5 More Ways to Reward Commenters and Attract More Comments

In my last Community Building WordPress plugins roundup post I mentioned you could encourage more comments to your blog by rewarding them with a top commenters list, in this post I will show you more ways you can attract more comments by rewarding commenters.

  1. Show the commenter’s most recent blog post with the CommentLuv Wordpress Plugin. When the visitor adds their comment, the plugin will go to the URL they enter and try to find their feed and extract the title and link of their most recent post. This provides an incentive of a link back to their blog, plus encourages readers to investigate posts they might find interesting too.
  2. Use the Do Follow Plugin For WordPress to remove the “nofollow” attribute from your comments. This means any links in the comments get full search engine recognition. “Nofollow” was intended to stop spam by removing search benefit from links, but it failed to do that and punished honest blog comments at the same time. By removing this attribute you will encourage people to comment in order to get a link back, just be vigilant this doesn’t get abused!

  3. Show off commenter stats with the Comment Info Tip plugin. This plugin shows information about the commenter in a rollover popup box, such as when they commented before, their most recent post, and allows people to become more familiar with each others comments.
  4. Replying to comments is one of the best ways you can encourage more. People like to know you are listening and that they have been heard. If you get many comments, make it easier to reply to them all with the WP Easy Reply plugin. Hitting the link that appears for the blog owner puts each comment since you last commented into your comment box as a quote with the commenter’s name, all you have to do is edit the quotes down to the part you are replying to and add your reply.
  5. If you are handy with your blog database, use this top commenter SQL query and write a post to thank your top commenters of all time!

Can you think of any other ways to thank or reward blog comments? Do you think rewarding commenters leads to more spam? Please add your tips and thoughts in the comments …

Posted on May 27, 2008 by Chris Garrett 
Filed Under Blogging

Comments

7 Responses to “5 More Ways to Reward Commenters and Attract More Comments”

  1. Ankesh Kothari on May 27th, 2008 1:26 pm

    Thanks Chris for a good post.

    6. Give a reward to the best commenter of the week. This improves the quality of the comments.

    7. Make a post once a month showcasing your best commenters.

    8. Ask your best commenters to guest post for you.

  2. Chris Garrett on May 27th, 2008 6:55 pm

    Good ideas, thanks Ankesh :)

  3. Ramkarthik on May 28th, 2008 12:56 pm

    9. Offer to write guest post for the best commentator on their blog

    10. Offer your service to them once for free. Say if you are a logo designer, maybe you can design a logo for them. (P.S: You might even get a good testimonial for that from them. Has worked for me.)

  4. Chris Garrett on May 28th, 2008 1:21 pm

    Always good to hear when something has worked for you Ramkarthik. Good tips :)

  5. Missy on May 28th, 2008 9:10 pm

    Hi, Chris:
    I personally prefer the “Better Comments Manager WP Plugin”. Are you familiar with this one?

    I feel this one is easy, quick, and no tweaking is needed on the part of blog owner.

    #11.) Highlight a commenter on a blog post. Maybe a commenter asked a question that deserves its own blog post, or the comment itself sparked a new topic idea.
    (give commenter credit for said post)

  6. Chris Garrett on May 28th, 2008 9:56 pm

    I did try better comments manager but it didn’t suit me. I love the highlight a comment tip, good one.

  7. Andy Bailey on September 30th, 2008 4:08 pm

    thanks for the commentluv plug!

    FYI: I have updated it now and have released a companion plugin which does the same with info tip but shows how many times the comment link has been clicked and on what other blogs it appears on.

    it can also show the comment owners gravatar and description at commentluv.com

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