Does Ashton Kutcher have a blog in Malaysia? If you want to try this test, try to exit this blog: skylerfys.blogspot.com without leaving a comment and you’ll see the following JavaScript alert:

Ok dude, I may not have left a comment, but I blogged about it. Does that count? I bet PETA would love one of your most recent entries too: “Cats should rot in hell.” I’m not a cat fan but your activity seems, well, extreme don’t you think? Sort of like popping up JavaScript on every page view for those who don’t leave comments perhaps?

Just for the record, I think this type of Javascript usage is a bad idea, but I understand the desire for more comment activity, especially when some folks measure/perceive the success of a blog by number of comments (I don’t). Historical note: there was a long time on this blog when there were more posts than comments and I did the same thing then that I do now: kept blogging. As of this writing: 3,113 posts vs. 4,470 comments.

Tips for getting more comments on your blog
Though my primary interest here is to share things that made me go hmm that I think might make you go hmm, I enjoy receiving relevant comments. For those readers/bloggers who would like to receive more comments then here’s a couple quick tips.

- be more conversational and interactive with readers when appropriate. Ask questions, get feedback.
- reply to the feedback promptly. While this can be dififcult for busy people especially, try to acknowledge at least some comments left by the same person otherwise they’ll think you aren’t listening (keep reading) or don’t care. Nothing worse than spending time leaving a comment on somebody’s blog and they act like you don’t even exist. I can’t and don’t respond to every blog comment left here, but I do read them all and currently have the most comments of anybody left on this blog. One goal of mine is to keep it that way.
- have an email follow-up/update feature but do not ever, ever, ever, ever use this for any other off-topic purpose. When new posts are added make it easy for readers to get an email when a new comment is added. One reader got on my case when I this feature was introduced here because we made this feature default checked (something, I’m usually against, BTW). I’ve left this checked because I think it’s a handy feature and I don’t spam anybody, so wasn’t worried. Also, to date only one reader has ever complained that it should be unchecked by default. This one is up to you.
- take interest in readers. Remember things about readers mentioned in comments and write/refer to them when relevant. This shows you are listening, paying attention and actually care.
- return the favor. Show up on your reader’s blogs in the comment area or blog about something they’ve blogged about. [note: there are some reader’s blogs that I do not like the comment forms (too much work). Please make it easy for readers to leave a comment on your blog. I rarely will register/login just to leave a comment] Wish I could do this one more often. Anybody that has regularly left comments here will see me either link to their blog, show up at their site or both eventually. And now with our weekly Hmmcast, I’m also reading some of the Hmm-worthy comments in the podcast so this is an additional opportunity for me to show some love back. [You are all listening to the new weekly Hmmcast, right?]
- turn off rel=nofollow. This goes with the one above, but if you are adding rel=nofollow to your comment sig URLs. You might leave the body of the comments rel=nofollow for URLs but at least take off the block on the signature to the reader’s name (that’s how it works here). Recently I realized after the last upgrade that the rel=nofollow wasn’t enabled. Please, readers, if you see this is the case tell me. I wouldn’t do this intentionally, but I’m human and therefore screw things up sometimes. In my haste to upgrade I didn’t re-enable the WP plugin I use to strip that out of the signature URLs.

Now Dude, where’s my comments? Ya just got ‘em. Will you leave ‘em back?

• Comments and Trackback Policy
• [site news] Gettin’ there … to Wordpress
• Blog comment spam and SE impact: is it that significant?
• Getting suggestions from a third party site with Should Do This
• Comment tracking competition, MAMP and WAMPANY development
• No Google juice for nofollow attribute, will this negatively impact legitimate comment activity?