Commenting on the blog posts: the right etiquette that’s good for your blog

Leggi in italiano 

Whether writing an interesting blog post is a challenging task that reflects our way of working, leaving comments on the posts shows how we interact with others as well as…our way of fitting in with the world.

I’ve already told you about how useful commenting on other blogs can be for your blog, besides the pleasure you get when you do it just for the sake of it.  

Today, I’d like to mention some practices halfway between common sense, good manners and pure strategy for the benefit of our blog, that it is necessary to put into practice both when commenting and when approving/making room for comments.

Let’s start with the argumentative tones: 

Needless for me to say anything about haters, because it’s a category and a neologism I do not acknowledge. I call them sour grapes sufferers/people who have got nothing better to do/real gossips with a slightly newer tool in their hands (though increasingly less powerful) compared to the town square.

There’s a somewhat lower level than those defined as haters within the scale of useless controversy, namely people who are contentious by nature.

Let’s assume that, both on blogs and in everyday life, if our words do not contribute to the discussion in a useful way, we can keep them to ourselves. And I’ve got nothing else to add about this subject.

The Dynamics of Reciprocity 

 

Not everyone knows that, when choosing the blog to comment on, several dynamics of reciprocity can step in.

I find it nice for the blog administrator to spend a minute of his/her time, every once in a while, reading and commenting on the texts of a blogger who often leaves comments and interacts on the blog.

Of course, if the blog of the person who leaves a comment is not authoritative, returning a comment won’t be useful (not even harmful though) for our domain authority.  Yet, remember that the success of a digital professional does not only depend on the algorithms of the network, but also on public relations and the image you provide of yourself.

To sum up, the less you show off, the more people will be glad to deal with you. You will establish better relations over the net and it will be easier for you to build up a true and long-lasting reputation.

 Participating in threads

Not everyone is aware that there exist some “guided” methods of reciprocity in comments, carried out by some groups of bloggers who share their posts on a platform (Facebook, Twitter, Telegram etc.) just to comment and to receive comments in return.

I find this is a very interesting way to increase my knowledge of the topics I know nothing about, a great opportunity to know other badass bloggers… besides having the chance to make myself known (I don’t just read travel blogs, just like a writer of detective stories who doesn’t only read similar texts).

Write detailed comments beyond the simple “Wow, nice article”. Besides being annoying, this kind of comments actually borders on spam.

The more your comments on other blog posts is interesting, detailed and written in a very personal way, the more other professional bloggers will remember you.
This is an amazing business, in the end, where the more you give, the more you get!

Bringing grist to your mill is OK only if you don’t try to divert the river flow. 

Let me give you an explanation of this metaphor, as if Coelho was just an amateur in comparison!

We know (don’t we?) that providing comments to the posts of authoritative blogs can increase the domain authority of your blog.

To start with, logging with your name and URL and writing a detailed and longer sentence under an authoritative post are two things that help increase your authority hence your Google position and therefore your traffic… is it absolutely necessary for you to also advertise your blog in the comment?

In case you can’t help it, do it politely, in order to actually add something to the blog post you’re commenting on.

Example: some of my posts do have a quite good domain authority. Let’s take my first post about Sofia. If you leave a comment to MY post, feel free to add at the end:
“Speaking of this, I have also written something about Sofia; if you feel like reading it, click on this link. I would really appreciate your comment”.

I would definitely and willingly leave a comment on the mentioned post, even just because of the kind words used or to praise the diplomacy.
Whereas, if you just write (as someone has done) “If you would like to know what to see in Sofia, have a look at this wonderful video of mine”…how can you expect me to approve your comment and avoid it ending up in the spam folder? I mean, you’re reading my post, which I suppose you found among the first Google search results, and then you ask me and my readers to leave my page to go see your video?

Let’s take another metaphor, as I feel particularly inspired today.
It’s basically as if I rang the bell of a house where they’re having a party and told the owner:
“Hi, if you want you can join the party I’m giving at my place right now. Can I tell your guests?”.

Come on, it’s not that hard to understand what is appropriate and what definitely is not.

Read also
“How to write comments that can benefit your blog”

But keep in mind that the river can feed all mills…

Let’s get back to the party metaphor: if someone rang my doorbell and asked “can I join the party? I’d really like to”, I’d say yes.
If, at the end of the party, this person told me “If you like, I’m throwing a party next week and I would really appreciate if you came by”, I would certainly attend the party and I would also tell other people about it.

So, as you receive a comment with backlink to another blog, learn to understand if the comment is deliberately made to promote another website (to your disadvantage) or if, end of the day, it’s just a polite attempt to ask you to read it first.

If people prove they have read my post in a comment, saying it was useful and that it would be great if I read one of their posts, I would personally be more than happy to leave the link to the blog and I definitely wouldn’t remove it nor move it to the spam folder.

Help people leave comments on your blog 

This is an advice I give all bloggers or wannabe ones: arrange things in order to make it easy to leave comments, don’t choose the comments plug-in based on what is easier for you to manage but rather on what is the easiest for your readers to use.

The comments module must be clear and visible, easy to register in and people don’t have to look for it with a magnifying glass.

Is there anything you would add to this small guide about the etiquette of blog comments? Go on, unleash your thoughts!