While I was writing my blog's first birthday post it got me thinking – why do bloggers follow bloggers? It may sound like a silly question, but after one year of social blogging, I had 300 people following me. That's not many, but it was 300 more than I had a year before. And I myself chose to follow 70 bloggers. So there were at least 370 of us on the same or similar wavelengths.

So, lets look at how to encourage comments on your blog and get more likes.It may be significant that at the time, I was not blogging as a business.

The whole thing was a casual eclectic mix of arts and humanities, totally unfocussed. I was writing articles for an online magazine about ex-pats, travellers and other creatives, wandering the earth, blogging about their lives and experiences.

It wasn't long before I wanted to know what people found interesting about my blog, so I could write more of the stuff they liked. I wanted to get more comments and know how to to get more likes. I didn't know why people with blogs were following me, and none of the bloggers I followed knew why I was following them.

Why? Because none of us asked the question. Why are you following me?

Nobody asked me why I followed them, and I never asked anyone why they followed me.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

  • 1 Why are blogs important?
  • 2 This is why you should follow other bloggers.
  • 3 What is the obvious question we don't ask bloggers?
  • 4 So how can bloggers get feedback?
  • 5 Use Google Analytics
    • 5.1 So start with this recommended bloggers breakfast and then get to work.
  • 6 Analyse your Blog Posts
  • 7 Re-engineer old posts
  • 8 Make quality your focus
  • 9 Read other blogs
  • 10 Be sure you are targeting the right audience

Why are blogs important?

I modified my views after I began to develop early blogging into an online business. But I still focus on helping others.

A small campaign led to the answer to the question, how to encourage comments on your blog and get more likes. Most people have little interest in revealing or discussing their reasons for following others. But there is valuable data available. Read on…

This is why you should follow other bloggers.

When I follow a blog, it can be for a multitude of reasons and if I was the blogger I would welcome followers views on my website. I want people to tell me what they like or don't like so I can improve. And the best blogs to follow are the ones that bring something of value to your own blog and the ones you enjoy reading most. In time you will gather a lot of information, most of which you will discard. The best will form part of an ongoing library.

In the early days I followed some blogs because I loved the writing. Others had content which was helpful and informative. I was intrigued by the personal experiences of others. And so it went.

There were many reasons, and because I wanted to make my own blogs better, I wanted feedback from other bloggers to help me produce consistently good content, I wrote about in this post.

What is the obvious question we don't ask bloggers?

I think we should all be asking

Why are you following me?

It's an easy question to ask and easy to answer. Yet no-one ever asked me, and I doubt many thought about it.

So I took some time and wrote around asking others

Thanks for following me. I'd love to know why.

But only a few responded. Those who did were kind and helpful. But I was disappointed that most people couldn't be bothered to answer. I was a voice in the wilderness.

Maybe I was naïve but I was surprised, and I'm still interested to know, why the apathy?

So how can bloggers get feedback?

If you are a new blogger and no one COMMENTS or LIKES a post, you may assume the post has no value.

You shouldn't pay too much attention or worry about it, because it is not likely to be the case.

Most readers don't understand the value of feedback and how helping you can benefit them in future posts.

So, how can bloggers get feedback?

Use Google Analytics

The best feedback you can get is provided by Google Analytics, a free resource for websites. In my early blogging days, I had no idea it existed and I'm still learning how it works and how much valuable information it contains.

Google Analytics data will help build a success strategy for your website or blog. It will give you details of visitors and their actions when they come to your website, like how long they stay and the pages and posts they browse. If you want to understand their behaviour it's a must, that provides important statistics to maximize site performance.

david-lezcano-211888-unsplash-1024x683 How to encourage comments on your blog and get more likes

Analyse your Blog Posts

Start by analysing posts. Bloggers may feel the need to reconsider what they are writing. Posts that fall on deaf ears may need to be trashed or re-written otherwise they become redundant clutter.

Culling and re-writing posts are important as a blog evolves and attracts new readers. A blog should never become cluttered and bogged down with irrelevant posts. Readers are lazy so by the time a blog has accumulated 250+ posts, even if many are still good and relevant, they will be buried deep under the latest posts and will seldom, if ever, be read again.

Why do some of your posts do well, while nobody ever sees others? You need to find out so you don't keep writing to any empty stadium.  I haven't written an in depth article on this subject yet. But here are some pointers.

  • Make sure you have keywords that Google show people are asking about and make sure your post answers them.
  • Check to see if you are ranking. Anything after page 1 will struggle.
  • Link to other relevant posts on your blog and sell the links so they will be clicked. Don't just link to any word at random.
  • Find out where your traffic is coming from.
  • Don't write big blocks of text. Break everything up into bite size chunks, use the header tags and bold important points.
  • Are you aiming at the right target audience.

in the meantime I recommend watching this video from Income School. It will give you some excellent advice. Check it out.

Re-engineer old posts

Bloggers need to write, re-write to maintain quality and relevance to make their blog evergreen. Emphasise quality and not quantity. Every post must have a purpose – to entertain, inform and share knowledge. We may use our blogs for many things – an author platform to showcase our books – a gallery to display our photography – or a virtual kitchen to teach cooking. The permutations are endless. And in every instance, we measure our effectiveness by the number of visitors we receive every day and their reaction to our posts by the data Google Analytics provides us.

Make quality your focus

When you start a blog you will most likely find it difficult to resist being impatient and will fire off as many posts as you can, quickly, in an effort to fill it with content. Most of us have done it. I know I did. But it's counterproductive, so take time, as you progress, to tidy-up or trash old posts so your blog becomes a library of good, evergreen content which is easy to find.

Quality not quantity and Less is more are hackneyed phrases, but they still hold good.

Read other blogs

Keep reading other blog posts and search for good, well-written content which you can link to. It is a time-consuming process so when you find a post of value give it a LIKE and COMMENT, to show appreciation for another's contribution to our world. Then maybe add something or ask for more information.

Doing that helps other bloggers to improve their content over time. And if everyone does that then content will get better and better and readers will benefit.

Most non-bloggers don't appreciate how important this feedback is.

Be sure you are targeting the right audience

Make sure you hit the target. If you are targeting the wrong audience, it doesn't matter how good the content of your posts is. It will fall on deaf ears. More likely no ears.

Would you try and sell chewing gum to a man with no teeth?

Blogging should be enjoyable. If it isn't read my post about how to make it fun.