I’ve been a massive believer in comments as both a blogger and reader of blogs, however I am currently in the process of relaunching a blog and one of the things I will be doing is switching off comments – keep reading for the ‘why?’.
Comments or Closed Comments on Your Blog – Which Is Best?
Results In A More Simplified Design
One of the things that annoys me the most about comments is how deceptive they can be when you first visit a blog. When every I first visit a blogs latest post, the first thing that I do is take a look at the scroll bar on the right and see how long I can expect this post to be.
The problem with comments is that you can jump into the post thinking it is a couple of thousand words on what you are looking to learn – only to find it’s a couple of short paragraphs and hundreds of comments (most of them just say ‘thanks’, or ‘this is great’ just to get a link back to their site).
What removing comments from a blog does is keeps the focus on the content and allows for a more simplistic design.
Encourages Interaction On Social Media Platforms
Now while turning off comments may sound like you are cutting off communication between you and your readers, what you are really doing is redirecting the discussion to elsewhere.
I remember the big stink that everyone kicked up when Seth Godin closed the comments on his blog. I didn’t think any more of it until the other day when I stumbled upon his Facebook page and saw things like this:
Notice how he has not only still has given people the opportunity to comment on his posts, but by moving the whole commenting platform over to Facebook he is getting people to share his content and his brand without them even noticing.
Because the thing about Facebook is that whenever you like or comment on something – it shows in all your friends feed. This means instant advertising – Try doing that with regular blog comments! 🙂
Increases Quality of Comments (Yes, You Will Still Get Them!)
Also, by moving your comments off-site you are making it require more effort to leave a comment. What this should do is trim the fat and stop people who are leaving comments for the following reasons:
- Just To Get a Backlink
- To Leave a 2 Word ‘Thanks’ Comment
And aside from all that, it will cut spam on your blog by 100% and you will get a lot less on Facebook (plus you can ban people quite easily).
So basically what I am trying to say with this point is that because you are making it harder for people to comment – it means that only the people who actually have something to add will take the time and effort to leave a response. So while your comments may be less, they will most likely be of a higher quality.
So Are Blog Comments Dead?
Not in the slightest!
I definitely think there is a strong case for both sides of this debate – but I will let you decide in this debate. 🙂
This is a guest post by Jake Dickson. Jake Dickson is the owner of 24 Hour Locksmith Davie FL, 24 Hour Locksmith Plantation FL and 24 Hour Locksmith Sunrise FL. If you want to guest post on Better Start Blogging blog, check out the guidelines here.