7 Questions to Ask On Your Blog to Get More Reader Engagement

Great post. Thanks for sharing :)

I nearly always end my posts with “How about you?” followed by a more specific question, based on whatever the entry’s about.

Hi Darren, i have a question off topic.

I see your ads recently all around where i am surfing.

Did you do these placements with Google content network and can you write a post about it?

Really would love to know how to place my ads and if i need a permission to place my ads on someones website etc?

That would be an awesome post
thx Rob

I have closed posts by asking questions, but those questions tend to hang there out in the following silence, all lonely and look, well, clunky.

My readers tend to be passive. They like to entertained and to learn new things, but they don’t want to expend any energy to participate.

I do get responses — via RTs, FB comments and emails. I’m aware that some of my readers don’t understand how comments work. I’ve also had readers email me to ask if my links are “safe” to click on.

The thing is, I still love my readers. They “get” what I’m trying to do and appreciate it. I send them a little horsey vacation straight to their Inbox.I know they don’t have a lot of free time to play on the Internet.

After all, my audience tends to be busy women who love horses. If they have horses, their horses take up major chunks of time. If they don’t tend equines, my readers have jobs and families to tend. I also have lots of child readers. The comment, “My daughter wants to live on your blog” shows up in my mailbox from time to time.

I once wrote for a blog who didn’t want to admit they were a blog, and asked me not to pose questions in my column because they didn’t want responses back from readers. I suppose they wanted to be a newspaper…

They are no longer in business.

Never thought of this before. Thanks Darren for this post

I’ve started ending every one of my posts with an invitation for readers to share their thoughts. So few people actually LISTEN these days (either online or face to face) that I think people appreciate my asking their opinions. I also try to answer all comments, so they know I actually heard them. (I may have to abandon this practice as my blog grows, but for now I’m sticking with it!).

I always ask the conventional: “What do you think?”

Sometimes I get an answer sometimes I don’t…but what do I do? Keep writing.

Hi Darren,

Thanks for all of the pointers on your website. I had many issues with Google Ads amongst other things and your website gave me a lot of pointers to successful blogging.

Thanks!
http://www.dailyridiculous.com

I love when I get reader comments on any blog post I make.

To help with starting my blog community, I have just installed a plugin on my new blog that allows people to subscribe to posts so that they can receive notifications whenever someone posts a comment. Hopefully this encourages some healthy dialogue!

Great post Darren! Typically, I don’t ask questions in my blog entries. I’d just write an informative and educational post for my readers and call it a day. Now, I realize this approach was flawed. Since reading your post above, I’ve been applying this technique and hope to see more user interaction in the near future.

Thanks again,

Andre

I had a ton of GREAT responses by posting an email someone sent me saying they thought I was going against God by teaching people how to become successful and how it was somehow against biblical principles. I asked my readers what their opinion was of her email and what they thought of my response to her. You can see it on my blog if you’re interested.

So now I’m thinking I need to find more negative emails to post. :)

I just read your 31 Days to a Better Blog – great stuff and I took pages of notes of things to implement – much thanks!

Great article! Blogging is important and engaging content will give better reader responses. Thanks!

Hey mates, I think this idea can be used in real life very effectively when you are talking to someone – to make him/her lively in the conversation. And the boys who want to chat with girls for a long time can also use this trick. Cheers !

Thanks for the article, but I can’t watch the video due the connection problem. Internet connection is one the factors that make us a succesful blogger and I have problem with that!

I already knew of some of these tips before but I had not implemented them but after reading thyis article I will try my best to implements all of these strategies. These must be really helpful.

Its a good strategy to attract more visitors to your site and this can also help to generate feedback from visitors to the blog, as their comments or feedback are very useful to us. Visitors comments and feedback are the valuable source of improvement to the professionals.

I always try to end with a question to encourage the reader to comment. It is a great strategy to get the readers to interact.

It’s hard to remember to open discussion when writing a post, so often times it appears to be a “bolt-on” that doesn’t fit with the tone of the content. One thing that I’d like to give a shot is commenting on my own post with another thought– one that specifically calls on the readers to share. Kind of a jumpstart that also suggests that I, the author, am here and ready to be part of the conversation.

As usual…great post Darren. I hadn’t thought alot about the fact that I do ask questions and done it purposefully…but I actually do ask people to report back on if the information has been helpful and to offer any and all feedback. I will need to get more specific with my questions after reading and listening to this post.

Zig Ziglar said it best in his book “how to win friends and influence people” when he explained that everyone’s favorite subject is themselves. I will need to do a better job of putting this to work in my own blog. Thanks!

Very good topic here. I myself forget a lot of times to ask readers what their opinion is or what they think about what they just read. It’s very important as you’re building a relationship with them and allowing them to interact with not only you but with others on your blog as well.

Communication is great. After all, how do you build traffic to your blog in the first place? Marketing and communication about it, right? You can find my latest article which I actually did not ask any questions on, at blog.bluepop13.com.

Hmmm, never thought about that… It definitely sounds logical… Putting great texts and contents now seems so inadequate when I read this…

Great post. Thanks for sharing :)

Wow I really relate to this. I’m a person that will ask people perhaps too many questions than talk about myself or answer questions in too much detail. I think it’s because I don’t like being in the spotlight for too long.

I know many people that can just talk about themselves and don’t ask me questions back and I sort of wish they would as I would like to share more about myself, but I won’t unless people ask me. And you can ask me anything, I love answering questions, I even like being drilled questions but I don’t voluntarily go out of my way to say something about myself often at all.

It almost gets to a point where people don’t know much about me because they don’t ask. I’m more of an ‘action man’ and let my actions speak louder than words ;)

So having said that – yes – asking questions in your blogs I think will generate more interaction with your readers which I think is one of the greatest things about blogging – user engagement!

Love videos like this Darren, you should do them more often :)

Sarge | BeginnerBlogger.com

Hi Darren,

Just got your Newsletter and filled in your survey which is why I’m here. I guess now that I think about it, I don’t ask as many questions as I would like – this video was definitely an eye-opener.

Besides giving readers ‘permission’ to share their experience I think this approach to blogging also provides me with an opportunity to learn more about my readers (so I can be the listener as opposed to the speaker like in the story you shared).

Insightful video – thanks Darren,

Steve

thanks for sharing this Darren.. :)