In the last blog tip we talked about how comments are one way to increase the interactivity of a blog.
Of course not everyone agrees that comments are the way to go. Each to their own.
Having harped on about comments I should also say that there are many other ways to make your blog more interactive.
Interactive Blog Tools
– chat, rooms || Newsletters/mailing Lists || Guest Maps || forums || discussion boards || trackback || Polls (and another) || guest book || Chat Boards
In addition to these tools you might want to consider making yourself contactable by posting your email address – beware of spam if you post it as a link. One way around this is to have a Contact Form. You might also post your instant messenger ID (but again be aware this means you might get anyone messaging you!)
Lastly other people encourage people to comment by featuring ‘recent comments’ or ‘most prolific commenters’ in their side bar. This gives some added incentive to post comments.
A word of warning – Be selective in how many of the above tips you implement. A common mistake is to give you readers too many ways to interact with you and have ‘bells and whistles’ just for the sake of having lots of features. This will clutter your page and confuse your reader.
The level and type of interaction of your blog is up to you. It will depend upon your personality, content and willingness to put time into interacting with your readers. In my opinion the benefits are worth the effort.
A last tip – Don’t put any of the above tools on your blog unless you yourself are willing to use them in interacting with your readers. If you don’t have the time or energy to talk back – don’t advertise the fact that you do. I know a number of bloggers that get a lot of hits and wonder why they don’t get many comments – I reckon its because they largely ignore their readers. Thats just my theory.
