Reflections on Site Comments and May Be Some Helpful Tips.

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11.9K followers

Site comment's and site feedback are two very good platforms to have at our disposal. both can be so helpful. the one that seems to cause the most ongoing angst within the community is that of "site comments ".

Looking at the interface it seems straight forward like much of the WA platform, there are numerous training and blogs to help. Happened to come across another member that has been precluded from offering comments, due to not using the system correctly.

One of the best things to do when starting out is to take the walk through.

https://my.wealthyaffiliate.co...

It is rightly so described as

"The most powerful platform to acquire and offer website comments in the world!"

In my mind every little thing we can we to elevate our position is a blessing there is after all a lot of competition out there you only need to go to your field of interest and ask Google.


The thing is that both platforms are unique to WA and are an excellent opportunity to both get comments for posts on our websites and with site feedback the opportunity to get exactly that feedback on our websites,sometimes a fresh set of eyes can just see that missing element or for that matter how we can improve things and make them better.

The two are as different as the north pole is to the equator.

My two cents and I must admit that I would be totally set adrift if it wasn't for Grammarly but to my thinking, some of the confusion arises from the description, I am just reflecting and just looking to start a conversation here.

Get comments on your pages and posts.

or would it be better to say to yourself,

Get comments for your pages and posts

By replacing the word " on your" to " for your " changes the meaning and context.

Things to bare in mind

The thing about offering comments is that we are helping out our friends and associates, to a degree it is a two way street in that we can give comments and in turn receive comments. The best thing in the world is letting our words create the engagement for us, nothing beats that natural and organic engagement, second best thing is to get a helping hand to get the ball rolling.

Those posts with no comments look so lonely and unloved.

Getting into site comments the best place to call into is My Settings and then My Interests


As you can see we are in control, it does make things easier the system will endeavor to provide posts that are similar in nature to our interests. The short of the long don't check " travel and leisure " if you are not into it, you are just making the comment road harder to travel.

When giving comments we are aiming for.

One of the most important things is to be on topic, with the realization that you are helping a friend out by adding to the value to their content. That is what it is all about no more no less.

Top of the range is a comment that is congruent with the theme of the post and has your personal reflection about the content of the post, that is it in a nut shell, using the conversational approach would be at the top of the pops.

It doesn't hurt to be polite and friendly in your introduction, even give the author a compliment about the post, even address the author by name, it really helps to create that conversational atmosphere.

Hopefully you are fronting with an image or gravatar of your self. It gives that sense of connection and that the person commenting is a real person, there are different trains of thought within the community with regard to this topic some for and some against.

https://my.wealthyaffiliate.co...

http://en.gravatar.com/

When giving comments also think in terms of receiving comments before submitting your comment ask yourself this simple question, if it was my post would I accept this comment? If the answer is no, work it, add to your comment build it out so that you are happy with it.

In the online world it is always good to give more than you receive.

One of the traps to fall into, is just repeating what was in the post, number one it doesn't add to the conversation, it doesn't ask any questions or give the author the opportunity to respond and to demonstrate their knowledge.

Added to this is not reading or understanding the the post correctly, as we have so many different cultures here at WA it can be hard at times to get the gist or theme of the post even if it is in your field of interest, the main language of Wealthy Affiliate is English but having said that there are subtle nuances between the different countries and cultures. Once you understand this it will influence how you respond when crafting a comment.

When doing comments try not to be to long winded, and try not to wander off topic. just stick to the core elements as they relate to the post. There is no right or wrong here just a feel that I guess you develop with practice. On the flip side of the coin a comment of a couple of sentences kind of short changes the person asking for the comment and also impacts on your ability to craft comments, a fancy way of saying you are not learning anything about the process, just blasting out those quickie comments that help neither party.

" Writing good comments is a skill which can have a huge benefit to your online career they have the ability to open doors and create relationships and connections. "

One of the ways to add value to the author is to ask questions, asking in such away as to appear genuinely interested and seeking information or for that matter adding information to the posts theme.

The closeout, leave the comment with a parting shot how has the post helped you, will you be taking action if there is a call to action with in the text body, you don't have to sign your life away even something to the effect that you are considering the offer or promotion or that you will return in due course.

Remember others will be reading the comment thread is your comment helping the author's cause are you in the author's corner.

The topic of comments is massive really, remembering that this platform is unique to WA and it is very powerful and the next little bit is just my reflection so make what you will.

Some of the not so good things to do when placing comments.

Wading in with feedback..... if the site owner wanted that they would be asking for site feed back, in the " site feedback platform ".

