If your blog attracts regular comments, there’s a good chance that those comments are influencing the content of your posts.
Whilst this can be a good thing, it can also cause a blogger to make incorrect changes to how he or she writes or even what they write about. That’s because those who comment on blogs are a small subset of the blog’s readers. What they say is not necessarily what the majority of readers think.
Blog comments & Seth Godin
Some time ago, the best selling marketing author and blogger Seth Godin took a VERY bold step, when confronted with this problem on his blog. What did he do? He bravely decided to close the comments on every post! Here’s why: Pay special attention to his final and most important reason, given in bold.
First, I feel compelled to clarify or to answer every objection or to point out every flaw in reasoning. Second, it takes way too much of my time to even think about them, never mind curate them. And finally, and most important for you, it permanently changes the way I write. Instead of writing for everyone, I find myself writing in anticipation of the commenters.
Unless we are careful, we (bloggers) can end up developing our blog’s content around the needs of this tiny group, just like Seth said. Now, that’s fine if our motivation for blogging is to share ideas exclusively with those who comment, but if we want to reach a wider audience, attract advertising or showcase our skills to the wider world – we need a better approach.
An alternative approach to developing your blog
If, like me, you have no intention of turning comments off, it’s important that you realise them for what they are; unique feedback from a special subset of your readers – and NOT necessarily a reflection of what the other 99% think or want from you.
Value the input of your commenters, listen to what they say and engage with them; but don’t write exclusively for them.
Choose the direction of your content based on all the feedback. So as well as your comments, look at your blog’s analytics software and check:
- How often your posts get shared
- How many pages people read
- How many readers return to your blog
- How long they spend when they visit your blog
- and any other key indicators that show if you’re resonating with people or not
Look at the whole picture and THEN decide if you need to focus more on one area than another.
For example, I wrote a post on my marketing blog recently, which has so far been read over 10,000 times and been shared on stacks of social bookmarking sites; by people who found it useful. Yet, if you read the comments it attracted, you would assume it had little reach or was of little interest. That’s because the people who comment and the people who share posts are not the same subset. Whilst there’s some crossover, a lot of people who seldom comment are prolific content sharers and visa-versa.
In short, grow your readership by loving everyone. There’s nothing wrong with loving your commenters a little more (I do and openly admit it), but make your decisions based on all the feedback you get.
Its a fine balancing act to perform Jim. With some many aspects to take into consideration on the points you mention, it could, quite easily (and has done) drive a fella to drink! Not that I’m complaining, a few pints never hurt!
Your correct though. Its an easy habit to fall into whereby you continually cater to a few responsive individuals on comments and adapt your writing to suit them, moving you into a comfort zone that can be difficult to get out of and which ultimately stunts your site, and probably your personal growth.
Taking the time to look at the big picture and consider all the different types of response that you can get, from RTs on twitter, bookmarks, references and quotes on another blog or even a phone call to say well done, the extent, range and depth of response can be dramatic.
Its really a matter of staying fresh and focused, most of the time, in my opinion anyway and realising that there’s more than any single thing out there when it comes to measuring response and value to your visitors.
AL always Justin, you make some valid and interesting comments.
I love your suggestion that as bloggers, we need to be “staying fresh and focused.” Spot on sir. There’s a lot of gold in them 4 words!
Interesting insight into blog comments Jim. As you pointed out, the key is understanding your audience and keeping true to your overall goal for the blog. If it’s not shaping your blog around the topics of comments, then you have to use theses comments in a different way.
For us, our blog’s goal is to publish useful information for our ecommerce niche, while gaining additional SEO benefits from the topics we publish. It’s tempting to lose sight of this, and start publishing content for our wider Twitter followers, or to try and rise in the ranks of other similar blogs. But this would be a mistake (not that we ignore this area entirely) as our niche is our “bread and butter”, so we must always keep it in the forefront when developing new content.
Rob – LexiConn
Thanks Rob!
Having a focus, a ‘true north’ to guide the direction of the blog is really important. I also believe that as bloggers, we need to get as much valuable information out there to as many interested people as you can.
This blog is just a few weeks old and I am already studying the full range of feedback, in order to ensure I am as relevant as possible, to the people who are kind enough to visit here. Thanks for the valued feedback as always sir!!
Wow, awesome points here! I always force myself to try to learn from every situation, but as a teenager, what other people think is important important to me, haha. I definitely agree that it’s important to understand where your commentators are coming from, and then relate that to the whole picture.
While I love getting comments, I actually just go out and ask people what they think. See…if nobody tells you, you pretty much won’t ever know. What makes that post get read 10,000 times from the perspective of this guy or that guy? Do those two match up at certain points? Etc…
I find questions easier to interpret than numbers. My Dad once said that at a certain point, numbers get so high they might as well all be one.
Interesting take on the post Corey – thanks.
There are certain posts that cover a subject, which I know will attract a lot of hits. I blogged recently on my tech news blog about the launch of Windows 7 and got over 5000 page views in less than a day. Equally, the post before it which was about a message the co-founder of Friendfeed sent me only hot a few hundred.
For me it’s less about the number of views a post gets and more about focusing on what I believe is genuinely worth sharing. If you lose track of that as a blogger, you lose the blog’s direction.
Great advice, Jim.
There are too many bloggers that get deep into the numbers. Sure, it’s great to have thousands upon thousands of readers/subscribers, etc, and if you’re “in it” for sponsorship, the numbers help.
But the reason you got those readers in the first place is because of what you wrote, not who you wrote for. It’s a very dangerous fine line and many cross it and regret it later.
I’m a firm believer of writing what you’d want to read first, and if others enjoy it too then that’s a nice bonus. Otherwise, aren’t you just kidding yourself and your readers?
Thanks for the feedback my friend.
I love what you closed with; “I’m a firm believer of writing what you’d want to read first, and if others enjoy it too then that’s a nice bonus. Otherwise, aren’t you just kidding yourself and your readers?”
Gold dust (again) from Mr Brown.