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Why Your Blog Isn’t Getting As Many Comments As You’d Like …

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One of the most common “laments” I hear from my clients (the ones who are actually adding content regularly) is “HELP!!! Very few people are commenting on my blog posts!!!”

My standard response to them is as follows:

It’s been my experience that most people who leave comments on blogs are other bloggers. With a blog of their own to promote, these people are trying to build a “bread crumb trail” to their own blog via their comments. “Regular” people will have to be moved to great extremes of either passion or anger (usually the latter) to be motivated to actually post a comment.

It’s interesting to note that I have a few clients who have NO DESIRE to allow people to comment on their blogs! As I was researching a blog post for another blog, I came across a post from Steve Rubel over at Micro Persuasion titled The Participation Ladder and Its Impact on Marketing and PR.

Forrester segmented the online audience into several different stratas – what they call a ladder of participation. They found that “Inactives” are by far the dominant group (52%). They’re followed by spectators, joiners, critics, collectors and last but not least creators. This last cluster, according to the analyst firm, dabbles in lots of different activities but few do all of them. See the chart for more.

The numbers on the graphic pan out as follows:

Creators: 13 %
Critics: 19 %
Collectors: 15 %
Joiners: 19 %
Spectators: 33 %
Inactives: 52 %

Keep in mind, according to the report, people enter at the bottom of the ladder and move UPWARDS. Inactives don’t usually jump into blogging at the “creators” level. They move slowly up the ladder… becoming spectators… then joiners.. then collectors… then critics.

Now, take a look at YOUR blog’s audience. Where do THEY fall on this ladder?

My clients are definitely fall on the lower spectrum of the ladder. Most of them are trying to soar to the top and as a result, they need my services to guide them. That’s what I do. As a result, my clients (and potential clients) don’t comment on my blog posts, my colleagues do.

While my clients and potential client’s won’t post a comment, they will email me if they feel particularly moved by a post. For example, when I was complaining about my cat and his OCD issues in the post “Are Google Adwords the Answer?” I got several emails from concerned clients who wanted to help my demented self mutilating kitty.

Niche Blog Marketing also offers great advice regarding playing the comments game with your blog:

Focus on building your lists while building rapport with your visitors. Track your progress and study your numbers. Treat social networking like attending your local Chamber of Commerce meeting. Be approachable……..

In other words, ASK for participation if you want comments.

There’s no one who does this better than Liz Strauss over at Successful Blog.com. Notice how she ends her post “Wendy Wouldn’t Wait. Will you?”

What are you doing to build the business of your dreams now?

She got 23 comments on this blog post just by ending it by asking a question. She does that a lot and as a result, her blog is an active hub.

By the way, Liz leads that post with the most brilliant insight I’ve seen on the web:

A blog isn’t a business any more than a building is a company.

BRILLIANT!

Moveable Type Takes an Ugly Swing at WordPress

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WordPress 2.5 is scheduled for release and the buzz on the web is that the transition is going to be another difficult one.  Like the previous upgrade to the 2.3.x, themes will be broken and plug ins will be rendered useless.  It’s part of the carnage of progress.My blog clients don’t have to worry.  When WordPress 2.5 is released, I’ll go through these steps, work out the kinks and when I upgrade their blogs to 2.5 the only “surprise” in store for them will be whether their chosen theme makes the transition.

However, Daily Blog tips reports Moveable Type has taken a “swing” at WordPress and tried to spin the negative buzz surrounding the upcoming WordPress upgrade into positive growth for their platform.

The biggest problem I can see in the PR war between the two platforms is that it’s been my experience that Six Apart (Moveable Type/Typepad) customers are much less tech savvy than WordPress users... they don’t understand blogging basics such as trackbacks which is an important part of building a successful blog.

So we have two camps in this war… in one corner we have Moveable Type and Typepad users… who don’t understand why turning on trackbacks for each and every post is important.  Their “flagship” blog is sporting an Alexa ranking of 55,035.