As one can see placing comments is not the place to put feedback, the author/site owner is looking for comments about and for the post to build and massage the content. If there are comments on a post then folks that come to read the content will be more likely to engage in the conversation also, a win-win

Remember we are a team, here with a pay it forward attitude, do we really have to storm into to town all guns a blazing and tear the post to pieces. Disagreement can be done in a very conversational way as to add value.

On the flip side that questioning person can really give the author the opportunity to express their knowledge and topic authority, as we all know the world is far from a candy coated dream land, so a comment thread that has the odd challenge does look more natural. Having said that we do have control over what gets posted and if it is unacceptable we do not have to accept it.

This is just a personal view, I see many comment threads that have the good old ,

Oh I am from Wealthy Affiliate as well, and ...........right you are....... if i am in the audience the first thing that springs to my mind is " jack up scam going on here ", see you later.

At the end of the day site comments are there to help us build a presence, they are not the be all and end all but they do if done with finesse put us way in front of the competition, just another tool that we can use to manage and add value to the content that is produced.

The reflection that is growing in the online blogging communitiy is that the key to keeping ahead of the game is content management and the tools we have here at WA certainly help us in terms of that endeavor.

I hope that you enjoyed the read I would love some feedback, no no I meant to say some comments, that will add value to the conversation.

Enjoy.

Alex





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Recent Comments

25

Thanks for that neat little checklist of interests!
I also like the hints about "What not to do when commenting".
I've read nothing but great encouraging comments from all, so far.
Barb

Hi Alex,
There have been many posts on this topic. A appreciate the detail and clarity that yours provided. Thanks.
Debbie

Hi Debbie, thank you for your kind words, there have been many posts and just as much angst on this topic. There are many questions as well so in a way it makes the road easier, in a way.

Hi Alex - I use site comments for my posts and find that it helps my ranking with Google. How much, I really don't know. You point out several good techniques on how to put together well written comments. Your post should be very helpful for those members that struggle with understanding the difference between comments and feedback. Thanks for putting this together.

Hi, Patrick, thank you for stopping by and sharing your thoughts this post was written with newer folks in mind, it seems to cause some angst on both sides of the fence.
Questions seem to come with the territory sometimes so it is good to have a post that can be shared to help.
One thing for sure comments do bring that sense of vibrancy and engagement to a post or website, they give it that living edge which I guess says something.

I have a question. Site Comments aid in the Site Health of our website, rigth? Without them, we cannot get indexed by Google, true?

Hi Latricia,
Hope this answers your question for you, I see it is a bit of an issue.
The short answer to your question is that site comments do actually have a ranking value no one, other than the engineers at Google can actually say how much or otherwise that they impact on your sites or posts ranking within the framework that are the search results.

Being indexed by Google is not influenced by the fact that there are or are not comments on your site or post. It is an event that will happen as a matter of course.

Sometimes it is helpful to understand the process of being indexed, it is a process whereby Google crawls the internet to discover new and updated pages which will be to be added to the Google index. They use a huge set of computers to fetch (or "crawl") billions of pages on the web.
The program that does the fetching is called Googlebot (also known as a robot, bot, or spider).
Hope that this helps.

These are two useful and effective features that we get as premium members here, and they can help a lot for web design and for getting a boost from additional content for SEO purposes...

I use them too little, and although I do have other ways of getting feedback and comments, especially for those NOT having access to such a service externally, these can help!

Cheers! Dave : )

Hi, Dave, that sums it up well, they are indeed excellent platforms within the Wealthy affiliate suite, some folks struggle but when we get going and understand the process they can indeed be so beneficial. Thank you for sharing your insights.

Hello my friend and I must say what a really wonderful description of the two culprits that effect our lives here at WA
Great read and thank you so much

Paul

Hi, Paul thank you for your kind words, it is an ongoing issue at times, and one that can cause angst on both sides of the fence just a few reflections shared I hope that it helps.

Well this caused me to walk away from everything for the summer as I could not take the B/S of people just not understand what you cans do
But I am back now and NO COMMENT!!!

Paul

A break at times can give us a new perspective at times, sometimes folks can get the wrong end of the stick you are definitely back with renewed enthusiasm and charging to the top to steal one of your catch cries it is all good fun.

Yes this is the way we get new ideas and start the meter going again!!!

paul

Hi Alex,

Great job! You helped me understand more about what WA is all about. I'm going to start giving more positive feedback on others sites. I didn't realize this is helping and now I do.

I agree that you should show a pic of you referring to the gravitational. I've always felt that and makes me think twice about following someone that doesn't have that. To me, it's almost like they have something to hide. That's just my opinion. I like seeing who I'm texting with etc.

Can you tell me this, is going to site feedback the best way to start getting your traffic? Just a clarification.

Thanks for this post and hope you have a great weekend!!!!

