Mar 11, 2009
7 Reasons Why I Won’t Comment On Your Blog Posted by Jamie Harrop - 55 Comments
Photo by Carf
Commenting is such an important part of blogging. It’s what often separates the blogosphere and other more traditional forms of media. And while we all set out in the blogosphere to receive visitors to our blogs, it’s comments, or the lack of them, that really worries us in those early months. “Why is nobody commenting on my blog?” is a frequently asked question in any blogosphere circle. Far more frequent than “How do I get more visitors?” and other such questions. Blogging is, after all, community based and connecting with other people and seeing them connect with us is what often drives blog authors.
I’ve always prided myself on the amount of interaction I’ve been able to attract from you, my readers. Each morning your comments are a fantastic source of new information and motivation. That’s why I’ve often spoke about what it takes to help us comment. But today I want to do something different. I want to share my reasons for why I won’t comment on your blog.
Why I Won’t Comment On Your Blog
1. I Reach the Conversation Too Late
Have you ever seen a post hit your feed reader only for it to already be five hours old? You read the post and really enjoy it. You want to comment, if only to pay back the author for the fantastic content they wrote. But as you click through to the post from your feed reader, you find there are already 15 or 20 comments on the post. Suddenly, your motivation to comment is lost. Suddenly, you feel everything you want to say has already been said and if you comment now, you’ll be lost in a sea of other words. There are other reasons this may be a problem. As much as I hate to admit it, many people comment on blogs just for the sake of getting traffic. These people like to be at the top of the comments list to maximise their click-through rate. If they get to a post and see 20 comments already in place, they’re far less motivated to write.
So How Do You Ensure People Arrive at the Right Time?
It’s impossible to ensure all your readers arrive at your post in a timely fashion. But you can maximise the amount of people who see your post straight away.
Write Your Posts at a Good Hour
Test and measure to see when the best time of day is to publish your posts. Check your stats to find out what time zones your visitors are in and what hours of the day your blog gets the most visitors. Publish your posts during this time.
Send Out RSS Emails Straight Away
I recently made a change to the publish time of posts on all my blogs, and with that I also made a change in time that the RSS email is sent. I made this change after testing the waters for six months, publishing posts at different times of the day. 7pm GMT eventually proved to be the optimum time for me to publish, and now my RSS emails go out between 7pm-9pm.
Once you have decided what hour of the day you’ll be publishing your posts, you can alter your RSS settings so those subscribed via email receive the email within an hour or two of the post been published. If you’re using Feedburner, here is how to change the time your RSS emails are sent.
Change Your RSS Email Send Time in Feedburner
1. Login to your Feedburner account
2. Click the name of your feed
3. Click the ‘Publicize’ tab
4. Click the ‘Email Subscriptions’ tab
5. Click ‘Delivery Options’
Then simply choose your time zone and time and click ‘Save’. 
2. You Possess All The Knowledge In the World
Or so you like to think.
As much as blogging is about sharing your opinion and teaching others, a large part is about being open minded and learning new things. If you approach your post with your big ego and “I know everything” attitude, I’m going to leave your blog in an instant (but not before vomiting outside your virtual doorway. Hey, you asked for it!).
Don’t lecture me. Express your opinion. Share your experiences. And accept your opinion can be challenged.
3. You Don’t Give Me Direction
It’s often hard to know what to comment about. You may have answered so many of the questions I had that I don’t know what to write. Or you may have taken so many directions in your writing, I’m not sure which area I should focus on with my comment.
The solution to this is to always ask two or three questions at the end of your blog post. Simple questions that can be answered with a paragraph, yet complex enough to spark thought and discussion.
In the past, when I’ve asked my subscribers what helps them write a comment on my blogs, 90% always say it’s the questions at the end of my posts that spark their typing fingers.
4. You Make Me Register
Over the years, I’ve seen countless studies that show the percentage of customers lost when an online store requires a user to register in order to buy a product. The numbers are staggering, and they’re no different with blog comments.
If you make me register either via a 3rd party commenting system or through your own system, I won’t comment. Simple.
Don’t make me register. There’s no need.
5. You Fill Your Comment Area With Trackbacks
I hold my hands up and say “I’m Guilty!”. I’m guilty of not separating my trackbacks from my comments. There’s nothing worse than reading a blog post and then seeing a comment area filled with trackbacks from other blogs. Sure, it’s nice to see the post is popular, but it breaks the comment conversation and detracts from the community.
If you’re using WordPress, you can use the Separate Comments & Pings Plugin to enhance the flow of conversation in your comment area.
