Blog Comments and Input

Comments and Input

In order for your readers to return again and again, it’s important to make them feel like your site is their site.  You need to make them feel at home in your Blog Empire.  One way to do that is by allowing them to make comments, ask questions, and provide information through timely feedback.  This can be done either through the blog-supplied comments, through special free add-ons such as Haloscan or by adding an attached forum through a free service such as ForumUp. Be aware, however, that on the internet as in life, there’s no such thing as a free lunch.  Free service providers are actually providing the same service to advertisers that you are by putting ads in front of your readers.  If you send your readers to a forum on someone else’s server, you will generally not receive the advertising revenue that traffic creates.  That’s their payment for providing the service to you without cost.

The comments sections of popular blogs are “where the action is.”  Arguments can last for days, even weeks, and provide consistent fodder for updated or pointed entries.  If you’ve stated something controversial on the front page, your readers will certainly let you know what they think, providing the perfect opportunity to clarify, modify, or expand your argument.  If you’ve listed ways that a certain software package can be modified, knowledgeable readers can provide additional information, making your blog that much more valuable to your other readers.  Comments can also provide valuable feedback to you, and what is sometimes more important, encouragement to let you know that your efforts are appreciated and worthwhile.

If you decide to allow comments and feedback, it’s important to decide how much time you want to spend monitoring the traffic it generates.  If discussions get “off track,” you may need to publish (and enforce) forum rules, which may be as simple as editing content for bad language or as complicated as ensuring – if your blog is related to the stock market, for example - that information presented is not in violation of a myriad of SEC regulations.  Remember, your readers, like the author they read, always come with their own agendas.  If your comments section gets wild and crazy, that’s great for your traffic.  If it becomes a haven for spammers or stock manipulators, you may have to spend more time reading and editing than that traffic is worth.

Banning Readers

Once your comments section takes on a life of its own, you’ll certainly meet a lot of well-informed and interesting people who will make your job easier and your content more valuable.  You will see relationships develop and blossom and you’ll get to know your most faithful readers as far more than just words on a screen.  Getting to know your readers will provide encouragement as you see how the content you provide them helps them in real life.  It’s one of the finest pleasures of the job.

But you’ll also attract those readers whom you would rather not deal with.  They may be spammers who use your forums to promote their own sites.  They may be ne’er-do-wells who simply show up to gainsay everything and abuse their fellow readers.  And that means that you may have to ban readers, making it impossible for them to post on your site.

Banning readers is not something that ought to be done lightly.  However, for your forums and comment sections to succeed, they must conform to the goals you have set for your overall site.  If after several warnings, a reader insists that the rules do not apply to him, it may be best for the rest of your readers to remove that reader from the discussion.