Eric

Hi Eric.
just a recap,
The site feedback platform here within WA is all about giving and receiving website feedback.

https://my.wealthyaffiliate.com/website-feedback

Thinking terms of feedback we can get it for.
on your content.
on your site design
on the layout of your page.
on your use of images and media.
general feedback.

So constructive feedback can help refine and improve your site, this is the aim of the platform. We all look at what we are doing in a certain way sometimes we overlook some elements that can impact on user experience. We may not see it a collogue or associate may well see those things that will make the site better.

When we come to the "Site Comment Platform " that is the one that can help with traffic.

This can happen for a number of reasons when visitors arrive and view content with comments the natural tenancy is to view the comments, so comments are adding weight and enhancing the text, it gives the post and site a living vibrancy

If the visitor makes a comment it is adding to the content, but also letting search engines know that folks are engaging with your content, they are taking time to go through your content not just bouncing away. it also gives you the opportunity to engage with the visitor.

Engaging with an audience builds trust and credibility that can have a real flow affect if we have introduced a call to action in the post. All of this can add rankling values as well as making your site more user-friendly.
Hope this helps Eric, just sharing some opinions.

Nice post. Love everything that's been said here. However, I'll add one bad aspect of the present Site Comment feature. Let this be a feedback too on it. While giving comments using the Site Comment feature, there are instances when the comments are DISAPPROVED because of certain reasons (and not all of them are valid reasons, mind you) by the one who's asking for comments. And when such disapproved comments are 2-3 in numbers (when the approval rate percentage is somewhere in the 70s), the user is BLOCKED permanently from using the Site Comment feature again. I would suggest something like "Hide" or "Ignore" so that comments are not displayed on the person's website. As it is Hide or Ignore is more or less the same as Disapprove. But just for 2-3 disapproved comments, if a user is blocked permanently from using the Site Comment feature, it's not fair. Comment is different from Feedback but that doesn't mean all comments should always be "Oh! Great article!!" types.

Hi Sukumar, thank you for sharing your insights and raising a very valid point. As a community this issue is ongoing and one that always seems to be present, it usually affects newer members and dialogue would suggest that many feel hard done by and rejected when they are banned partly because they do not understand fully the reason why.

The point that you raised about comments being disapproved for invalid reasons from observation is a very valid one, the gray areas between comments and feedback can be confusing just as the reasons for disapproving comments this seems to be up to the individual, the fact that someone disagrees with your post or theme doesn't seem to be a valid reason, possibly how the comment is presented could tip the scales.

On both sides of the fence there seem to be differing views on what is acceptable and what is not. I note that there is no guidance on these areas. perhaps a list of what would be deemed as acceptable for disapproving comments may create some definition. Just a thought.

Some of the reasons given for disapproval can spring from lack of knowledge, so as a community it would be good to create a benchmark that would present best practice.

Part of the reason for this post was to start a dialogue around this topic.

If one doesn't like a comment, it could be kept as it is without approving. Why disapprove at all?? Since it harms the other person.

I agree.

Maybe the person who is disapproving the comment doesn't know that his act would harm the other person. So, there should be a way he/she is prompted that his disapproving the person's comment would be harming the other person. If the person still wants to disapprove (despite the knowledge of the potential harm), then it's his or her choice. If at all bans should be there, then such persons who disapproves comments frequently should be banned. There could be spam-like comments, but there should be other ways of dealing with them. No person in his/her right mind wants to say bad things in a comment intentionally.

Alex

Great post. I now have a clearer understanding of comments v feedback.
I did wonder the distinction between the two your post is therefore timely. Intuitively I kinda knew posting a comment as
"Another WA member" was not what was needed. You've cleared that up for me, thanks.

You given me many good tips here.

I'll be sure to make good use of them

James

Hi James,
Pleased to be of a help to you, it can be a confusing aspect of our WA journey until that is we get the concept sorted within our experience. Placing comments can be a really good way to help one another out, there is so much competition out there.

There is a big difference between the two platforms and it is all about working out the best way to get value from each.

To a degree we are getting friends to help us out, the key can be discretion at times.

A great deal of excellent advice in your post Alex. Although all of what you say is important and valid, the one that stands out the most for me is a member writing a comment making it obvious they are a member of WA. We certainly don't need that information in comments we receive. It's useless and harmful! Here's hoping members receive that message from you, loud and clear!

Hi, Valerie thank you for stopping by, it is just a reflection. One of the things that we need to embrace is that our target audiences are becoming more switched on and so connected. Like us all, we can spot things that don't seem right a mile away.

It is definitely something to think about when crafting comments, the cavort always should be is what I am writing actually adding value to the comment.

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