The basic idea behind John Chow Dot Com was to teach new aspiring bloggers how to make money with their blogs. And the tag line of John’s blog “I Make Money Online Telling People How I Make Money Online” was well justified in initial years of operation. But now it looks like John Chow has forgot what his tag line stands for. He still earns handsome five figures with his blog. But he no more tells his reader how he makes it. And something similar is happening on Daily Blog Tips Dot Com now days.

He Is Not Doing What He Does Best:

An a-list blogger who is know for his brilliance and authority in blogging community, seems to have forgot why he is getting all this attention and affection from thousands of people all around the cyber space. Or at least that’s what DBT’s recent updates suggest. A favorite blog of millions of reader looking for blogging advice and marketing tips, have transformed it self into a place for review and news of web tools and services.

So what is the reason behind this change in Daniel Sococco’s blog post style and quality?

Is It Writer’s Block?

I believe you all are very much familiar with this nasty term “writer block”. And you must have read many posts on writer’s block lately so there is no point in rehearsing it here. But is you are struggling with it then there are many foolproof strategies to deal with writer block. But if your blog archive is as big as Daily Blog Tips then its even easier for you to beat the bugger, then a relatively small blogs like this one.

Recycle Your Blog: This tactic is particularly useful and effective for blogs which have produced boatload of content. That have created significant buzz in blogsphere. All you have to do is select bunch of evergreen articles from your archive, rewrite it with new aspect add few new points and publish it as series of post.

The best example of this strategy’s success and effectiveness is Problogger’s 31days to Building a Better Blog challenge, Darren’s 31days to Building a Better Blog challenge is recycled version of his 31 old posts, with spice of new improvement in blog sphere and his signature style (see the world from other end).

Invite Guest Blogger: Its not hard to find few people to write for an a-list blogger like Daniel , When you ranked in top 10 blogger in your niches, usually people buzz you all the time with their best works for one chance to address your reader.

Hire writer: If you think guest post from different people will effect your blogs quality and reputation, then paid writer is best option for you. Find couple of freelance writer who will take care of your writing duty for few bucks.

Round Up Post (Best Of Your Blog): An a-list blogger with more then thousand post under his belt have many reason to do periodic roundup styles of post. And I believe every blogger must do it time to time. Its fast and easy to produce, it gives quick flashback of your work to your old readers (it also help your new readers find your best work). And the SEO benefits of Internal Linking is added bonus.

There is great deal of ideas and strategies like those above to conquer the writer block, But to believe a blogger like Daniel Scocco don’t know it or have lack of inspiration or creativity is height of stupidity (though the evidence so far suggests he doesn’t). A guy who is considered as a great thinker of blogging community couldn’t possibly be short of idea or inspirations for new blog post.

So is it Success Overload Then?

Success of any project Is like bungee jumping, Initial thrill is full with lots of ups and downs but it eventually lefts you hanging in between. And that’s what seems to be happening with our beloved entrepreneur blogger, success of his 1st venture inspired him to start new projects one after another (Daily Blog Tips, Daily Bits, and Daily Writing Tips ) but this series of new projects left him clueless about his goal. Result, his Flagship blog is compromised for success of his other blogs and projects, DBT is not getting enough care and attention from his editor.

What ever is the reason behind this sudden change in Daniel Scocco’s posting style and quality. It is surely affecting DBTs popularity and authority. It use to be in technorati’s top 20 authority blogs list last year , but as of today it stands at 226 ,Not even in to 100. And its not only authority that’s dropping day by day. DBT seems to loosing it RSS Subscribers as well. Once it use to have nearly 35k subscriber, but to days its RSS counter shows 21k odd, that’s more 33% drop in subscribers since last few months.

Update From Daniel:

I just wanted to point out that you got your numbers wrong though. The most blatant one is the number of RSS readers. As of December 2008 we had around 15,000 RSS readers, and today we have 21,000, which is the highest we ever had. We never had 35,000, you must be confused with some other blog.

You can verify this with the feed analysis tool: http://www.blogperfume.com/feed-analysis/index.php?months=24&uri=http%3A%2F%2Ffeeds2.feedburner.com%2FDailyBlogTips

If things continue to be how it is now day on DBT, i am afraid to say the day is not to far in future when people refer to Daniel Scocco as ex-professional blogger.

Image Credit: http://elitechoice.org

Given Below are 15 tips for batter Usability and end-user experience.