6. Your Comments Are Full of Spam
There’s not much to say on this one other than ensure you keep on top of your comment spam.
In my early days as a blogger, I suffered from a lot of comment spam that got through the cracks of my spam detection software.
Today, some still get through the cracks that I swiftly delete, but by using a combination of the Akismet and Bad Behaviour WordPress plugins, I’m able to automatically catch most of it.
7. The Atmosphere Is One Sided
It’s rare I’ll comment on a small to medium sized blog whose author doesn’t reply to comments. Over the years, many of my subscribers have said the one thing that made them subscribe and kept them writing comments was my replies.
Reply to all your comments with something meaningful. Even if you’re just agreeing with what the reader had to say, it’s better than “Thanks for the comment”. If responding to all comments is too much work, respond to all comments that come in within the first 12 hours of the post. By doing this, you’re likely to respond to most of your regular readers without straining under the pressure.
Those are my seven reasons that stop me writing comments on your blog. Now it’s your turn. What turns you off? What stops you writing comments and connecting with the author? Maybe it’s the ‘Mr Know-It-All’, or something I haven’t mentioned here. Please let us know your thoughts in the comments!
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I'm a
22 year old self employed blogger and Web developer with
9 years experience running and managing blogs and online communities.
This post was great when Angela Berry did it three months ago.
Excellent post Jamie, i would personally name them “7 sins in order to stop recieving comments” people who do those stuff their either crazy or they blog for the sake of writing!!
Regards,
Firas
http://www.webli.st
I really despise the “must sign in” to comment threads. Even those that require log in to see the post. The Internet is all about FREE.. well it should be haha.
When I don’t comment, it’s usually not the blogger – it’s me. I comment when I have time, when I’m more rushed, I don’t comment
Hi Jamie. There have been so many posts written about comments. I liked how you’ve approached it differently than the others.
I’m not discouraged from commenting on a blog if there are a lot of comments. I don’t care if I’m the first, the last or somewhere in the middle. I don’t care if there is a question at the end. I’m not swayed from speaking if they seem to have covered it all either.
I like to say hi, let them know I’ve been by and if I’m inspired by something they’ve written I like to let them know.
I will stop commenting if the author stops replying to comments. I will still read for a while longer, but eventually I become disinterested and unsubscribe. Even though I may enjoy their writing and their content, without the interaction, it loses something.
Have you commented on my blog?
Jamie,
Thanks for the pointer to the wordpress plugin for separating comments from trackbacks. I didn’t know that was annoying to some people.
Great post!
As a relatively new blogger (5 months max) I sometimes won’t comment if I don’t understand the written text or tech stuff. Like I don’t know what you mean by filling your comment area with trackbacks, would be helpful to have a pic or example of what you’re talking ablut.
Hey Wesley,
I’m not sure who Angela Berry is, so I’m going to take a guess and say we have two completely different audiences, and as such, I have no problem writing posts on a topic that has been discussed elsewhere. I write for the readers I have now. Not the ones I may have tomorrow.
Now who’s up for some constructive criticism rather than one line punches?
Jamie
Hey Firas,
Thanks for the kind words.
I’m sure some of them are crazy.
Jamie
Hey Rowell,
Heh. I’m with you on that one. Free is always good.
Thanks for the comment!
Jamie
I know that feeling, for sure. There are some days when I can’t face reading or commenting so I just go through my reader and delete everything in sight. I hate those days.
Thanks for the comment, Sid!
Jamie
Replying to comments creates a fantastic sense of community, doesn’t it?
I often feel like the author feels ‘bigger’ and ‘better’ than me if they don’t reply. Like they don’t appreciate the effort their readers put in to keeping their blog going.
Thanks for the excellent comment, Davina!
Jamie
Soon, my friend, soon…
Hey Monica,
It’s not something many people think about. I think we just read through comments and see trackbacks and just accept the comment area is the natural place for them. I think it makes much more sense to put trackbacks in their own place.
Thanks for the compliments and comment!
Jamie
Hey Rick,
That’s an excellent point that you bring up here.
Here is a good example of trackbacks.
Take a look at the comment area of this post: http://www.jamieharrop.com/general-business/5-ways-to-maintain-your-business-passion/
After the initial 12 or 13 comments from humans, you’ll see a load of comments listed that start and end with “[...]“. The comments contain a snippet of text from a Web page. Essentially what these trackbacks do is create a snippet of text as a comment and link back to a blog post that has linked to the post in question.
For example, the final comment on that post looks like this:
“[...] previously spoken about outsourcing so I won’t do that again. Today, I want to talk about recurring payments that are highly [...]”
