Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
No.
Why beat around the blogging bush?
Blog comments do not directly put money into your pocket.
No one pays you via PayPal or direct deposit every time someone publishes a genuine comment on your blog. No one buys your blogging courses or blogging eBooks before or after commenting genuinely on your blog BECAUSE the individual purchased your premium offerings.
No loyal reader says:
“Screw him for closing blog comments. I will not buy his stuff or hire him because I cannot share MY thoughts and publish MY comments for he and the world to see.”
Non-loyal, emotionally immature people may engage in activity consistent with the prior sentence.
But non-loyal, emotionally immature people are not your ideal readers, anyway.
Look past them to loyal readers who want your:
- blog posts
- online courses
- eBooks
4 Things I Learned About Blog Comments from My 16 Year Blogging Career
I observed a few things about blog comments during my 16 year blogging career.
Being transparent, I clung to some untrue beliefs about receiving blog comments which held back my blogging success for a while. Believing false ideas about comments stunted my traffic and business growth because I thought that you needed blog comments – by the boatload – to drive quality traffic, gain trust and build business.
Boy…..was I ever wrong….but only after I made these clear observations about blog commenting with a ton of experience in my back blogging pocket.
- Blog comments do not directly put money into your pocket.
- Receiving a high volume of blog comments can raise a detailed, targeted post to the top of Google
- Receiving genuine blog comments can foster a sense of community
- Generating a heavy volume of long, genuine blog comments puts an incredible load on your server and since these comments do not directly increase blog traffic or blogging income dramatically it makes sense to keep said lengthy comments in check
Early in 2023 I deleted hundreds of thin posts from Blogging From Paradise. I also trashed 100’s of blog comments because my developer noted how much storage these comments consumed.
I thought about it. Most of these bloggers who published the whopper comments no longer blogged. I also realized that no direct correlation between these meaty comments and high quality blog traffic and income existed. Sure I could make assumptions but it was impossible to truly prove a 1 to 1 correlation between the comments and my blogging business bottom line.
I began to think about it; why would I bog down my server or invest bigger bucks in storage for blog comments that did not directly, dramatically increase my quality traffic and blogging income?
I pondered this question for a few minutes before deleting the massive amount of hefty comments from Blogging From Paradise.
A few neat things happened after purging the comments and blog posts:
- my blog loaded stupid fast
- Blogging From Paradise ranked more frequently on page 1 of Google than before The Purge; improved user experience, methinks
- for the first time in my blogging career, I clearly saw that the most direct way to boost quality traffic and income is to publish targeted, long form, detailed blog posts and to publish detailed, targeted content offsite in laser-pinpointed spots
I studied my blog. What did I have left after deleting 100’s of thin blog posts and 100’s of long comments?
Long form, targeted, detailed posts.
Well, those long form, targeted, detailed posts drove more Google traffic, more organic traffic through many other channels and more blogging business, too.
Do I Suggest that You Still Comment Prolifically on Blogs?
Hell yeah.
But the days for publishing whopper-sized comments for weeks on end on Blogging From Paradise were 5-10 years ago guys. No worries; if you REALLY want to comment I do keep them open for a short window after publishing posts.
You have 600 million other blogs for reading and dropping genuine comments.
Go wild.
Capitalize on the percentage of those half a billion blogs with comments open.
Do I Love Your Comments?
Yes.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts on Blogging From Paradise.
You know I love you guys.
Do I Possess an Unbridled Passion for Reading and Replying to Comments?
No.
One of my special gifts on planet earth is generating ideas for unique content then creating this stuff through blog posts, meaty social media updates, live broadcasts and short form videos. I love doing this stuff. I have a passion for this stuff. Doing this stuff yields the most service for the most blogging tips hungry bloggers.
I do not possess the same passion, love and feel an identical fun factor for reading someone’s thoughts and trying to formulate my reply because doing this is not in my heart but in my head.
Does that make sense?
I logically tried to force myself to love replying to comments when the love was never there, but the love has always been in generating new, unique content ideas then executing these ideas to publish a dizzying array of detailed, targeted content.
That is my gift.
I shall only express that gift going forward for all of our good.
Remember guys; I love you and your comments. I always listen. I always read and process. Then, if I do not reply, or share a short reply, you know why.
I will likely take your feedback and convert the idea into a blog post or social media update for scale. Doing this allows a large, highly-targeted group of people to benefit from your keen feedback versus being a private volley back and forth between 2 individuals well south of the blog post.
Can Comments Indirectly Boost Your Blogging Income?
Yes….they CAN boost blogging income INDIRECTLY.
Please pay close attention to the capped words in the prior sentence.
Each bolsters the NOT DIRECTLY aspect of blog comments mentioned at the beginning of this post.
Blog comments can indirectly:
- foster a sense of community
- boost SERPs
- add the illusion of social proof
- increase blogging income per the prior 3 bullet points
People may buy your stuff or hire you if they deem your blog to be a tight knit community, if they find your blog on page 1 of Google or if the illusion of social proof influences them to make the buy.
But after 16 years as a blogger I finally clearly see that detailed, targeted content published onsite and offsite serves as the strongest success indicators, far and away.
Pay Close Attention to Some of the Highest Earners in the World
I recall observing a 7 figure blogger speak at a conference.
He received 1000 plus emails daily.
He ignored every email longer than 1 sentence because he had no time to engage anyone who lacked the clarity to make their ask in one sentence.
This guy serves as the exact opposite example of needing engagement to succeed.
He never opened comments on his blog, by the way.
I have observed other million dollar earning bloggers who kept comments closed or barely received a few comments each month.
Content and distribution wins, folks.
Onsite blogging and offsite work wins.
Feel free to include genuine blog commenting in the offsite work.
But understand that receiving comments on your blog does not directly put money in your pocket.
Knowing this gives you the clarity and confidence to spend most time and energy doing what does.
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