It’s easy to read a post and move on, and even easier to like a blog post without reading it.
But stop and think for a moment. How much more valuable to the writer, and other readers, if you actually bothered to respond. Isn’t that what you’d hope for when writing your next blog post? Nobody wants to invest time in writing something that people are just going to skim over.
Not only that, but you will gain more from the post and from the interaction with others than you realise.
You might gain new ideas or perspectives, or you might just end up feeling a little better about life.
It doesn’t have to be a long or complicated post. Even just saying “thank you” or “I liked this!” does the trick.
However, commenting on a blog post is more useful than just propping up the ego of some blogger who hopes to be discovered one day.
Leaving a comment on a blog post doesn’t have to take more than five seconds, but it can make a huge difference to the blogger by helping them, and whatever they have to say, to become more “discoverable”.
Leaving a comment on a blog directly affects the ranking and therefore the visibility of that blog on both the platform – such as WordPress or Blogger – and consequently on the web. Rankings and visibility affect which posts are chosen to be featured on the highlights pages of blogging platforms, such as the ‘Discover’ page on WordPress which pick up the posts that have had the most interaction and engagement, not just the ones with the most likes or views.
One of the author support groups on Facebook to which I belong has been conducting an experiment over the past few weeks. We’ve made a deliberate effort to read, like and comment on a selected blog post by each of the others.
Those posts have consistently attracted more viewers beyond that initial group. These new viewers also seem more willing to read, like, and comment. This boosts the visibility of the individual post and of the blog overall, and helps to attract even more viewers.
In short, it’s a highly valuable snowball effect in drawing attention to both the post and the blog.
Let’s face it. That’s a pretty cool thing to be able to do for someone.
Leave a comment and let me know what you think!
WordyNerdBird 