Blog Identity:

When someone first comes to your site they try to figure out who are you? , What do you do? , what the site is all about? It’s vital to answer this questions quickly to engage reader with your Blog.

Let’s See How To Do It

• Logo/Branding: Put your logo or emblem where it’s easy to find (Usually the Upper-left of your Header section)
• Tagline: Like mine under the logo, it makes things clear for my 1st time visitor about my blog and its niche (What the site is all about)
• About You/Company: Your about page serves as resume of your company or you (in case it’s a personal page), it makes things easier for people who need to learn more about you.

Blog Navigation:

Once your reader know who you are and what you do. Next thing they want is clear paths to the content that interests them.

Let’s See How to Improve Your Navigation

• Navigation bar: Make your main pages like About, Contact, FAQ, Disclaimer, easily spot and accessible (just below you header)
• Sitemap: Much of your site’s traffic comes from search engines, and 80% of that traffic is 1st timer on your blog. Sitemaps make navigating your site easier for them,
• Link Your Logo To Home Page: This may sound like stupid advice, but people anticipate logos to link to home-pages, (and when it doesn’t the confusion follows.)
• Use Breadcrumb Trail: Breadcrumb is a secondary navigation that shows people their current location in relation to the Web site’s hierarchy, it offers one click access to higher site level, and it is particularly useful for visitor who arrives on page deep within your blog via search engine or deep link from other blogs. It helps users learn the structure and hierarchy of the website
• Internal Linking: Users are more likely to click on a link in the text of a page than those on a navigation bar, because it feels more relevant. When done right Internal Linking can improve both search rankings and usability.
• Search Form: It’s a life saver for user like me who lack patience, Place it above the fold (preferably on navbar)
  Subscription Option: Make it easy to subscribe by placing your subscriber widget in highly visible location (Above the fold on sidebar)

Content writing:

If you have read my post about Reader’s Online Behavior And Attitude, you will probably know that everything you have read so far (and what coming next) will do you no good if your visitors are navigating around badly written/formatted content.

How To Improve Your Content For Batter Reading Experience

• Write simple: Heavy or sluggish words scare people who do not speak much English, Use words that are very common and require no endeavor on the part of the reader.
• Most Important thing 1st: Deliver your most important information in first two paragraphs to keep you reader rooted.
• Use h2 and h3, tags often: Highlight your keywords and main points, so a reader can pick out the main ideas right away
• Be Descriptive in Headline: Don’t be cryptic in head line, Use brief headlines use conveying words
• Don’t Try Anything Fancy (Fonts and Color): Stick to true type font and light background, Choose color combinations that are easy on the eyes.
• Use Numeral list: Figure represent facts, its batter to say to 7 Ingredients Of Magnetic Blog, than seven Ingredients Of Magnetic Blog.

This 15 tweaks will making it easy for new readers to understand the site and trust the author.

If you like this post then consider subscribing to Bloggers Labs RSS Feed for future updates, OR Follow Me On Twitter

I am not sure about you but I some time wonder why my favorite writer *Barbara Swafford* have those great peoples gathering on her blog, Why Shilpan Patel get 3 figure diggs and stumbles every time he post a new blog? Or why AL’s blog get tons of comments every time? Or why great bloggers like Darren Rowse Chris Garrett and Liz Strauss are so successful, Whenever I ask all this questions to my self I always get only one answer, *Because their readers Love their blogs*

So when blog readers fall in love with your blog? Well scroll down to know :

Your Blog is a joy ride for your reader:
You make it easy for them to read what you are writing, you post is no longer then it should be, you write in a language that a dumb like me can understand it (even if my first language is not English).

You Welcome comments:
You never forget things that matter, but still you leave space for me to join the conversation, you listen what I say, and take the time to respond to it. You take constructive criticism well, you argue with what has been said, not with who said it

You still believe your readers are human:
Most of us as bloggers forget it from time to time. But you still remember that those who interact with your words are made meat and bones- just like you.

People come to your blog searching for information or an answer to a question, or may seek education, they could be looking for company or even entertainment You Keep the needs of your readers in mind and strive to fulfill them.

You give what you expect from me:
You comment on blog post you find interesting, you make it a point to visit your commentor’s blog, and share your thoughts and view about their blog. you link out generously so you reader get in-depth information of subject you are writing about. You give credit where it’s due, you’re clear about the source of your arguments, facts, links and photographs.

Well friends these are the quality you reader look for before subscribing to your blog, these are the characteristics of engaging blog, many great blogger around the blogshare are admired because of this quality,

So you(my blog reader) what quality you look for before falling in love with any blog? Let me know in comments below.

