There are two reasons that people will visit your website.
They'll visit to read great content. And they'll visit to feel part of a community.
There's one way in which you can add valuable content to your site, get that content for free and build up your community at the same time.
By receiving comments.
Comments are an important part of any website. They let readers interact with you and with each other. They give you feedback on the content you're producing. They show people who are reading your site and what they think of it.
And here's the important thing... they supply valuable information that you couldn't get any other way.
If you've written a post about photographing lightning, for example, you might well get a response from a professional photographer explaining how he sold his lightning photos. That would be a great addition to your post. It would enhance the value of the information you're providing and it wouldn't have cost you a penny.
But comments like these tend not to just happen by themselves. First, you'll need lots of users and especially the sort of users with good knowledge to share. That comes with good traffic generation.
Then you'll need to encourage them.
That's a lot easier. At the end of each post, you should make a point of writing a sentence that invites responses. The easiest way to do that is simply to ask a question related to the topic of the post.
So the publisher who had written about photographing lightning could end the post by asking: "What are your techniques for photography lightning and how do you sell the images you create? Tell us here."
If you can make it easy for your users to respond, more of them will.
Getting comments that tell you what a great post you've written is all very nice. But getting comments that add nice things to your post will bring users back, increase your traffic and give you more clicks on your ads.
It's Del.icio.us!
Furl It!
October 2, 2008 10:32 AM
By reply to our readers commnets, they will be honourable an will be came back again and again. This will increase traffic
October 2, 2008 11:54 AM
I think what the first commenter may have meant was:
If people are adding comments then as the owner of the blog you need to be reacting and adding back to these comments. This will add conversation.
Actually I use a plugin in wordpress called Better Comments Manager that allows me to reply and add comments very easily to my Wordpress posts without even leaving the admin panel
http://techie-buzz.com/wordpress-plugins/better-comments-manager-wordpress-plugin-release.html
October 2, 2008 12:42 PM
What a great post this is.
You left for me to contribute value and I am doing so. I have always placed some kind of intrigue at the end of our posts so the readers can respond. But people use keywords and spam that part. They will say oh what a great post in 4 words and place a link. I still let them do that, sometime they come again. Anyways this a strong tip to make your site sticky and here I am stuck on this page.
October 2, 2008 02:04 PM
Hi. Thanks for that info. Also enjoyed your video post re: increasing sales by attending conferences. I had not thought much about attending those due to time/cost/distance etc but I will now. Also thinking of organizing a small scale one with local customers as a way of providing a service for them to network, brainstorm etc. Good way for my bus to be seen as a sponsor and gain credibility and loyalty. Any thoughts on that?
October 2, 2008 05:14 PM
Thanks Joel , Interactivity on blog post is important to gauge the popularity of your content..Ideally you should have a free download or report for the user to download, this has worked well for me
October 3, 2008 01:31 PM
Hi Joel,
Thanks for sharing so much information with us. It have helped us all grow alot. :)
October 14, 2008 02:43 AM
You are spot on with this post. When people can leave comment's they feel part of the website and you are on your way to buid a communty that is supporting your website.
October 15, 2008 03:22 PM
I never heard of rounding off to get free content before. Weird, but intriguing...
October 22, 2008 08:03 PM
Hello this is brad, Interactivity on blog post is important to gauge the popularity of your content.
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brad
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