If you are a blogger or enjoy reading blogs, there is chance you have noticed that there are comment section in most blogs. In blog comments, blog readers can leave comments for the blogger, or reply to each other, and the blogger can respond to the comments and questions left on the comments.
Blog commenting is a great way for everyone on the blog to discuss and share thoughts together. This kind of interaction can add great value to the blog, making it more of a community than just a website.
To start blog commenting yourself, here's an introduction to blog comments, explaining what blog comments are and how to leave comments on a blog yourself...
How to leave a blog comment
There are a lot of blogging platforms available. Some of the most populars are WordPress, Blogger (aka blogspot), Tumblr and Typepad. All these offer hosted blogging (some are available for self-hosted blogs as well, like WordPress.org).
The different blogging systems might have different way to accepting comments, but the principle is the same: You enter your name, write your comment and submit the comment.
Here's what the blog comment form looks like on WordPress.com (the look varies based on the design, but the fields are more and less the same):
Leaving a comment on a blog is easy as 1-2-3:
- Enter your name and email
- Write your comment
- Submit the comment
In most blogs, it is mandatory to enter your email address. And as an optional step, it is often possible to enter your website URL (e.g. a blog address) to the comment as well. In most blogging platforms, your name will be linking to your website URL.
Blog commenting basics
The name and the email are often mandatory fields to fill. If you have left a comment on a blog before, it is possible that these have been saved locally to your computer and you don't need to fill them every time. Other fields are optional and might not even be available.
The name is needed because the blogger and other readers need to know who left the comment. Some blogging platforms allow anonymous blog comments, but I recommend that you always use your real name, either the first name or full name if you like. Do not enter your website name or any "keywords" in the name-field, unless specifically allowed on that blog.
The email is mandatory in most blogs, but not all. The email is needed to ensure that the comment is left by real person. The email is not used for anything else but this verification, unless you optionally subscribe to comments (to get notified about new comments via email). The blogger, or other admins of the blog, can see the email, but that's all. Behind the scenes, the email is also used to fetch an image of you, if the blog is using them and if you have set a gravatar for yourself.
The website URL is optional. If you do have a website, ALWAYS add the URL to the field. This way others who read your blog have the possibility to find more about what you do by clicking on the link. If you don't have any website to link to, go make one right now. At minimum, have a page that tells who you are, what you do and how people can get in touch with you.
The comment text is where you write what you have to say. In theory, you can say and write anything you want. However, if you don't stay within the blog comment rules (not all blogs have blog commenting policy, but most should have), your comment will not be approved by the blogger, it can be marked as spam and deleted from the blog.
Blog commenting and SPAM
There are rules in blog commenting that you must follow. The blogger is using quite a bit of time to keep the blog comments free of spam. There are great anti-spam tools for most blogging platforms, which automatically filter out spam comments.
The spam comments are often left by automated scripts ("bots"), in attempt to get a link back to a site. This is why you, as a real person, need to stand out from the "bots" and not spam:
- Follow the general netiquette principles
- Don't "YELL" (use all capital letters)
- Keep the comment on topic with the blog post you are commenting on
- Don't be rude
- Don't add unnecessary URL links to the text
What to say in blog comments?
Blog commenting is an amazing opportunity to
- share your opinion,
- ask questions,
- thank the author and
- discuss the topic of the post
- (and also get a link, and maybe even some traffic to your own blog)
Use it well, and you will understand what makes blogging so special. Think of it like reading a great book and be able to thank the author about the experience, ask the writer questions if you didn't understand something or agree/disagree with what you just read.
Summary
To leave comments on a blog
- find the blog comment form
- find a link, or
- scroll towards the bottom of the individual blog post
- add your name to the form
- add your email (if needed)
- add your website URL (optional)
- write your comment
- submit
Blog commenting is an excellent way to network with other bloggers and blog readers. At its best, blog comments turn into discussion and add great value to the blog community. To make the most out of blog commenting, you should add something to the post, either by adding your opinion, additional information, questions or something between those lines.
You can also build links with blog commenting and get traffic via blog comments, but you must not spam when you do this. To get the most results out of it, there are some advanced blog commenting tricks you can use.
But now that you know how to leave blog comments, you should try it out and leave comment on this blog... On this blog, I'm using a blog commenting system called Disqus, give it a try and leave your blog comment below.
14 comments.
Very useful posts for people like me who are new to blogging. I'm sure experienced bloggers would also find some good info from it.
For me, I love comments as they can tell you what your readers want. You can in turn write about the topics they wish to read about in succeeding posts.
I think when it comes to what to say in your comment, you need to be making sure that you are adding value to the conversation!
While I've been blogging for over a year, I'm pretty new to commenting. I just never really got it. But it is a wonderful thing. As soon as I started encouraging comments on my blog, my visitors provided me with so much valuable feedback. It is so much easier to write about what people are interested when you get feedback. Thanks for the tips.
While I've been blogging for over a year, I'm pretty new to commenting. I just never really got it. But it is a wonderful thing. As soon as I started encouraging comments on my blog, my visitors provided me with so much valuable feedback. It is so much easier to write about what people are interested when you get feedback. Thanks for the tips.
very interesting article, will share this with my friends, thanks!
some comment tools are very tricky…but more and more are people using disqus like you are making it easier for everyone to comment if they want. easier comment tool encourages people to comment more…simple like that
Great tips for newbies – may i suggest KeywordLuv…check it out.
Thanks for showing
“Well , the coach outlet view of coach handbags the passage is totally correct ,your details is really reasonable and you guy give us valuable informative post, I totally agree the standpoint of upstairs. I often surfing on this forum when I m free and I find there are so much good information we can learn in this forum!
coach leather
It was interesting to read it. The only thing I don't 100% agree is that you have to leave you real name. It seems to me it is not necessary to give such information. Well, we live in such a society where people are very open, you may learn everything if you visit his or her facebook account.
It would be interesting if you prepare a similar post about Disqus. It seems to me it has some secrets I cannot still understand. Sometimes the comment is shown but sometimes it is not.
With best wishes Rain from http://www.mp3hunting.com
very nice information
Well, we live in such a society where people are very open, you may learn everything if you visit his or her facebook account..
i agree to that. its useless when you comment that are not related to the content of the blog and its very irritating when you see someone post an unrelated comment.
Hurricane Earl Path has been upgraded to a Category 3 storm, and now the National Hurricane Center is watching the path of the storm very closely. For the second day in a row, Hurricane Earl has been one of the most heavily searched terms on the Internet. Experts have stated that Earl could potentially become a Category 4 storm later in the week, which would mean that the sustained winds within it could potentially be as high as 131 MPH. More news about hurricane