If you like my thoughts on this subject, then dont forget to subscribe to Blogger’s Lab Rss Feed Or Subscribe to BLOGGER’S LAB by Email Blog Optimization, SEO and Blogging Relation

Today we are going to discus such plugins and tools that can help you increase comments and create the scenes of community on your blog.

Offer Incentive To Your Commentors:
Incentives work in the blogosphere . Commentors will respond to incentives. Incentives such as dofollow back links and top commentors have worked for many bloggers, it motivate your readers to join the discussion and add their thoughts and feedbacks,

Here are 4 such Incentive plugins:

Lucia’s Linky Love:
Lucia’s Linky Love is a great variation of *Dofollow* plugins, though its main function is to remove *nofollow* tag from author link in comments, it is more then just a Dofollow plugin.

It Gives You Full Control Over Dofollow/Nofollow:
Dofollow blogs happened to be softest target for link spammers and black hate SEO practitioners. But now you can create obstacles for such spammers by increasing number of comments required by commentor before enabling the dofollow option, which means your commentor will need to visit and comment on your blog regularly to get the benefits of dofolow. Which discourage spammers who considers your blog a link farm.

14 days time limit:
Dofollows will not be added to comments left more than 14 days after you published your most recent post. which means if a reader want dofollow link juice he will need to keep update with your blog and comment regularly. This feature can help you get some quick RSS subscribers too.

You can download Lucia’s Linky Love from Big Bucks Blogger. And donforget to read the user feed backs on this great plugin.

CommentLuv:
This gives your commentors additional incentive using CommentLuv, which searches their RSS feed and adds a link to their last blog post in their comment. This gives your commentor a keyword reach anchore link to their blog, its like icing on cake.

Download Commentluv from FiddyP.

KeywordLuv:
You must have seen comments with fancy keywords instead of real name of the commentor. This is because they are trying to get keyword rich links back to their blogs. Keywordluv makes things easier for your commentor. Just add your name as YourName@Your Keywords and Your Keywords will be used as the anchor link and your name will be shown separately. If I enter Sunil@Blogger’s Lab in comment form instead of Sunil Blogger’s Lab, then the title of a comment would look like

Sunil From Blogger’s Lab

Instead of

Sunil Blogger’s Lab

Neat isn’t it?

Download KeywordLuv from More Than Scratch The Surface

Top Commentor Widget:
Thanks to lists like Yan’s *Blogs with Google Pagerank and Top Commentor widget*. Top Commentor has become huge hit among blog reader who wants to get some link juice. This cute little widget adds a list of top commentators to your sidebar. Which is Dofollow (you can make it Nofollow if you want) and it appears on every page of your blog (you can restrict it to your home page if you want)

Get Top Commentors widget plugin from Webgrrrl.net

Note: if your blog is brand new then wait until your posts generate decent number of comment, before you feature Top Commnetors Widget on your sidebar.

Those are 4 great plugins I have been using since long time, and I am pretty satisfied with the out come of those plugins.

Now lets check some more plugins which wont hurt your community if you don’t install them. But it can do wonder if your install them.

Subscribe to Comments:
It adds a “Notify me of followup comments via email” check box below the submit comment button. This is a great feature as users can keep track of comments, when a new comment is made to the post, an email is sent to the subscriber notifying them. This is much better then having your blog reader subscribes to your comment RSS.

Get Subscribe to Comments 2.1 from Tempus Fugit

Brian’s Threaded Comments:
This plugin adds a ‘Reply to this comment’ link to every comment. When you use the reply link, your comment is placed directly under the comment you replied to. This plugin helps increase comments, makes it easy for people to reply to comments and prevents readers from scrolling down to look for answers to their questions.

Download Brian’s Threaded Comments from Meidell.dk

Make Your Comment Area Alive With 4Avatar:
4Avatars is a simple Plugin for WordPress that allows you to add avatars to comments on your blog. Avatars are from MyBlogLog or Gravatar (globally recognised avatars) or even from Polish site Avatars. Of curse avatars are NOT saved on your ftp!

4Avatars have very simple options page which allows you to choose site with avatars and choose default avatar which will be shown when author of comment doesn’t have any.

Download 4Avatars Plugin from Wordpress.org

Let Your Reader Share Their Favorite Post From Your Blog with Share This:
The ShareThis WordPress plugin provides a quick, simple to use, and unobtrusive way for users to add your post to many social bookmarking sites, or to send your post link via email, AIM, Facebook, MySpace and more.

