Your blog post is the beginning of a conversation. It is a long letter written with care.
So the most wonderful compliment we can get is a letter in return – in the form of a comment.
This is why we have the comments section. Don’t ignore this section – it is of paramount importance to the health of your blog. It is the breath. The life blood that pumps through the veins of the blog.
Independent bloggers can be Entertaining. Educational. Engaging.
But above all good bloggers want to connect. You and I write so we can connect.
A blog post is like a door opening. An invitation to come in. Have a cup of tea. Sit a minute. Engage.
A comment is the most joyful word-hug for a blogger.
Which is why I call my comments section The Lounge of Comments.
Here are a few of my tips about comments:
Be Real
I read lots of blogs when I am looking for information and I wonder whether many of these blogs (not yours by the way) are written by teams of content creators. Businesses that employ other businesses to write these blogs with the express intention of trapping a Google Search and selling stuff. They study SEO’s and Keywords and Long Tail keywords. They study the stats minutely. They check for trends and market changes.
All that stuff is useful (and quite an interesting study).
But they forget about the comments.
I believe in being real in my Lounge of Comments.
I believe in being honest.
I believe in writing my own blog posts.
And I believe in commenting as myself.
Because I believe real and authentic are the most attractive of qualities in a comment and in a post.
And your comments are more important to me than an algorithm.
Use the comments to Engage.
When you make a comment on my pages. Or I make a comment on yours. This is an engagement.
For me Engagement is the Objective.
I know they say that the content of a comment is useful to a Google Search and I want to help elevate your blog with my comment but also I want to engage.
I want to share a little of myself with you along the way.
We empathise.
Someone said to me the other day – I have been reading but I just could not think of anything interesting to say so I did not comment. That was the saddest thing to hear. So hear me now: I don’t care what you write in your comment. You can tell me something totally unrelated about your day. Totally unrelated to the post. You can even write: I don’t feel like writing because I feel like shit. That is a great comment.
I totally get that comment.
You have engaged and I can engage back.
The Lounge of Comments is safe. Pop in.
Enter a Call To Action
I am a member of a large network of professional writers in Linked In.
And there they are all about using a Call to Action to increase engagement. Just one apparently. One sentence that directs a reader to take an action.
I want to say: you do know that I know what you are doing right?
How do YOU encourage people to engage without using a clunky CTA.
Do you find a question at the end of a post useful?
How do I encourage you to comment without looking needy?
oops that was three and I am only meant to write one CTA – failed again! Laugh!!
Answer Every Comment
Blogging is about trust.
You trust that it is me writing. You trust that this is honest. You trust that I write it on the day I post. (not the weeks before) And the photos are from the last 24 hours. (These are my promises).
And you can trust that I will answer EVERY comment.
If you take the time to write back to me, I will respond to you.
I will answer every comment that appears on my page.
Then I hope to visit you! I go visiting first thing in the morning. Without even doing my hair!
Comment on Comments
I love it when my readers talk to each other and answer each others comments.
I love it the most when I come in from the farming and find that you are answering each others questions or have gone totally off thread and are talking amongst yourselves. I love that!
By commenting on comments in a blog you are engaging, you are connecting and as an experienced blogger I love it when that happens.
Like. Comment. Share.
If you think somebody else needs to read the words you are reading please share.
The biggest compliment for a blogger is if another blogger shares their page.
Or provides a link on their page.
I try to do this as often as I can.
And I also try to visit you as often as I can:
SO If you posted something this week that you think we might like to read – SHARE the link in my comments today. We will come! And we will comment!
Do you think comments are important?
Love,
Celi
PS I hear that some of you are having problems commenting on the kitchens garden site – we hope to fix all that when we navigate to the new platform. As you know this blog has been swinging through the internet galaxy for over a decade now and the spaceship need maintenance and a new motor! So if you cannot comment send me an email celima.g.7@gmail.com.
Engage.
The Kitchen's Garden 
76 responses to “Why Comments are the Life Blood of A Blog”
I enjoy reading others’ blogs; they inspire me. My WordPress blog is a bit quirky. The unusual tags remind me where my writing mind was at that particular post. Comments/Likes are not necessary; I enjoy writing and would continue to do so even if I had no readers.
That is fantastic Henrietta. So your blog is really a library for your writing. That is really wonderful.
Oh, I hadn’t consciously thought about it… but I like that, thank you!
I just want to say, I love the pictures, growing up on a farm and having many family members that were farmers just imprints somethings that are such good memories.
The text is also good to read although I did nor get through it all.
