If you get a conversation going on your blog – you are a winner. Well, all of us want people to comment on our posts as that is the single most encouraging factor for a blogger to continue blogging[well, along with monetary benefits of course 
]
Along with great content, we also need give our readers something for those informative comments. So, here are a couple of ways which will help you boost or skyrocket comments on your blog:
- DoFollow – This is the first thing you need to do. As per the standard settings, WordPress blogs are NoFollow i.e. they do not give backlinks [immensely helpful for SEO purposes] to the bloggers who comment on their posts. Once you enable DoFollow; you will see a drastic rise in the number of comments. Download.
- Comment Luv – If you go into the comments section in this post; you will see a tab called ‘comment luv’ under the comment bar. This plugin gives the blogger an option to leave a link of his last post on his blog. The link will help him drive traffic to his own blog as well as give you the much needed comments. Download
- Threaded Comments – This plugin gives you a reply option on each and every comment and when you comment; you reply goes directly under that comment. This plugin helps increase comments, makes it easy for people to reply and at the same time prevents readers from scrolling down to look for answers to their questions. Download
- Top Commentators: This plugin displays the names of the readers along with the number of comments on the side bar of your blog. The plugin provides you the option to reset the list every hour, day, week, month or year. Download
- Subscribe to Comments – This plugin let’s your readers subscribe to comments and the ongoing discussion. Readers get a notification when any comment is posted in the discussion. This helps in continuing the discussion. Download
IMPORTANT - To increase your backlinks here is a list of some of the best blogs with both DoFollow and CommentLuv enabled. Comment on them and increase your search rank and page rank – Click Here
A point to remember – Approve only RELEVANT comments and comments that add to the conversation. For comments like ‘great’ or ‘thank you’ you will always have the option of removing do follow and as well as commentluv from that comment. Also, while you use all these plugins; don’t forget that what matters the most is CONTENT. So, ensure you have the right content in place.
If you know of any more important plugins, do let me know and I would be happy to add it here.
September 2, 2010 at 12:20 pm
Is it applicable to only wordpress blogs or also for blogpost?
September 2, 2010 at 3:47 pm
Sir, these plugins are only for wordpress blogs.
September 6, 2010 at 12:55 pm
But its for wordpress.org right?
I don’t think the wordpress.com people have an option for installing a plugin.
September 6, 2010 at 8:56 pm
Yes Bhavia – this is only for wordpress.org
September 2, 2010 at 7:23 pm
Comment Luv Zindabad:)!!
September 3, 2010 at 9:41 am
Lol…Yes…:)
September 5, 2010 at 11:53 am
I agree to most of the things you have mentioned. But as soon as you make your blog a dofollow, be prepared to face the flood of spam comments. That is one reason I had to revert back to nofollow
September 5, 2010 at 12:03 pm
I would agree with that but would still recommend keeping your blog DoFollow atleast till you have actual ‘Readers’ and a known name in your niche.
…and to control spam…you can use Akismet [ a small relief but a help would be to select and delete all spam comments in every 2-3 days].
September 6, 2010 at 9:03 am
@Vishal – that can be a pain if u hv a blog with high readership since Akismet is not perfect, at times it does categorize the right comments & trackbacks as spam too and going thru the entire list of spam and unspamming the right ones can be very time consuming..
September 6, 2010 at 11:51 am
Hey Vaibhav – Yes, I agree with you and that’s what I had mentioned above as well. In that case I think it is a good idea to keep your blog as do follow for a while [atleast till the time you achieve good readership] and after that in case things are out of hand, you can remove it.
My suggestion would be that you still go with it since it has more advantages than disadvantages.
September 6, 2010 at 11:50 am
@Mohan: You should try Akismet plugin for wordpress, which is generally pre-installed whenever you install WordPress on your custom domain. Since I’ve started using this plugin, even a single spam comment has not appeared in my to-be-approved list. This plugin is quite good.
September 6, 2010 at 11:52 am
Yes, it is a good one…the best that I have seen in a while. It keeps the spam comments in check.
September 6, 2010 at 10:25 am
Nice article Vishal. I have been looking at the pros and cons before implementing it on one of my blogs
September 6, 2010 at 11:48 am
Thanks Sowmya
September 7, 2010 at 1:06 pm
This post is quite informative for those bloggers who want to increase comments on their blog (as five above ways). Thank you for your post. And one more, I would like to thank you for sharing the list of some of the best blogs with both DoFollow and CommentLuv enabled. I will try to see all these blogs.
September 7, 2010 at 1:40 pm
Thanks a lot…you should surely go through the list
September 7, 2010 at 1:18 pm
darn! Mine is blogger. I wish I had started in wordpress now. I have been searching for a better comment widget in blogger. But I haven’t come across any yet.
September 7, 2010 at 2:11 pm
Well, I have been on wordpress so can tell you only about it…but even I havnt seen any such widgets.
September 7, 2010 at 2:36 pm
Some of the plugins are for wordpress only and presently I’m using blogger but I think I’m also trying wordpress I heard that it offers a lot of functionality that some blogging sites doesn’t have.
September 12, 2010 at 3:33 pm
Yes, as far as my opinion is concerned…I’d prefer WordPress anyday!
September 9, 2010 at 4:52 pm
Agree with you, btw i’ve add Comment Luv & Top Commentators and now i use dofollow plugin
Btw how to create sliding in your footer that shows your other post, please share
Thank you
September 12, 2010 at 3:36 pm
Hey…I will soon be putting up a post on how to insert the sliding footer..will share the link with you.
September 9, 2010 at 5:06 pm
Great tips… I think social networking is also important… you should share your blog posts in twitter, facebook, digg etc. they do provide a lot of traffic.
September 12, 2010 at 8:10 am
Awesome blog. The Keywordluv plugin has been kind to me. I have to say, that there weren’t many sites that I commented on prior to the plugin. Why? It takes time to post comments and I don’t have much. Now that we’re awarded a link for doing so, it is worth it. Thank you for using it.
September 12, 2010 at 3:40 pm
Yes, commentluv and do follow have a made a big difference to my blog as well:)
September 12, 2010 at 8:59 am
Yeah you’re right mate DoFollow blog will increase comments, Thanks for great tips
September 12, 2010 at 3:41 pm
Your welcome
September 29, 2010 at 11:17 am
the tips you posted found useful. by default are blogspot blogs dofollow?