Why You Can’t Take Your Readers for Granted

As blogs continue to grow in numbers, each comment marks a smaller portion of the overall spectrum of content published on the web. Yes, there are millions of comments published each month compared to a much smaller portion of new, unique posts, but comments still cannot be neglected.

There are some principles that you have to learn to follow as you develop your blog to ensure that you place all your commenters and readers at an equal level – you do not want to leave any out to focus on those that leave all the comments. This guide, if you want to call it that, should be developed as soon as possible after you start your blog to ensure that all your readers and commenters are in no way taken for granted.

Replying to Comments: The Basics

Replying to a comment is like responding to the person over the phone or in person. You want to give them an answer, even if it just a simple acknowledgment. Otherwise, you will convey the message that their opinion and acknowledgement of you isn’t there – they likely will only give you one more chance (if that) until they never return. Although you may have never met these people, they could mean a whole lot to you in the long term – they might just purchase your product, subscribe to your blog, or help contribute to the success of your blog.

Here is a fairly basic guide that I try to follow on my blogs.

1. If the comment is from a legitimate person, I will reply as soon as possible with an confirmation that I read the comment, or at least a thank you for the comment.
2. If a question was asked, I may follow up with an email to the person, otherwise I will post a reply directly to the commentator.
3. People who have left multiple comments will not receive a reply (this is due to “comment spamming” which I do not particularly like).

What Each Commenter Means to You

As stated earlier, each comment means a whole lot more to you than you might think. Step back for a minute and think about the sites that you visit regularly, especially the smaller ones. If you didn’t visit the site (multiple times per day, possibly) the site probably wouldn’t adapt as quickly to its audience, develop new tools, and more (provided all members provide insight into what the site/blog should be doing).

However, due the the exact numbers of how many people do leave comments and truly interact with your site versus those that might only spend ten seconds or less you can’t assume that everyone will contribute to your success. But, on the other side of things, those that do contribute might contribute a lot to your blog, making it extremely beneficial for you to keep these people a part of your growing community.

• Comments – these may limit the amount of support or replies to other comments you have to make, as they will help other commenters with smaller questions.
• Email – having additional contacts in your email or other type of subscription list never hurts.
• Traffic – even though you might think that traffic adds cost to your site, it all balances out if you monetize your site – they increase the revenue in the eye of the advertiser(s) and your ranking against other sites.
• Profit – looking at all people visiting your site collectively, you could estimate how much each one purchases per visit, if you have monetized or feature products on your site. A simple method for overall figures is total sales/total visits to get the amount each visitor contributes to your blog.
• Plus many more… each bloggers has his or her own figures they can attribute to their visitors – what are some of yours?

Conclusion

Comments that are neglected are negative – you want to eliminate them to grow your community. Otherwise, some will look at your blog as a traditional website, where communication is essentially stopped where the reader never receives a reply, even though they are providing feedback. You want to value your readers, as they can help grow, maximize your site and essentially help you grow in the long-term.

What have you done today to help say “thanks” to your frequent visitors, members, and commentators?