In the other corner, we have the tech savvy crowd backing WordPress.   Users in this camp include heavy hitters such as Micheal Arrington of Techcrunch (Alexa  ranking 926)  Darren Rowse of Problogger (Alexa ranking 3,529), Daily Blog Tips (Alexa ranking 14,490) and the Blog Herald (Alexa ranking 33,003)

I know, I know… Alexa is skewed towards the tech savvy user…. which is why it’s a valuable resource in this discussion.

For my non-techy readers… Alexa is a type of traffic spy device provided by Amazon.  You install the toolbar and Alexa tracks your web surfing activities and ranks sites in order from 1 to 10,000,000 + and displays this ranking in the toolbar.  Alexa detractors point out the “regular people” don’t usually have the tool bar installed so results are skewed and instead of displaying the ranking of a site’s traffic, instead the tool bar displays the ranking of a site’s traffic amongst the most tech savvy of web users.

WordpressI’ve already placed my bets on the optimal blogging platform for me and my clients…. because when faced with the choice of a platform backed by the tech savvy and a platform of choice for the “less tech savvy”…. I’m going with the platform with the big guns behind it.

My parents bet on Beta as the format of choice for home video recording more than 25 years ago…. they still have that beta max machine in their basement today.   I didn’t want my clients stuck with the “beta” equivalent of blogging platforms.  Therefore, my choice was influenced by several factors.  First, WordPress has incredible community support.   Combine that strong community support with the caliber of bloggers choosing the platform, and WordPress pulled into the lead.  However, the final “straw” in making my decision was when Template Monster began offering WordPress Themes.    Commercial backing + strong user community = winner in my book.

I know there are other GOOD blogging platforms out there, but rather than be a jack of all trades, master of none… I made what I believed to be the BEST choice for my business.  Speaking of which,  I don’t see Drupal’s developers taking potshots at WordPress.  Instead, they’re heralding the migration of Popular Science Magazine to their platform.  Way to go Drupal!

Help! My blog’s not working

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trafficLast week I had an appointment out of my home office… and I got stuck in rush hour traffic on my way home. I had forgotten how DRAINING being stuck in traffic can be.

On that day, I got two contrasting emails. The first came in from a client who has been blogging for 10 months now. His is a “traditional” business based in the “real world” where his clients have to battle traffic to get to him and receive his services. (There’s an interesting and probably overlooked entry for your SWOT analysis…. THREAT: TRAFFIC.) It’s the second email this year from him on this subject. The last one came in January when he got his first “referral” from his blog. He was thrilled. It gave him the “boost” to keep blogging.

One of the gifts this client possesses is the gift of “gab”. He’s a GREAT speaker, comes across well on camera and can construct a compelling word picture to illustrate complex concepts on the fly. He’s smart, he’s funny and he’s personable too boot! To capitalize upon this “gift”… he’s creating video versions of his radio commercials and posting them to YouTube (paying attention to proper tagging). He can then feature the clips on his blog AS WELL as making them available to a world wide audience.

Well, yesterday, a member of that world wide audience called him… from Brazil. (He’s in the US) He was shocked and amazed.

It’s working!!! It’s working!!! After almost a year, it’s working!

blogging solutionsThis is in stark contrast to another email I got yesterday. This business owner launched a blog 6 weeks ago. The posts to the blog are along the lines of “and this is what I had for breakfast this morning.” (The posts aren’t that bad… but they did remind me of another blog where that was the ACTUAL content of the posts. It’s almost possible to compute that person’s daily fiber intake from the blog entries!) The email from this client read, “My blog isn’t working and I think I’m going to take it down if something doesn’t happen FAST.”

Wow… what can I say. Six weeks and eight blog posts later it seems that the blog isn’t “working”.

First, read my post io9.com created 700 posts before launch.

My next question for the business owner will be: “What was it the blog was supposed to do?”

