The thought of writing fake comments frankly never crossed my mind in this blog’s early days, but it’s a question asked by one beginning blogger at Problogger and Dawud Miracle (who wonders “Can Faking Comments Start The Conversation?“) This subject inspires me to write a few thoughts about honest blogging and some suggestions on generating comments.

But first, some thoughts about comments in general:

1. The vast majority of readers skim, some read, and a small minority actually leaves comments.
2. When I visit a blog, I’m primarily moved to comment based on the content of the post, not the number or quality of the comments.
3. The most genuinely interesting comments that might move me to comment myself are ones where there’s a lively debate going on by different people – not an easy thing to fake.

Takeaways:

1. Few comments doesn’t always mean nobody is reading your blog.
2. Instead of worrying about the number of comments, a better use of time is concentrating on quality content that would attract readers and move people to comment.
3. The amount of time it would take to write sufficiently fake comments (different personalities, points of view and debate positions) could be spent writing more or better blog posts.

Lastly, there is the thought that perhaps just asking all your buddies to come by and comment might work. Really, I don’t know what is the point of this strategy either. It’s kind of like being in a band and inviting all your relatives to show up and make it look like you’re really popular. This is a great short term strategy but ultimately, there is the problem that people only like your work based on a connection. The scary truth that nobody wants to admit, is that your stuff isn’t interesting in the absence of a connection.

I say it’s better to realize this possibility that your content needs work right off the bat. Because then you can work on improving that content rather than frittering away potential writing time worrying about head count.

Obviously, I’m a pretty strong believer in the quality content plus promotion strategy. I can handle quality content with no promotion but nothing annoys me more as a reader than promotion without content. And I don’t comment on posts that are devoid of anything worthy to comment on.

The question should be, why aren’t people commenting? and working towards fixing that. Here are some suggestions to encourage comments:

• Golden rule: If you want people to read and comment on your blog, read and comment on other blogs. Write the types of comments that you want to see on yours, and you will attract those types of readers.
• Occasionally ask direct questions of your readers. I’m partly linking to Dawud Miracle because he asked a direct question of the blogosphere: Can Faking Comments Start The Conversation? Also note at the bottom of his post, he reiterates the question in bold. And I’m responding.
• Careful suggestions in your blog theme. On Shoemoney, above every post it says “What Do You Think?” that links to the comments. Look objectively at your comment form. If it looks scary and unfriendly like an IRS form people might think it’s too hard. Think about how many times you abandon a comment and why. It’s a balance between security and ease of use.
• Have a comments policy (put it on your About Page). Before commenting I actually will look for and read such a policy on blogs I’m unfamiliar with, as most of the time comments involve handing over my email address. If I can’t figure out the reputation of a blog or at worst, it reminds me of a “splog” I am less likely to comment.
• Removing “No follow” certainly helps.
• Don’t expect tons of comments on every post (unless you’re an A-list blogger). Even after a year of blogging I can’t predict which posts will generate comments and which won’t.
• Respond to your comments on your own site in a friendly, respectful manner – especially the types of comments that you want to encourage.
• Patience. You will certainly write posts that linger for months and then generate attention long after you’ve moved on to other things. I just got another comment on a James Bond post I wrote back in February.

None of these suggestions are as straightforward and obvious as faking comments, but they will be better for you and your blog in the long run; I’m sure of it. Honesty and trust are two things every beginning blogger has right out of the bat. This resource can easily be squandered by sneaky tactics that might be a short term solution, but ultimately isn’t going to feel very good in the long run and I think not very fulfilling.

Fake comments just seems like a set up for a sitcom plot where a character tells a small lie that gets bigger and bigger, takes more and more effort to cover up, and when the truth is inevitably revealed, the damage is more severe than it would have been from the start.

Some people think that Casey Serin is faking comments and perhaps entire posts. I wish I could say he’s not, but I’m not sure. I think he has definitely squandered some of his honest blogging credibility by saying his blog was shut down and then reviving it.

Does anybody really want to be known as the Milli Vanilli of blogging? Even if it gets you some comments and traffic?

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