” that would definitely mean your blog is a success.
I define success as a combination of many factors which will obviously include your goals in the beginning of the year. Then at the end of the year you look back and ask yourself “Did I achieve these goals?”
But don’t get me wrong, having engaged readers is a big step up.
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In fact it’s not about the comments count. As you said, if you have a 100 online pals you can easily get 30-40 comments per post. However, this model is still not good enough as long as commenter-commenter interaction is not there.
If you have good number of comments and they themselves help each other interactively then that’s called success!
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I determine a ‘posts’ success as not having a heap of comments but when discussion overflows from the post into the comments and instead of just seeing ‘great post’ and ‘I loved it’ you get quality input that ads value to the post.
But when it comes to the success of the blog. I would say that success depends on your goals for that blog. If your goal is to make money – then success comes when you make money. If you goals is to build an influential blog then I guess you would be successful when people are talking to you, about you and your stats are showing people love you 😀
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Well said, Tom. Success to me comes in the form of how many people actually take the time to read my article and put their thoughts into comments.
I take joy in talking to them via commenting and it’s one of key factors I attribute the success of my blog to.
Apparently, the more comments you have on each post, the more likely your readers will participate. Similarly, you don’t walk into an empty restaurant, do you?
Interesting thought, Melvin. As a matter of fact, some of your pointers are true. I love how you ended it, “and if it really makes a blog successful or just makes it look successful.”
Yan
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Hello Melvin.
I disagree with you Melvin, but that’s just my opinion.
I think that commenting is a really big part of you blog. I shows how many readers actually read your blog. I personally look at a blog based on it’s comments. That’s just me though.
Hope you won’t get mad at me for disagreeing with you.
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I think comments tell you how many people actually read your posts. If you are getting comments from the same people everyday, you can tell that those people mostly just visit your blog to posts comments and not to do anything else
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No comment means lesser visitors.
I see blog comments as a plus. This means my blog somehow is growing, but then again do the comments make the blog successful, I think it makes it “look successful”, but we all determine what is a successful blog – a blog that gets 30 comments/post, or a blog with 100k RSS subscribers.
I like to comments on other blogs, and I like when people comment on my blog. I like to communicate with people, and via commenting it’s a good way to do it. A blog isn’t all about you, it’s you and your reader, and if the reader expresses himself, then it’s good.
Cheers,
The Moneyac
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Definitely. I like your point with the restaurant thing. While I earlier said that a blog’s success cannot be pointed w/the number of comment it gets, I think its safe to say that comments in your blog play a role on some smaller factors that make a blog successful.
With the last line, I just felt that most blogs today are overrated and overvalued just because they get so many comments. But anyway thats just a thought… 🙂
and thats exactly what I am pointing about. But then like waht most of you guys said, it really depends on how the owner defines success
Comments signify how popular your blog is, or how great you are as a writer.Comments are like rewards. And it feels so good when someone visits your blog and drops a comment, so it leaves you an idea that “Yeah, my blog isn’t stagnant. I have an audience.” It’s a matter of popularity and measuring your greatness as a writer. 😛
Hahaha… Get it? hahaha… I feel so abstract right now.
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I’d have to agree partly because I was having no comments on my blog for a while but I was getting some traffic.
If the reader doesnt feel connected with your post for some reason they they probably wont comment. I’ve done a variety of things to try and get some interaction with my blog that have worked. Copyblogger has helped me with that part.
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Comments while a good indication of interactivity doesn’t always show ‘popularity’, most of my traffic comes to my tutorials and as I feel they are fully ‘complete’ and no real questions need to be answered.
So it depends on your style of posts I suppose.
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Lmao that picture is so funny
I have to agree with Rich on this one. But it varies by the type of blog. Some blogs are not meant to be community hubs and others are.
But it is nice to receive comments from visitors. Some visitors read and are silent, meaning they dont comment. On a blog of mine i have over 300 RSS subs but receive very few comments on each post.
On another blog of mine i have like 50 RSS subs and receive more comments. It varies by niche alot, too.
Thanxs for visiting me earlier.
Missy.
I’m actually going to disagree with what Melvin wrote here.
To me a blog is all about the author being able to interact with his readers and build a community around it. I think that if a blog has many people who comment on it than the readers are really paying attention to it and the relationship between reader and blogger is very strong.
If you have a very strong community built around your blog you will eventually be successful no matter what.A blogger that connects with his readers will grow their blog faster than one who cannot.
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I think, It all depends, Popularity can be base from the average time the user stays on your blog or if you have consistent returning visitors, comments is a thing to consider though.
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Having lots of comments though do not necessarily mean your blog is successful, shows that you have built good relationships with other bloggers. That would be considered success in its own right. Good post.
Peter Lee
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There is one other benefit to getting comments….
You don’t have to update your site as often because those commenting are giving you more search fodder (from their comments) and therefore your page is constantly changing…because your page is changing, the spiders will spend more time on your site updating.
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comments are crucial in ones success…it definitely acts as guidance… but many commentators hesitate to reply the fact thinking that theyll be banned from commenting… still commenting is very essential
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