What does your Comment Leave?
Posted on March 23rd, 2008. 9 Comments so far. You next?
Some people leave comments for different reasons. There are many benefits for such a small task, but I’d like to go a little deeper than that. In the simplest terms, there are only two types of people who leave comments.
Those who add something, and those who do not.
How do you know?
You may think your comments provide an extra insight or a quick thought, but in reality it likely doesn’t. I read every comment I get, and a trend I’m starting to notice is a slight pickup in relatively worthless comments.
Don’t get me wrong, if a (real) person takes time away from something better they could be doing and spends it on my site, I’m more than grateful, but this is about you. How your comments can benefit you.
What will happen if I delete your comment?
Will anything change? If the answer is no (or you are unsure), then you have left a worthless comment. Not lacking of any value to the author, necessarily, but lacking of value to you and the other commenters.
Every time I get a comment I imagine the thread without that comment. Every time I read a comment on another blog I imagine the same thing.
Imaging you have a friend that during a conversation (of multiple people) chimes in with something everyone either ignores, or it’s just what someone else said. I know people that do this, and I know everyone else does too.
Don’t be that person.
Comment Marketing
I’m aware of people that only comment for links, traffic and stuff like that. It’s a good method of building a name in your niche. Unfortunately, these people are usually the culprits of such comments. You’ll also find that the more popular a post, the more of these comments you’ll get.
This is something I should probably do more of, but if I read a post there are a few things I think about before leaving a comment.
- After reading the comments, there is something I can add. Contributing to the discussion is important. Spammy comments get deleted in the way of a real discussion.
- I disagree. I disagree with a lot of things, but if I read something and passionately oppose it, I’ll leave a comment.
Otherwise, I just don’t feel I’d be doing their comment section justice. Because of this, my comments aren’t deletable (it’s a word- I looked it up 
).
You want people to read your comment. Let that be a reflection on you and your brand every time you leave a comment. You are representing a brand that will make a first impression on whoever reads it.
In the end, do yourself justice, and give the writer the respect you believe they deserve. That will provide you with more traffic from comments than 10 times the amount of worthless spam.
9 comments
March 28th, 2008 at 12:52 PM
I delete every comment from my blogs that are the generic:
“Great Post!”
I hate those more than I hate SPAM!
March 29th, 2008 at 12:23 PM
Those can get annoying, but unfortunately with this comment I’m just testing the AJAX edit comments.
March 31st, 2008 at 10:51 AM
I never really analyzed comments that way. I completely agree with your point. If a comment doesn’t add something valuable, why leave it at all?
Unfortunately, I think some people talk (or comment) just for the sake of doing it.
March 31st, 2008 at 6:44 PM
Well, the people that are just doing it for the sake of doing it are usually doing it for links and traffic. I mean, you can still comment for traffic while leaving good, insightful comments.
April 5th, 2008 at 8:43 PM
I agree with you Connor. Commenting is a two way thing. If one is getting the benefits he wanted out from a site, in return a commenter should take time to read and give his insights about the topic. He should not take things easily. Blogging is not an easy task. For some it is a source of passive income but for some it is a hobby to be perfected.
May 26th, 2008 at 9:07 AM
I’m totally with you here connor.
We get lots of useless comments on our blog, i find it best just to delete them and move on. .. no point wasting my life stressing over a few comments on the interweb !!
June 21st, 2008 at 1:57 PM
Hi Connor
There are so many different types of blogs out there. There are many chit chat blogs were we chat among each other, there for the posts are quick and easy and might just be a few words. On the other had there are serious posts that require some thought and meaning.
You mention conversation, but does all conversation have to be deep or can it just be chit chat.
I get your frustration as a blog owner that you have to read through it all.
I dont own a blog, I just go to the Internet reading content and I make it a mission to post were ever I go, even if it is not what you call “value”. So many blogs moan about the fact that people dont blog, they get 1000’s of people that visit but dont blog, and there is nothing worse then a blog that has no comments.
It is irritating to hear that posts get deleted because they are not good enough, I mean here I sit on the other side of the world (South Africa) taking the time to write this comment (5-7 minutes) for it only to be “possibly deleted”.
Maybe you should put on your blog before we post that any posts that do not meet your guidelines will be deleted, its only fair.
July 3rd, 2008 at 3:29 PM
Looks like you are being flooded by spam at the moment.
July 3rd, 2008 at 3:30 PM
Just have a look at all the randomly generated names.
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