Is it supposed to magically funnel potential clients into your practice?

I use the term “magically” because filling the sales funnel for an independent service professional is a lot like pushing a 500 lb giant lead ball up a steep hill. If you think that 500 lb lead ball is going to roll up the hill on it’s own power… well, I hope you’re a graduate of Hogwarts if you think that is going to happen.

Instead, think of your blog as a bulldozer to help you move that heavy lead ball to the top of the hill.

Remember that your blog is a GREAT communication tool. It’s a GREAT way to communicate with potential clients… to convince them you are the answer to their most pressing problem. Your blog can get potential clients to that magical “90% sure” state…. just by reading your posts and watching your videos. That 90% sure state… where they’re 90% sure you’re the one who can help them…. is necessary for them to pick up the phone or shoot off an email.

I get those phone calls occasionally as a result of my blog. Someone has stumbled upon this blog, reads a few posts and then picks up the phone and calls. “I think you can help me” is how those conversations begin.

The service based professional NEEDS to provide that kind of assurance to potential clients and customers. The WIIFM (What’s In It For Me) question playing in their head is, “Can this person really help? Does he/she “get” my problem? Can he/she really provide a solution?”

Dosh Dosh asks “Why are you giving away content for free?”

If you’re a service based professional, the answer should be “To gain the level of trust needed to begin a conversation with potential clients.”

Observations from a Quasi-Scientific Free Blog “Experiment”

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I’m reading a book where the author claims to be journaling about his experiences as he conducts a social science “experiment”. The problem is that the author (a Brown graduate… so obviously his education in hard science is lacking) began his “experiment” with the desired outcome already defined. He constantly modifies his actions throughout the experiment, a fact he openly acknowledges in the book.

THAT MY FRIENDS IS NOT AN EXPERIMENT…. IT’S AN ADVERTISING DRIVEN CASE STUDY.

According to Wordsmyth, an experiment is defined as “a test or trial to discover something unknown, esp. a scientific one to determine a cause-and-effect relationship.” UNKNOWN being the key term in this definition. True science ..hard science…. teaches that while you may begin with a hypothesis, you must be open to the fact that your observations and experimentations may in fact render your hypothesis incorrect. THAT is the way of a scientist.

Now, I lead with this because despite my current status as a “self hosted blog pusher” when I began my “free blog” experiment, my hypothesis could have been defined as a blog version of “tom-Aye-to.. tom-ah-to…. blogs are blogs.” Actually, I could see some real advantages to the free blogs… the biggest of course being that they are free but also that there is no “sandbox” effect. Since creating compelling content that is fresh is essential to creating a successful web presence, so I’ve been installing WordPress blogs for clients who were open to it as an “add on feature” as far back as 2002.

For those who weren’t sure they wanted to host their own WordPress self hosted blog, I recommended setting up blogs on free and low cost blogging services such as WordPress.com, Blogger.com and Typepad. One of those clients reported to me that she had made a few posts to her Typepad blog and then got busy doing other things. Despite not blogging for several months, when she did a keyword search on an EXTREMELY long tail search term, she saw her blog post come up on the first page of the search.

SUCCESS!!! (That’s what I thought.) Hypothesis confirmed. Blogging platform has NO effect on blog effectiveness.

Meanwhile, another Virtual Impax client had been blogging as a way to pick up some long tail search term action. That experience in particular has forever changed my view of the “free” blogging platforms.

Unlike the client who judged “success” as showing up in a search, this client was carefully tracking sales through her web site. See, she had already commissioned a traditional HTML web site as a virtual store front and because of the “Google sandbox” effect I recommended (as I always do) that she find ways of promoting her new web site. One of those promotion tools was Google Adwords. The other tool was a free WordPress.com blog.

Because the client was spending money actively promoting her site, she decided to invest in a service Virtual Impax offers where her log files from her web site were analyzed monthly. These log file analysis were being performed prior to her free blog launch. Months went by and this client was FAITHFULLY blogging away on WordPress.com. Sometimes she was posting 5 times to her blog in a single week.

