Having to think of original posts to draw in readers can be maddening. Having to actually write down that idea in a way that's easy to read, while being relevant and informative, is draining. We also have to think of different ways to give the article more visibility, be it for the purposes of increasing your page rank, affiliate marketing, and many more.
So the moment we finish an article, we might end up leaving it as is, letting it accumulate views and comments on its own while we start on another.
As for other people's posts, we just read what we want and move on. Some of us just don't have the time to leave coherent and reasonable comments, even if we found the article useful.
By doing so, we are missing out on some things that will not just benefit our readers and other writers but our own sites as well. Here are a few reasons why you should comment on blog posts:
- To give feedback - Communication is crucial to blogging, and it can only get clearer when it's a dialogue. Giving feedback allows the webmasters to know just what their audience is thinking. Conversely, if our readers give us feedback on the articles we uploaded, we can give them exactly what they want. We can adjust to the varied and ever-changing tastes of our audience.
Discussion can even lead to new ideas, making the process of writing even easier.
- To have complementary content - When the content of a post is being discussed, it's hard not to have people giving their own takes. Additional tips get thrown around, complex concepts are clarified, and problems are solved.
If we forget something important in our article, we can just mention it in our own comments section, too!
- To build your brand - Being able to answer questions from readers (whether from our own blog or another's) makes us look like experts in the field. People will go to us for our insights. Chances are, they will even visit our own blogs if they see us commenting on someone else's.
We also establish bonds between readers and other writers when they see that we care enough to impart our knowledge to them.
- To increase social proof - People can't help but check out things that other people go crazy for. They'll think, "There must be something worthwhile in that post when there are a lot of comments in it!"
So if people do leave comments on our posts, we can reply to each one, thereby increasing the number of total comments. When other people search for articles like ours and see the number of comments, they won't be able to resist clicking on our site.
- To enhance your site's visibility - It might not be apparent at once, but comments can directly contribute to upping our blogs' rank on search engines. More often than not, everyone discussing in the comments section will end up using the keywords for that particular post.
Since we'll be engaging in actual conversation, it won't be seen as spam. Commenters will be unintentionally helping in increasing our ranks, and they'll be happy to do so!
So when we write or read articles, we should take the time to say something sensible in the comments section. Posts get better, pages get more views, and readers get happier. Everybody wins.