If you were to click the link within that comment, you’ll be taken to this post: http://www.jamieharrop.com/general-business/taking-your-web-development-business-to-a-full-time-income/
That trackback appears on the post because that second post links to that first post.
I hope that makes sense. In its most basic form, a trackback is a blog comment that aims to tell you, the blog author, that somebody else has linked to your blog post.
I’ll make sure I add more screenshots and images in future posts. It makes perfect sense to do so.
Thanks for the excellent comment, Rick!
Jamie
That plugin that separates the trackbacks from the comments is awesome! Trackbacks can make your comment thread look really ugly. It’s probably better to just not allow them.
true about the trackbacks. I did it once, then upgraded the sites I support and never put it back. DL’d the plugin you link to.
@_McLaughlin
How about, “it’s not you, it’s baggage from my past relationships”?!
I noticed in myself a sudden dramatic reluctance to leave comments on a blog after a bad experience a few months back, where what I fondly believed was a fairly useful comment got rudely slammed by both the blogger and another commenter. The clear implication of their remarks was that only those in the blogger’s “inner circle” of regular readers and subscribers should have the effrontery to comment.
Once burned… well, you know…
I agree with your views on registering, Jamie.
What I do is set WordPress to hold the first comment someone makes as pending, and if it’s a legitimate comment (not a flamer or comment that eluded the anti-spam filter) I’ll approve it and thereafter that commenter’s comments will not have to wait for approval.
How do you feel about doing it that way?
Yeah…Wesley is so not cool.
I found you on Twitter and would have to agree that interacting with your readers is important which I need to do more. It’s nice to see that you respond to all your readers.
I also gave you a stumble.
The main reason I don’t comment is #4. I really hate when I have to register to leave a comment. To be honest, it’s too much work and takes too much time. I’m already taking the time to write a comment!
I also don’t comment when I don’t feel inspired to do so. So either I agree with the blog and feel strong enough to add my two cents or I disagree enough to state my opinion.
I require log-in to comment only because if I don’t, “Comments” becomes full of spam, and we all know you hate spam as much as you hate logging in. I’ve tried running comments without log-in and the spammers fall all over themselves to fill my blog with ads and links to their sites – for FREE. And spammers don’t use real e-mail addresses, so I can’t write them and ask them to stop. Requiring log-in is really the only solution to spammers, at least on blogger.com.
I totally agree with the rest of your list and I especially agree with commenting back. It’s supposed to be a conversation!
Alan, have you tried your blogger.com blog with word verification enabled? http://help.blogger.com/bin/answer.py?answer=42520 It isn’t perfect, but will at least stop the bots. And you can also set your comments so they won’t be published until you’ve had a chance to moderate them: it’s a pain, but does discourage some of them if they see the comment isn’t published automatically.
I’ll have to check whether it’s set for word verification, but I think it is. One of the first things I learned to do, I think. Just before Christmas I had a woman keep posting an ad for her Christmas sales blog in my comments section, even after I removed it – twice. This was on another blog I do. The word verification didn’t work, so I had to require log-in to stop her. I hated to do it because I know it’s a barrier, although people can comment as anonymous (I hate that one, too).
Thanks for the comment, Richard. Glad I reminded you about the plugin.
Jamie
Hey Rebecca,
Ouch! That sounds really bad.
And it sounds like that blogger didn’t deserve your thoughts and wisdom anyway.
I can certainly understand how that experience may make you think twice about writing comments elsewhere.
With that said… thank you for the excellent comment.
Jamie
Hey Richard,
That sounds like a good way to do it. I used to do this when I first started blogging, but I decided to just risk letting comments appear straight away. So far I haven’t had many problems as a result, but if you do have problems with spammers then doing it the way you suggest is a great idea.
Jamie
Hey Jody.
Thanks for the comment and the Stumble. It’s good to see you here.
Jamie
Writing a comment really is a good amount of effort sometimes, isn’t it? Registering too really should be a last resort.
Thanks for the thoughts Claudine!
Jamie
There’s a little help section that describes ways to minimize the amount of comment spam you receive on blogger:
http://help.blogger.com/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=42064
[...] I tried to keep up with all the discussion that resulted from yesterdays post, both here and at Brazen Careerist, I didn’t find time to write today’s blog post. [...]
May just be brave and give it a go – taking off ‘first time approval’ as I have no real spam issues. Let’s live dangerously, hey?
I can’t stop nodding my head in agreement as I read the article, Jamie! It’s really very well-written, and I think it covers all the possible reasons why I wouldn’t leave a comment on somebody’s blog as well
Especially point #1 — I will not be as “motivated” to leave a comment if my comment would be the 547th compared to the 3rd, or 5th, LOL.
