Why Comments Are Required in a Blog?
One of my blogger friends recently asked me why we should have comments enabled on a blog. Afterall why comments are required in a blog? Does blog comments really matters?
Read on this blog post of mine on why comments are required in a blog and why it should be enabled.
A few days back even Vinay Nagaraju, from inspire99.com was also discussing the same with me. The idea of this blog post actually came through the same discussion. He was actually asking me about how I can take benefits of comments posted by users.
Why Comments Are Required in a Blog?
I suggested him some ideas through which any blogger can be able to take benefits of the comments on their blog, though those ideas are quite simple, but these are too beneficial. So Vinay thought I should share it with other users as well.
And then yesterday when I was discussing the same with one more blogger friends of mine, I thought to come up with this post.
Although it is also true that I have already written so many blog posts on blog comments like how to do comments on blogs, how to deal with negative comments, responding to blog comments is good or bad, and allowing moderation of comments on your blog is good or bad. I am sure you all must have gone through these posts and you are also aware about the issue which I and my blog I News India had to face because of one user generated content, i.e. comment.
Why Comments Are Required in a Blog?
Why Comments Are Required in a Blog?
So I think you all might also have the same query that when comments are so trouble making then what is the need to let it enabled on our blog? We can easily disable it from our admin panel and no one will be able to make any comment on our blog.
Honestly there are so many blogs available in this world which doesn’t allow commenting on them. This is like you can visit the blog, read them, and you don’t have any option to share your opinion about it over there. A few days back one of my blogger friends Ravish too disabled comment on his blog http://successfulbeing.blogspot.in/ and started a new concept of discussing about it on social sites.
I am sure he must be getting some social interaction through it, but I am not sure if it is actually benefiting him more than when usual comments scenario was active on his site. Ravish also promised me that he will let me know about the actual impact which it caused on the interactivity of his blog. I am sure he will comment about it.
So the point which we were discussing was on blog comments. As I already mentioned in one of my old blog post on user generated content that user generated content i.e. comments is very much required. It also helps in the SEO of your website and increases the popularity of your site as well.
Though are these the only points which make enabled comments on your blog essential?
No, I don’t think so. Here are some more benefits which user enabled comments bring to your website:
Increases Content Length
Increases Content Length
One crucial benefit which comments on your blog or website provide is that it helps the growth of content on your website. Comments made by users on your website is known as user generated content, and as these days we say that lengthy content is required to rank well in search engines like Google, hence it supports the increase of content length on your site.
Do promote commenting on your blog and see the impact on search engine ranking of your website.
Refreshes Content
Refreshes Content
You published a blog post a few days back. Soon search engines will consider it outdated, but whenever a new comment will be published on it, they will consider the same page as a fresh and updated version of the same page.
So comments on your blog or website help you to refresh your content for search engines purpose. It is indirectly helping the search engine optimization campaign of your website.
Increases User Interactivity
Increases User Interactivity
Blogging is not only about writing content. It is even more than that. Blogging is also a process of relationship building. And to do so user interactivity is very much required.
If you think that only writing blog posts without enabling comments on your blog can make you a pro-blogger or an authority or an expert blogger, you’re wrong. Think about it once again.
To establish yourself as an authority blogger, your blog should speak on your behalf and when you are speaking then you should remember that no talk can be possible if it is happening in one way only. Is it happening that when you talk to a friend on cell phone, only you were speaking and your friend was listening throughout the conversation?
To make a conversation fruitful it should be two-way only, else it will fail.
Similarly on your blog you are saying whatever you want to say about a point, and none of your readers are being able to say anything on your opinion. I suppose it is one type of criminal offence for your listeners. And it is suicidal for you as well.
Reduces Bounce Rate
Reduces Bounce Rate
Once the user interactivity increases on your blog, it will automatically reduce the bounce rate on your site. This is yet another SEO ranking factor, and improvement in it will help your website in the improvement of the ranking of your website.
So these were some of the benefits which comments enabling on your blog can bring to your blog. Honestly if you call yourself as a blogger and your blogs are having zero comments than anyone can predict that it is a very boring or dull blog. I once said that a blog without traffic is dead, but how can a third person know if your blog is getting traffic or not?
They can simply assume it through the comments on your blog. If your blog has some more comments, they can easily understand that it is getting visitors.
