Not so long ago I have made a decision to discontinue using Discus Comments Management on my other blogs. My concerns were a little silly at the time. I love what Disqus have done so far and certainly some of the features they offer convinced me to keep them on few of my other blogs including Go Beyond MLS. In fact I have encouraged other real estate bloggers to give this service a try.

Besides my growing concerns with the way Disqus is handling spam. Evidently they think one comment box is not enough for the visitors to my blog:

Evidently it is some sort of glitch in their system. But since we are on the topic here are two other concerns of mine:

• Import/Export Feature needs serious upgrade. If you decide for whatever reason to discontinue to use Disqus and export the comments from their system and then import them to your blog, it will simply create individual blog posts- hundreds or even thousands of them if your blog is popular. It would be nice idea to develop a plugin that would enter every comment into your own database, thus eliminating the need of import/export feature.
• Spam. While I have no complains of spam slipping to my blog. I do see some legitimate comments being flagged as spam. I hate “collective intelligence” approach as far as spam is concerned. I am not sure a frame work of Spam Karma would help, but it would be a good idea to offer each individual blogger control over the spam moderation.

One of the great things about blogging, that in a way “come with the territory”, in an opportunity to encourage comments and create very vibrant communities of like minded people. However a blog owner you probably know that it takes time and hard work to foster discussions on your blog. In fact every one of us has a few posts on our blogs with zero comments.

photo credit: kk+

1. Ask. Asking your visitors to react in a form of a comment to what you have written is the easiest thing you can do. In fact, you can even modify your template in such a way that every single post will end with an encouragement like this: “I have spoken, now is your turn!”
2. Respond to comments. Some bloggers respond to every single comment, while others respond to many comments at once. However you decide to respond to people commenting on your blog is completely up to you. But doing so you have an opportunity not only to acknowledge the comments made by others, but also to answer additional questions and ever criticism.
3. Allow your readers to follow the conversation(s). On this blog I use a plugin that allows the author of the comment to subscribe to subsequent comments on the post he or she just commented. The plugin is called Subscribe to Comments. Every time the new comment is entered the subscriber receives and e-mail containing the comment. It keeps him or her updated without actual need to visit your blog.
4. Comment on other blogs. Yes the golden rule works in here as well.
5. Link to other blogs. If your post was inspired by another blog, make sure to link to that blog. Not only it’s just the matter of being kind, but often times you will find that the author of the original post will come and comment on your writing.
6. Use threaded comments plugin. I find this plugin to be really useful because it allows to respond to a particular comment.

Unfortunately #3 and #6 meant only for WordPress users. But the other four steps may help to increase the comments on your blog nonetheless.

If you have not put much effort into encouraging conversations on your blog, now is a good time. You will not regret it.