I was reading Emil’s post about not receiving comments and I started to write my comment. Soon enough my comment was so long it warranted it own blog post.

My very good friend Felix is running a blog in Swedish and we have tried for about a year to make the site’s name famous. It has worked, we’re well known and the name, Zmolklife, has almost become a brand. We have an incredible amount of visitors if you see to the fact that it’s a personal blog. What we don’t have is a steady stream of comments although we know our visitors have things to say. Do I need to change something at the site to make it more attractive or what?

There are a number of reasons why. My blog isn’t a very popular blog, and though I get around 500 visits a day, I don’t get that many comments. This is something that doesn’t bother me at all, but it is obvious that other bloggers do want more comments.

Sometimes I get 25+ comments on a post because it is funny or a great story and readers want to tell me their own experience. Sometimes I only get 3 comments on an article that I thought would do better. It all depends what the reader wants to read, and if it targets them.

To encourage more comments you should ask the reader a question. If you leave a question at the end of a blog post asking me what my thoughts are on it, or to share a story of my experience I will more than likely comment. When it is just a straight up and down article, the reader might be very interested and find it helpful but they don’t necessarily want to go comment “hey your article helped me thanks”, they would rather read it, learn and then move on. So by leaving a question at the end or asking for ones experience creates more interactivity, which visitors love.

Another reason (some) visitors comment is because they are greedy, they only comment on the blogs they want to suck up to (i.e. the ones with a high PR, or the ones with 40+ comments already) in the hope they get more referrals to their site. Take Jemjabella.co.uk for example, everyone comments Jems blog post even if it’s a really boring one (not that she has many boring ones, but some don’t really require comment). If you read through some of her more reason posts, she has left questions throughout each post, so someone is going to read one question and think to themselves *no I don’t really know why* but then read the third question in the post and think *hey I know the answer to that, you…* and then they comment. Her posts invoke discussion and encourage people to contribute. That’s one reason I always go back, to view the conversation happening in the comments.

Another reason people may not comment is because they read your blog through a feed reader, and they are too lazy to visit your website itself. You can let visitors comment through a feed reader by using Feedburner, to do this just activate FeedFlare. Under FeedFlare, you’ll see checkboxes and put a check on “Comments Count”. That way, subscribers will see the number of comments below each syndicated post. They can just click that to leave a comment without ever leaving the comfort of their feed reader.

Replying to comments makes a big difference too. I don’t mean going to the commenters’ blog to reply on their blog on a post which is probably unrelated. Reply to them on your blogs post. Most of the time, the visitor will return to see if you replied back. Not a standard reply like “Thanks for commenting” but something that invokes more discussion. For example, let’s say you posted a blog about “What font size is best” and your post discussed what font and size you preferred, and then you asked the visitors what font and size they preferred. The visitor replies with “I love verdana 10px”, why not ask them “why is it that you like verdana and why at 10px. Have you ever tried Arial at 12px”. Then they will probably return, see a response and reply back. That in itself is a higher comment count even though you are the one contributing. Then another visitor comes along and reads your blog, reads the other visitors comment and decides to say “actually I have to disagree with both of you…” and so the discussion continues.

Some things just turn visitors off from commenting at all, let alone even reading the blog post, such as page cuts (the read more link). No one wants to read half of what you are saying and then realise that they have to click further just to read the end of the article. Some may just give up and leave. Most visitors hate clicking, the quicker they can get to and read content, the quicker and easier decision it is on whether they want to comment or not. It just makes sense to not cut blogs down to a “read more” link and leave it all out there as one whole uncut post.

Sometimes you can offer incentives for someone to comment. Giving your visitor a chance to have their website plugged is a great reason for someone to comment. Of course some of these comments will come off as “fake” because they aren’t commenting for any real reason other than to get a quick plug. But not all visitors are like that, and many will appreciate that because they took their time to comment genuinely it is great to give a plug back. They give comments (which you want, right) and you give link backs (which they want), so everyone wins.

And last but definitely not least, make sure your comment form works and that comments actually go through. Don’t hold comments for moderation unless you have a serious spam problem. You can use Akismet for Wordpress which will get rid of spam and the need to moderate comments. Visitors like to see their comment up straight away so they know it went through. If you must hold it for moderation, tell the visitor after they have posted it that it is being held for moderation.

If you haven’t told me my comment is being held for moderation, I don’t know where my comment has disappeared and it has me worried. I would try re-comment and if it doesn’t show or tell me that it is being held, I would leave the site and probably never comment again (though I would keep reading future blog posts).

If your blog receives a high amount of comments, what do you think contributes to getting them (apart from having brilliant posts) and what do you love about receiving comments?

It all started a few months ago. Some of you may know, I am a big fan of the show Medium. Unfortunately I never had time to watch it when it was on so I recorded each episode with my HDD recorder to watch at another appropriate time. My recorder can record up to 160GB, which is about 80 hours of TV on it, all ready to be watched.