Yes! Farms make for great memories! Thank you so much for the comment.
Where was the farm that you grew up on?
Good morning, c. Here’s the link to the A.I. interpretation of the recent FreeBee and the rooster photos. Explanations and three versions of each are based of my favourite artists’ style, and briefly described in the text. https://misky.uk/2023/03/20/20-march-an-a-i-gallery-for-cecilia/
YAY! Thank you so much! I will be by just as soon as my teaching day is over! I am so looking forward to it.
You’re so right as always. Nothing nicer than knowing a real person is reading, and is interested enough to join in! A real word hug.
I’m commenting, on this spring equinox and new moon, the beginning of the solar and lunar new year in the northern hemisphere.
It’s a propitious start for the upcoming year, I believe.
I want to say how much I enjoy your blog, including the one I read earlier today about a de-peopled planet. I like to take time to think about what I read, so it takes time to respond, so I write thoughts down in my journal, and I used to write letters, too. My blogs have gotten shorter, primarily because of technical dificulties and the fast-changing pace and rhythm of modern technology. Also, re-reading my previous blogs, I decided they were too long and attempted to cover too much.
It’s easier to read what other people have to say, and to comment, as I’m doing now.
Happy solar/lunar new year, from a loyal follower and intermittent commentator.
Thank you Katherine. I am really impressed at your routine of journaling a response – thinking things through then coming back later to write in the comments. This gives such intention to your words. And such value.
I too suffer from trying to say too much – letting my mind and words run too free. Forgetting that I may be overwhelming my readers. Thank you for the reminder to tighten up my own posts.
Have a wonderful day . C
I like how your blog allows you to directly respond to comments. There is a setting for that on blogger, but when I turned that on, so many people complained about having trouble leaving comments at all that I turned it back off. Maybe I’ll give it another go.
Speaking of comments, I’d asked about single use plastic bread wrappers on a previous post. Did you address that somewhere and I missed it?
I remember reading that – thank you for the reminder – what I do is store those kinds of plastic bags in my refrigerator drawer. (To mitigate microbial activity) Then reuse them.
We dont get too many because I bake our bread. But I find the bags quite useful – I have outlawed plastic cling film. So these bags are a stand in.
Actually I will make a blog post about this soon. It is an excellent question.
Thank you!
My word, you threw down the gauntlet, and they all took it up, loads of lovely contributions. I have one thing to say about comments: Try and stop me commenting. Far more of a challenge than getting me to comment! I’m so happy you’re back and blogging regularly.
Yes, I believe comments are very important to the blog writer..even though I don’t have a blog. I also think it’s equally important for the author to answer her/his follower’s comments/questions when possible. I had stopped commenting quite some time ago as you were absent from your blog for a very long time and hadn’t really answered that much when you were blogging so that’s my excuse. 🙂 You had also wondered where all the other bloggers had gone, as did I. I think I asked you a couple times if you could remember the name of blog of the couple who had moved to France to start a cattle ranch on a very old property that they bought several years ago. They have 4 children. Do you remember them? If so, do you remember the name of their blog? If you’d rather not say here you could e-mail me at christinalfrutiger@comcast.net
PS. I still wear my I love Sheila t-shirt. 🙂
I am so sorry that I let you down – I simply burnt out. And took to the hills. That was remiss of me and will not happen again.
I hope.
As to the French family – was the dad a New Zealander and the mum American? He is on Instagram as grasspunk. I am not sure if they still have a blog/ I will ask.
Oh I think we all get burnt out from time to time, then check out, then come back to what’s really important in life..our connections to each other. At least some people do. Over the years I really became disheartened with people that the only time I heard from them is when I reached out and sometimes not even then.
So, I decided to stop banging my head against the wall trying to keep these connections and I thought that the ones that really cared I would hear from anyway. Well, as you can guess, once I stopped reaching out I never heard a peep.
But then again..what makes me think I’m so special? LOL.
Life is strange, is it not?
Thanks for Instagram link..yes, that is them but for some reason I thought they were both American. I didn’t realize he as a 🥝! ☺️
I do understand how that feels. Social media is like eggshells sometimes. But I did not mean to ignore you. You are right. Life is strange and beautiful. We just roll.
And you are special.
Oh, I wasn’t referring to you specifically Cecilia..I meant friends, well people that I thought were friends and some that I’ve known for years..and some relatives as well. I certainly don’t expect people that I only know from blogs or other social media to respond to my every comment, e-mail, etc.
Yes, we roll..we have to! 🙂