Trial and measure, Richard. If it works, then great. If it doesn’t, you can always go back to the other method. You’ll never know until you try.
Hey Pelf,
Thanks for the kind words.
It’s nice to see a comment from you again. It’s been a while.
Jamie
[...] to comments – I read this yesterday at Jamie Harrop Dot Com and it reminded me that I need to do more of this. If you leave a comment, I’ll be sure to [...]
I agree. Unless I’m VERY passionate about what a blogger has written, I won’t comment if I have to register an account to do so. On very rare occasions, I have created an account so that I could comment, but the vast majority of the time, I won’t do so.
I know some bloggers claim that they use registration as an anti-spam measure, but it deters genuine comments just as much, so I recommend against it. If you’re trying to prevent spam, use Akismet (or similar systems) and CAPTCHAs.
The way I look at the issue of registering to comment is simple really: what if every blog required registration? Don’t we already have enough login IDs to maintain? (I know I have plenty.)
There are a few blogs I know of where registration is enabled on the site that hosts the blogs (it’s not primarily a blogging site). The owner of the blog can’t turn it off. I have tried explaining to those bloggers that they should give an alternative system a try, especially as they constantly feel let down by the lack of features on their blogs, along with the small number of comments they get. But they won’t do anything about it. So I gave up trying to comment. Shame really, as I like those blogs.
Anyway, great post Jamie – I gave you a Stumble
Hi Jamie,
The only reasons I won’t comment on your blog are technical.
I don’t mind CAPTCHA. I hate CAPTCHA that fails.
I really enjoy finding good blogs. Commenting is my way of saying, “Thanks for writing this!”
So, thanks, JAmie
Cheers,
Mitch
Hi Jamie – I’m laughing as you already have 41 comments on this post, but I’m inspired to include my thoughts.
I will normally comment on the smaller/medium size blogs no matter how many comments they have. I want the blog author to know I support their efforts and in most instances don’t have time to read all of the other comments. Whether a post has no comments or 50, I think most blog authors welcome more. The only reason I normally won’t comment is if I don’t understand the subject matter (such as highly techy stuff).
There are too many comments on this post so I’m not going to comment on it.
One thing that annoys me is when I find an interesting post via StumbleUpon or Google that’s a few months old and I’d like to comment on it but I can’t because the blogger has shut down comments on the post. That’s quite annoying and I’ll usually not bother to read any more of the posts on that blog.
Frank, I find that annoying, too, but I don’t typically blame the blogger. Usually, they do that because older posts has an unfortunate tendency to become a target for spammers. I know that on many of my blogs, older posts receive dozens of spam comments every week. Luckily, Akismet catches them, but it’s still a pain to have to moderate them.
Many of the blogs I frequently read are the sort where the post is mostly some sort of observation or prose on a topic and, for the reader, the meat of the post is really in the comments left by those who then come and discuss the topic! I love the blend of perspectives and knowledge of so many different readers that come out on those posts! I hope some of these tools help me make a post like that, too! =)
Thanks for this Jamie!
Hey Jessica,
Thanks for the excellent comment.
You’re right, the comments of blog posts are often where the best content is.
Thanks Jessica!
Jamie
I have been doing this with my blogs, but I am switching to just leaving things open and allowing Askimet to filter it. So far it is working and I don’t have to worry that someone comments and it doesn’t appear on the blog for hours.
Unfortunately, this may leave spam up for hours if I’m away from the computer — I actually sleep sometimes 8=)
Good article Jamie. I struggle with the issue of commenting when there are lots of comments already, not because I feel that my words won’t be heard, but because it takes time to read through all the comments to get here!
As I go along I tend to skim the later comments (sorry about that to comments 21 – 44 above 8=) so I’m afraid that I’ll be repeating someone else’s words inadvertently. I probably just did that.
But it is encouraging to the blogger and to others who leave comments so I try to comment if there is something to say.
I am in a similar position. I started my blog a little over a month ago. I am happy to be getting steady traffic, but have only gotten one comment from someone other than family and friends. I ask questions at the end of all of my posts. It is quite disheartening, but I will continue to write and try to improve on the situation. I think a big factor is that when you arrive at a blog and find that no one else has commented (i don’t yet have subscribers) you assume that no one else has been to the blog. The blog can look rather desolate. I will certainly take these tips to heart and continue writing. Thanks again!
[...] Jamie Harrop writes a very interesting article on the seven reasons he won’t comment on your blog. [...]