Get Share This Plugin From Sharethis.com

So friends those are the 8 plugins I use on my blog to encourage comments and participation on my blog. If you have more suggestions for great community building WordPress plugins? Please share your Favorites in the comments.

For free updates on Content writing and Blog Promotion subscribe to Blogger’s Lab Rss Feed Or Subscribe to BLOGGER’S LAB by Email

Other Interesting Posts
Finally the Duplicate content issue is sorted forever.
5 Ingredients For Batter Search Engine Optimization
Are you Slow Poisoning Your Blog?

Copied content: You have nothing new or original. Your blog is a parasite that survives on content leeched from other’s blog. I want to read a blogger not a scrapper. You really need to learn How To Write Great Content That Your Reader Can’t Ignore.

Your Mom Is Your Only Reader: Your blog probably sucks when you have only 2/3 responses on your blog and those few peoples are your mom, dad or your best friend. Stop day dreaming kid, wake up and do some work. Promote your blog and Find New Readers for Your Blog

Jack Of All Trades, Master of None: Even though you been blogging since ages you don’t have any authority over any particular topic or niche. Your post sounds more like a company annual report rather then an expert’s analysis. Ask Alan How to Write Compelling Articles.

You Don’t Respect My View: you are unappreciative idiot who have no respect for his reader’s view, all you want to hear is pleasing words, and you have not guts to accept the criticism. Darren tells you Why You Should Respond to Comments On Your Blog

Your Ad Space Out Numbered Your Blog Post: Your Blog is littered with Ads and Affiliates Links. 6 out of 10 posts on your blog are paid review. You are always looking for opportunity for making quick money. You need to understand What Turns Of Your Reader

Too Many Barriers To Read Your Blog Post: I have struggle with Pop-up, Pop-under before I can read your content, and what those peel away banner is there at the corner, why you are creating so many obstacles for me? Have you ever heard about User Friendly Blog?

Hazardous Navigation: I can’t figure out how to move through your blog, there is no way I can find your old work, all I can see on your sidebar is Private ad banners and affiliate links. You should have saved some space for Popular post or Blog Archieve

Widget Jungle: I know you are active on many communities and micro blogging sites. But I am not interested in what you are doing on Twiter or Plurk , or how many Blogcatalog or Mybloglog users are visiting your blog. If you want me to subscribe to your RSS feed, then show me some real content.

So Friends those are the 7 characteristics of disappointing blogs i would like to know what are # 8,9 and 10

For free updates on Content writing and Blog Promotion subscribe to Blogger’s Lab Rss Feed Or Subscribe to BLOGGER’S LAB by Email

Related Entry:
5 Ingredients For Search Engine Friendly Contents

Too Early Monetization:
I don’t care if a site has a couple ads trying to make some money, but if your page is messed with more ads then content, then don’t expect your readers to stick around for very long. I am not saying you are not allowed to make money with your blog. Or you can’t have ads on your pages. Just don’t let them get in the way of your content and buttons.

While not monetizing your blog might lose you a few dollars a day, but the advantage are far more then those few dollars.

It place stronger emphasis on your content. Which determines the size of your reader base. More room for your content, you can use those advertise space to display your best work, social widgets and other materials. Increase your chance for getting incoming links. Bloggers are less interested to link to a website that’s plastered with ads and all types of junk.

Not Responding/Respecting Commenter:
Your reader is taking the time out of his already busy schedule to leave his thoughts on your blog. The least you can do is to say thank you. Accept criticism if your reader have different view then yours don’t come down on them too hard, you can argue with what has been said but don’t argue with who said it.

Read more about How To Handle Comments On Your Blog and Building Engaging Community On Your Blog

The nastiest comments to reply are the ones that pick out mistakes or question your authority on topic in subject. And the bad way to deal with it is to not reply. The worst way to deal with it would be to delete the comment; it is the height of rudeness, don’t do it accept your mistakes and move on. We all make them from time to time.

Bad Navigation:
One thing that turns of many blog readers is bad navigation of blog, it really drives me crazy when I cant move through to find what I want, I want stay more then a minute when it drives me crazy.

The most important rule of designing a good website is to make it easy to navigate for your users to find what they are looking for. Any page on your site should be reachable with 2 clicks from your home page. For larger site it isn’t easy but offering a sitemap and site wide search can work great.