So it is quite clear that comments bring life in your blog or website.
How to Take Benefits from Comments?
How to Take Benefits from Comments?
You might also ask me how I can take benefits from the comments on my blog. Here are some points which can help you to do so:
Enhancing Content
Enhancing Content
No matter if you are an experienced blogger, or a new one, you must forget mentioning some small points in your blog post. It is quite normal as well that you missed mentioning some points in your blog posts.
When someone comments about something on your post, you can share that missing point in response to that. It will actually boost the ranking of your blog only.
Sometimes it also happens that some relevant incident or update related to one of our blog post came and we don’t find it so useful that we can create a new blog post out of it. So the best way to handle such things is that you can share the same in comments of the existing news.
Social Interactivity
Social Interactivity
How many times you do share a blog post of your blog on Twitter? Or even on Facebook?
I guess maximum 2-3 times only. But a new comment on your site can actually give you yet another opportunity to share it on social media sites and increase the social interactivity on your site.
You can mention the comments on Twitter, FB, Google+ and all other such social media sites along with a link to your blog. This will increase the social interactivity of your website.
Well, only top notch celebrities had the privilege that they can ignore comments on their blog. But all other bloggers must have to give value to the comments on their blog. I suppose my blog on why comments are required in a blog is useful for you. Please do share your opinion about it in the form of comments below.
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About The Author
alok
Hi friends, my name is Alok Vats, and I am the owner of this website I News India. From last six years I am trying to build this website, I started this website from scratch and then with the help of my friends like Pooja, Prachi, and Divya I published many articles over here. Recently Harshita, Tanmay and Aayushi too joined my website, and am really glad to share some articles written by them over here. I am sure many of you would love the same. These days I am managing the site with myself only and the focus is to share blogs on the topics like Blogging Tips, Self Improvement, SEO, and all other things which can make you to enhance your life.
Wish everyone understood this from their hearts and made every blog an interactive one.. 🙂
Nicely put across..
Thank you so much U K for your visit and comment over here. I am extremely delighted that you liked this blog post of mine 🙂
Wow! I never knew comments had such significance. Thank you for this post 🙂
Thank you so much Bushra 🙂
Hi Alok sir,
How are you doing today?
Yes, blog comments according to me is an important factor. But valuable comments are more important which adds some relevant information to the post.
There have been times when I search for a topic and I get the answers from Blog comments.
Thanks for sharing this well written piece.
Regards,
Rohan Chaubey.
It is absolutely true Rohan, since people share their opinion in comments, it actually increases the length of the content and makes it richer. Thank you so much for your comment over here. I am doing great, thanks 🙂
I agree….comments are very much needed….it helps us know about others ‘s views on the topic that we have written..
Alok….do you have any post which mentions all the steps needed to move to a self hosted domain….its my next year’s plan….if you have written about this please give the link…..
Thanks
Dear Anita, I think you have a blog on wordpress.com so these two blogs can come handy for you:
https://www.inewsindia.com/2014/09/04/how-to-get-a-customized-domain-name-for-wordpress-com-blogs/
https://www.inewsindia.com/2014/09/19/how-to-transfer-a-wordpress-com-blog-to-self-hosted-wordpress/
Do let me know if you have any doubt. Wishing you all the very best for your blog in new year 🙂
I think comments recharges blogger . It may be negative but we should be ready for these types of comments , after all we are in an arena , where we have to take all the types of deliveries like a batsman. sometimes a specific comment gives a clue, a topic to write further in detail. Am I right Alok ji ?
Absolutely correct Yogi Saraswat jee. You are right that comments recharges bloggers 🙂 Thank you so much for sharing your comment. Ye it is very much true that comments sometimes gives us a clue about a new topic…
Thank you for honoring my request Alok. This really is a very helpful post, I did not know about the bounce rate, content refreshing and content length. I have always felt that they were a great way to keep things updated and to the mark. But seeing that they have so many advantages,I shall get right on them 🙂
🙂 You are most welcome Vinay 🙂 Thanks for appreciating my efforts…
That is truly so knowledgeable, thanks a ton 🙂
Thank you so much Tanishq 🙂
Comments do bring life to a blog. the significance of the comments are well highlighted for readers. thanks for sharing.
