I comment too little: I'm honoured to receive as many comments as I do (an average of 9 per post last week), because comments are a rare and precious commodity in blogworld. Especially when you first start blogging it can seem that nobody is ever going to turn up, read a post of yours and leave a response, and I'm sure that many bloggers quit early because they're tired of receiving insufficient attention. As I've established before, lack of comments doesn't always equate to lack of appreciation from your readership. In fact, believe it or not, my survey suggests that anybody averaging 2 or more comments per post is doing well. My survey also suggests ...
• More readers usually equals more comments: Even if only a tiny proportion of your readers post comments, that soon adds up if your blog attracts a substantial amount of traffic. The mighty Scaryduck, for example, averaged 33 'spicy brains' per post last week, while acouple of American megablogs topped the 100 mark. [Exception to the rule: Despite attracting "9000 unique visitors" every day, Londonist's fine posts average less than one comment each. That's "a high volume of comments", so they say, but my survey suggests quite the opposite.] • More specialist blogs usually attract more comments: For example, Arseblogger's comments boxes act as an unofficial Arsenal forum and typically attract (wow) more than 300 responses every day. • Engaging in conversation with your readers usually attracts more comments: It's good to reply to the comments that you receive, because sometimes the most interesting debate happens not on the blog itself but in the comments box. • Writing fewer posts usually attracts more comments per post: Commenters usually only have a certain amount to say, so if you post too often then their comments are spread too thinly. • Writing a blog for people you know socially usually attracts more comments: Even the smallest randomly-selected blogs in my survey were attracting comments, generally from a hard core of friends and/or family. • More interesting writing usually attract more comments: But by no means always. If only life were that predictable. • Writing about blogging usually attract more comments: I've upped my number of comments by 50% this week, just by talking about a topic that most of us have in common. • Turning off your comments stops you from wondering how many comments you're not getting: Works for somepeople anyway.
Conclusion: I may be doing well for comments (thanks), but I almost certainly don't leave enough comments on other people's blogs. Maybe if we all tried to leave a couple more comments somewhere different each day, then more bloggers would feel that all their effort was somehow more justifiable. But remember, a blog doesn't need feedback to be worthwhile. How about you?