Bad Writing and Formatting:
Content is king but if your king is in bad attire then your reader want like it, Bad formatting, tiny font, messy color combination and long paragraphs and non-scan friendly content are really painful for my eyes.

No one is perfect, your reader understands that, but a little effort can make lots of difference

For free updates on Content writing and Blog Promotion subscribe to Blogger’s Lab Rss Feed Or Subscribe to BLOGGER’S LAB by Email

Other Interesting Posts
Bloggers confusion: How Long A Blog Post Should Be
Are you Slow Poisoning Your Blog?
Blogging Obstacles And How To Overcome It.
How To Make Your Reader Fall In Love With Your Blog
5 Ingredients For Search Engine Friendly Contents
How To Write Great Content That You Reader Can’t Ignore.

Today morning I was doing some experiments with my blog setting (you know general curiosity). So I was playing in my admin panel. I did some successful tweaks in my blog setting which filled over confidence in me (you know what people do in over confidence?). I did the same, I over looked my dear friend MD’ s warning (he forbids me from disclosing his true identity as he is owner of a many sites) not to mess with things that I don’t know. So as I said, I over did some tweaks without realizing what I am doing and how it will affect my blog, and I paid grave price for it.

What I was doing in admin panel?:

I was installing wp-stats plugin which like akismet requires wordpress API key, but even after trying 3 different API keys I was getting this error.

Error from last API Key attempt:
The owner of that API Key (bloggerslab) is not on the access list for this blog (4170955).
To be added to the access list, you must contact support.

So I thought maybe adding my free wordpress url in WordPress address (URL) field(check the image) in general setting will solve the problem, but instead of sorting my problem I made the biggest goof of my life.

I screwed my own blog:

As soon as I inserted my free wordpress blog url and hit the save setting button. I have spoiled my blog and all databases, after this I was not able to login into my control panel so that I can undo my mistake (it was too late to do that). My whole blog was messed, my themes, my plugins everything. It looked like a e-mail page rather than a wordpress blog (I should have take the screenshot to show you guys).

Thanks to Wordpress Database plugin:
But thanks to great Wordpress database plugin which saved my neck. I have taken back-up of my whole database last night so it was a relief to me, but I lost 1 new post (which i published again few minutes back) and 6 precious comments and replies off my readers (I hope they will forgive me and will repost their response).

Many thanks to MD:
Well MD is a wordpress, IPB & vBulletin pro, and a dear friend of mine; he helped me restore my blog to how you see it now. My blog wouldn’t have been as it is now if MD hasn’t helped me.

So friends the moral of the story is don’t mess with technical things if you don’t have friend like MD, and back-up of your database.

What I am about tell you is “how to handle comments on our own blog” my little guide for blogger about comments. Your Blog is your Virtual home in this cyber world and your readers and commentators are your guest, they have to behave and be respectful, to remain in your “home,” However you as a host have to show them the same respect in return. And that’s what we are going to discuss today.

Respond to comments:
I know you have read this in my other post about Blog comments and Blogging Community. But this is one thing many blogger tend to forget or simply ignore. This is one of the biggest mistakes you can make as a blogger. Responding to a comment is very important, responding a comment is your 1st step to converting a one time visitor in to loyal reader. Whenever you get a question via comments or a reader starts a conversation in the comments section, be sure to answer it.

Appreciate comments:
Comments are very important for any blog’s growth; many view it as a sign of popularity. When a reader leaves a comment, he is actually making a priceless contribution, by spending a good portion of his limited time. The least you can do is say a simple “thank you!.”

Create a Comment Policy:
Your readers won’t really know what’s allowed and what’s not on your blog, unless you tell them. A comment Policy becomes necessary. Unless you plan to solely rely on people’s common sense. Its batter to create your comment policy, rather then deal with future complications. Here is a good example of Pro Blogger comment policy & OptiNiche Comment Policy(Mine is under development). Put a link to the policy, right in the commenting form, so there’s no doubt about its existence.

Take care of the hobgoblin:
Make sure your blog doesn’t contain any sign of vulgarity, conflict or otherwise what could be described as bad vibe, in your comment section. This usually happens when controversy is created by conversation or by the article it self. The reason isn’t important, how you deal with such situation is important.

So what you do when such incident happen on your blog?
Fortunately no such incident happened on my blog so I can’t say anything about it, but I would love hear from you guys who have dealt with such problems. Pleas share your experience with me and other readers.