Through months of blogging, this client built up QUITE an impressive library of content on the free blogging service. After about 8 months of log file analysis, I realized that there was not a SINGLE referral from the free blog to the web site and there hadn’t been one since the blog was launched.

I could watch when we changed keywords in her Adword campaign. I could even see when she began writing a monthly column for a trade magazine. I could watch her newsletter subscribers move on special offers she announced in her newsletter. But I did not see a SINGLE referral from her WordPress.com blog.

Meanwhile, success stories were pouring in from other Virtual Impax blogging clients with self hosted blogs.

Clients who had been blogging with Typepad for YEARS were launching self hosted Word Press blogs and seeing their Word Press self hosted blog (set up by Acumen Web Services and Easy Coaching Web Sites) ROCKET ahead of their still active Typepad blogs in the search engine results when they typed in their own name. Even when they hadn’t been blogging faithfully on the Word Press platform, these clients were seeing much better “results” with their Word Press self hosted blog in comparison with their Typepad blogs.

This lead to an uncomfortable OBSERVATION... “Hey, this isn’t what I expected!!”

This unexpected observation set off alarms.

ACK!!!! My mistaken hypothesis had caused me to lead my client astray!

I’ve got egg ALL OVER my face now with this client.

Let me reiterate….I get to go back to my client and tell her that my initial advice, based on my faulty hypothesis was bad… bad as in “rotten egg” bad.

While my client wasn’t spending any money on her WordPress.com free blog (she was spending money on monthly log analysis reports), she was investing her time and a lot of it. In my client’s case, time was more valuable to her than money. I didn’t want her WASTING her time since we were not seeing a SINGLE referral from the free blog to her web site.

I suggested to that client that we launch a Word Press self hosted blog to replace her free blog. (Note… I felt bad enough about my rotten egg advice that I installed this for her without additional charge! I will NOT have someone else pay for my bad advice.) Fortunately, during the VERY NEXT log file analysis, we started seeing visitors coming to her HTML store front web site DIRECTLY from her self hosted word press blog.

Now, in the interest of science, it’s important to note that the only thing that changed was the platform. My client didn’t begin blogging differently. She didn’t begin using trackbacks or begin commenting on other blogs. She didn’t suddenly begin posting using title tags with highly competitive keywords… or long tail keywords. She just kept doing what she had been doing except this time she was doing it on her own self hosted WordPress installation.

(Admittedly, I installed a standard “suite” of plug ins to improve the blog’s performance… and those plug ins are NOT available for the free version.)

It’s been said that wisdom is learning from OTHER PEOPLE’S MISTAKES.  Well, I have my own Blogger.com Beyond Niche Marketing blog that has never sent a single visitor to any of my web sites.  However, I justified that blog’s poor performance by my lack of attention and effort.  After all, I’m not seeking exposure on extremely long tail keywords… the keywords upon which I compete are extremely competitive… so a lack of attention could be fatal in my blogger.com blog’s case.

When I saw my client blogging without bias and getting the same result… the alarms began to sound in my head.  Just as the robot in Lost in Space would blare, “Warning!  Danger, Will Robinson!”  the voice in my head began blaring a similar warning.

Since my “experiment” I’ve gotten several emails inquiring as to how to improve a free blog’s performance.  My response is simple, “I wish I knew!”

There’s a reason the BIG GUYS such as Problogger, Techcrunch and Mashable are all self hosted WordPress blogs.

My favorite mantra is “I don’t make the rules… I just know how to recognize them and follow them.

Creative clever response to customer indifference

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Microsoft’s anti-customer centric thinking has spawned yet another spoof… which is only funny because it’s so true!!!

If you have ANY experience with Window’s new operating system Vista… enjoy the show!

[youtube]http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=7Ml7-LmLZr8[/youtube]