Up until 3 weeks ago I still had the three-part series finale episodes to watch, but because they were all part of a set I wanted to watch them all together or at least in the space of 2-3 days. Unfortunately, as usual, I didn’t have the time to watch them and soon it became forgotten, except the occasional time I would go through my recorder to choose a previously recorded movie to watch.

So around 3 weeks ago on a Saturday I had some time to sit down and watch the final episodes of Medium. I made myself some popcorn and a cool drink; I sat down with remote in hand ready to indulge in just over 3 hours worth of ghost-sighting TV.

Only it wasn’t Medium. It was House.

Somehow, which I really have no idea how; I had set the recorder 1 hour earlier than it was supposed to. It was and still is confusing to me as I have always used the same pre-set (record once a week-same day, same time) and all my other episodes of Medium I had watched were fine. So I tried the other two episodes and realised they were all House. It couldn’t have been a TV mistake, unless House had been moved into Mediums spot (which I really don’t think it was, because I distinctly remember the advertisement telling me of the three-part series finale of Medium at 9.30pm). I have suspicions it was my recorder telling me, ok, ok enough of Medium, lets watch something different.

So there I was, remote in one hand, popcorn in the other and thinking, crap, what do I do? I had never liked House before, even when Amanda, and other blog owners, had made confessions of a crush on House, I remember I replied “Ew, Medium is better” or something equally lame.

But this was 3 hours worth of episodes! Three precious hours that took up space in my HDD recorder, when I could have used it for that late movie I was recording, but had failed because the hard drive was full. I couldn’t just delete these episodes that have been sitting there for months. Especially when my fiancé had asked me if he could delete them so many times and I had always put up a great fight.

So I watched the first one, just to see what it was like. I had seen bits and pieces of House before, but nothing ever caught my interest. I honestly thought it was boring and didn’t understand the hype. But this episode was good. This was really good. As soon as that episode finished I watched the next one. And then the last, at which point I had made up my mind that I now loved House.

Fast forward 3 weeks and I have not missed an episode since. I even watch it live instead of pre-recorded. My fiancé has gotten into watching it too (he used to claim it was crap too), and now he is always reminding me when it is on, or to not make plans on Wednesday nights.

So alas, I did miss the three important Medium episodes, but who cares now that I have House right? Now all I need to do is buy each season by the box.

QOTW: When have you become addicted to something you swore you hated or would never like?

It dawned on me that I never really write a follow-up blog and may be some people are wanting to know what happens. So here is a dot point list of updates. Soon I will install a twitter/sidebar update plugin so the small things not worthy of it’s own post are still mentioned.

• I am still a little sick, but I have been over-dosing myself on Panadol and cough medicine, as well as eating lemons whole, and feeling a lot better.
• I haven’t finished writing the rest of my list, therefore I cannot start completing it. Ideas would help.
• The lady from the car accident we had yesterday, probably will get away with what she did. Mostly because the damage is under $1000 so it is not compulsory to report it (by WA law) and the owner of the car told us not to worry about reporting it. I am still angry at her and wish I could have reported it, but it’s not my car. One day, hopefully, that lady will get what’s coming to her, and she (as well as her son/grandson) will learn their lesson about responsibility.
• The complex logo I had to re-draw on Thursday still hasn’t been done. I have not worked since then, so therefore haven’t had time to do it. Come tomorrow when I go in to work, I will no doubt be rushed into completing it under an hour for a rush job. All because my boss can’t be decisive about what days and hours she ‘needs’ me to work.
• My Sony DCR-SR42 Video Camera prize for winning the Youth Week design awards arrived yesterday. I love it!
• The library book my two cats totally destroyed, was dried with my hair dryer, glued back together and returned to the library.They called me and told me I had water-damaged the book and would need to pay for it. A week later they told me they didn’t need me to pay for it, the repairs were sufficient.
• The elephant upstairs still makes a lot of noise, but his nightly shower routine has changed, he now showers at 2am instead of 3am, and he showers for 75 minutes (I seriously timed it) instead of 45 minutes. Way to save water.
• I am finally getting the phone line installed in the apartment today. The Telstra guys will be here to connect it, then I can go on a higher (yet cheaper) broadband/phone plan with iinet, and get rid of this stupid (and expensive) wireless connect laptop modem.
• I have not put the award I won from Youth Week onto my resume, as I have not even applied for any other jobs yet. As much as I hate to admit it, I think I am beginning to like where I work, and despite the crap pay and crap hours, I can’t see myself anywhere else. I applied for another job today. Fingers crossed.

So that should just about re-cap it. Right now I am sitting here waiting for Telstra to turn up, whilst my sister is watching a movie and filing her long nails. Worst sound ever! Seriously my ear drums are going to burst, I cannot stand it! Stop it dammit!

So if you couldn’t be bothered reading all that crap up there my ending question to you is:

“What is the sound that annoys you most?”