Thank you so much Kalpana, I am delighted that you liked it.
Is there a way to fetch comments received on links posted on Facebook? My FB page of Raag Desh usually gets 50-100 comments on each links which I post on it. Is it possible that these comments also simultaneously appear on my blog too?
Dear QWN jee, it is true that these comments can be displayed on your blog too, but frankly speaking I am not an expert in this segment. It can be achieved by working on Facebook Developer section, though I am not aware about how. So unfortunately I cannot tell anything strong about it.
Wonderful post Alok, and agree… There are so many wonderful Blog Sites that I land up only to find out that there is no option to put up a note, even if a simple one to day, wonderful post. You are left in two options, to either accept it or to not come in… The other one I often see is where Comments go for moderation… While I respect the sentiments of both these site owners, it does at times become a dampener to see that a note is put up for approval… Yes, there are a lot of spam pingback hits, but also a lot of genuine comments that outweigh these… Negative ones, you take them in your stride (my view), unless some one is abusive enough and you have the option to simply delete the comment… To revisit or not is always the eternal question….. Cheers.. Rajesh
Absolutely correct Rajesh. Very much believe on your point of view only 🙂 Thanks for sharing all this.
First of all, Alok, thanks for mentioning me on your prestigious blog. I’m highly grateful to you for giving so much importance to my opinion on the subject.
Well, I didn’t disable comment on my blog but changed its form. Comment Section has both advantages and disadvantages. It’s an individual choice: what one wants and at what cost. On analysing its pros & cons, I’ve found that traditional form of commenting is not for me. I’ll come to that later.
Since Alok has said a lot about its advantages, I’d like to draw your attention on some of its disadvantages. The first and foremost is spam comments – link dumping. Alok rightly said that it helps in increasing content length which is good from SEO but it could also be used for keyword stuffing as a negative SEO practice by competitors.
I don’t see, it is of much importance in refreshing content periodically. There was a time, in initial blogging phase, when posts used to receive more than 100 comments or even 500. But now top pro-bloggers struggle to reach that number. Alok, himself, has witnessed both phases of blogging and hope agrees with me.
Well, bounce rate is not directly linked to comments but quality of original content which compels the reader to read other posts of the author too. If one land on specific post, comment on that post and leave the blog then also it increases the bounce rate.
I, along with many others, observed that Google indexes posts in keywords also, which are not present either in original contents or comments. So, it also doesn’t play any significant role in content enhancement.
On the point of social interactivity, Alok couldn’t share any of the comments on this post on social media without changing his commenting platform with others. And that is what I did on my blog – changed the platform.
The only valid and highly valuable point in favour of comments is user interactivity – building relationship. But exchange of comments is not relationship. It’s just exchange. If one party stops commenting on other, the other also stops commenting on first immediately. They aren’t loyal readers but comment exchanger.
Some day ago, Alok was emphasizing over increasing customers not traffic. I’d prefer the word loyal reader in context of blogging. And I’m happy to disclose you, Alok, that number of loyal readers, have dramatically increased with my current comment system. As you know, I write on Personality Development and Self-help on my blog, people who initially didn’t interact openly in comment section, because they didn’t want to disclose themselves having lack of confidence or having other personality issues, publicly, now freely communicate with me through the form on my blog. It doesn’t publish their comment publicly but send it to my inbox. And I reply them through mails. This is the reason you don’t see my posts frequently these days because I’m busy in replying these mails. The feeling of helping someone and getting their problems solved give an immense pleasure which I cannot describe in words.
On a lighter note, when someone write “nice article” on your post, no other reader gives value to it but when the same “nice article” is shared on twitter with a link to your post, everybody take it seriously. I see it as a win-win situation.
Thanks Ravish for sharing your opinion 🙂
Very helpful and informative post about the pros and cons of having comments on the blog, and also about lengthy content. A person of few words, I usually express myself very well only about what I feel and think about very strongly and want to express, so my posts are not always lengthy. I dont know if that makes me unsuitable for blogging.
Thought-provocative for me. Yours is an excellent blog that I have discovered.
I’ll be back for learning more.
Thank you so much Mumbaiiteanu, though remember the fact that good comments can even help your site from SEO perspective, while poor comments can even damage it as well…