If you like what your reader then consider subscribing to Blogger’s Lab RSS Feed for more Updates

Related Entry:
5 Tips For Creating An Engaging Community Around Your Blog

In this article we are going to discuss such strategies which will help you improve deep linking all over your blog. Implement these tips on your blog and you will see your blog become more users friendly, and most importantly it will make your blog SEO friendly.

Create A Sitemap:
Sitemap is 1st step toward towards helping your reader find what they are looking for, but it is also an easy way to give your self piles of deep linking to your important pages and post. I hope you are not thinking about xml site map because only search spider can read it . Rather think about actual page on your site which list all your post and pages.

You can create an html sitemap for your blog in fraction of minute with this cool plugin called “Sitemap Generator Plugin” from Dago Design, Sitemap generator automatically creates a sitemap for your blog with links to your posts arranged by category.

Frequently Asked Questions Page:
While this page is mainly used to answer most common questions about your blog or site, you can use this page to deep link to your post which you think is useful and can answer your reader’s question.

Create list of 10 or more common questions that your readers asks you. Partially answer them on your FAQ page and provide link to relative post with cute little note like “reader more about …….” For batter SERP when phrasing the question use keyword that readers are likely to use for search (Long Tail key words can be handy here), and your most appropriate key word as anchor text for the link to your post.

Related Post:
Linking to relevant post can help your readers to find additional information about the topic they are reading. Which result in increased page view and batter deep linking. You can manually create related post link at the end of your post, or you can have aplugin doit for you. WordPress users can download the Related Entries plugin which will automatically add related post link at the end of your post.

Show your most popular posts on your sidebar
Linking to your most popular post is another great way to increase page view as well as increase the deep links. Like deep link this can be done manually or automatically. Automatic updating of popular page is easier. Manual updating will require updates and changes whenever you want to feature new posts. While a plugin like MostWanted will eliminate the manual effort. Thanx to Jamie Carter and his Word Press’d 0.4 theme which automatically list my most popular post, latest post, recent comments and tag clouds all in one tab. So I can include other useful things on my blog

Write a series of posts:
This is my favorite strategy of this post. Writing a series of post is useful in many ways; it not only increases the deep link as your series go on, but also gets you piles of new subscriber because of sense of anticipation created by the future post of the series.

If you are writing 1,500 word post, consider breaking it into a series (without spoiling your idea).

Generate Periodic List of Your Popular Post:
This is kind of monthly (can be weekly or quarterly) summery of your blog, which list some of the most popular recent posts on the blog have published. It helps your reader find post which they might have missed. As well as introduce your new readers to some of your best work who may not have had the opportunity to read them.

You can always redo this whole process as you add more and more new content to your blog. You will find more and more opportunity to link your post as your blog grow older

Related Entry:
How To Make Your Link List Stand Out in Millions
4 Link Baiting Ideas That Works Like A Charm

Many of you might have asked your self “How these bloggers encourage comments on their blogs”.
Well the answer is simple “They respect their readers” yes that’s the magic mantra for boatload of comments. Whenever someone leaves comment on your blog they expect response from you.

I learned this blogging lesson from Barbara Swafford when I 1st found her blog on Blogcatalog last week. I left comment on Random Post Plugin article and she responded at once with nice welcoming message (Which was very unusual for me no one ever responded to my comments) which result in series of comments from my side on her blog, and in few days I have become her loyal follower. You might think why I am telling you all this? well, just to let you know that maintaining healthy relationship with your reader means all.

Whenever some one leaves a comment on your blog try to respond back. Or at least welcome your 1st time reader. It will encourage him/her to continue the conversation and keep coming back. This way you will convert your one time visitor into a loyal reader. We wordpress bloggers are particularly lucky because there is a plugin calledComment Relish which automates the whole process of welcoming you 1st time commentor. By sending them thank you message. I haven’t used this plugin but those who have used it are really happy with the out come.

Another great way to engage your reader is to notify them if someone responds to their comment. The most conventional way would be to offer RSS feed for comments, but not every one is well-informed about RSS. So providing an email alternative makes perfect sense. Well again Wrodpress publishers are lucky here because a plugin called Subscribe to Comments effortlessly adds email alternative to track new comments.

We all look for an incentive for our efforts and your reader is not spared from that greed. In such cases free link back to top commentors can be beneficial. If you are a wordpress publisher like me you could do that using Top Commentor plugin. Else you might need to hand code all the links.

That was another lesson I learned from a great blogger. And it worked for me I have seen reasonable improvement in my comment counts in just few day’s practice

So what do you learn from this post let me know in comments