Site comment needs more than just a disapproval button!
I am trying to get "quality" comments on my website, but it seems that a lot of members are just there for the "credit". Don't get me wrong, I have received some good ones in the past from experienced users who knows what a quality comment is but I would say that 7 or even 8 out of 10 comments I receive are the typical "Wow, I did not know about this "or "thank you for your helpful article"... Just this morning I needed to disapprove 2 before I could get a good one.
Up untiI lately I have been accepting every comments I was receiving and then deleting them on my Wordpress dashboard instead of the aggravation of writing an explanation "why" I was disapproving the comment.
But it's not the way it should work, I know! Using my own credits to pay for a poorly written comment does not make Site Comment better...
Instead I propose this: Eric has written a very good blog post about the subject in May of last year and I would like to bring it back to the front of the platform to remind other members "how" to write a great comment and keep your approval rate over 80%:
https://my.wealthyaffiliate.com/ericcantu/blog/how-to-leave-quality-comments-in-site-comments-consistently
I am sure there are other blog posts like this, but I found this one very pertinent to what I am talking about here, especially this part that I copied from Eric's blog post:
"The #1 Focus: Comment from the point of view of someone who would have made a Google search directly related to the main idea of the post you're commenting on. This instantly places you in the audience the author was targeting."
That is exactly what the mindset of someone using Site comment should have! Without this mindset, you are just adding empty words and if it is the case, there is no use adding it to any website.
I know that it's not every member that are abusing Site Comments, however, from now on, if the comment does not make the cut, I will not be using my own credits anymore!
Stay Safe everybody!
Recent Comments
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Hello Denis,
This blog and all the comments below are very helpful for people like me wo are new here and yet to give site comments. It is important because now I know What I should not do.
Yesterday I give two comments at give and take thread and I did that after reading every bit of it and expressed what I specifically liked about it.
I would like to know what more can be done to make comments more useful. I would be happy to contribute whatever I can to this amazing community. And definitely do not want to do anything unfair even unintentionally.
Best Regards,
Vinayak
After reading the quote you added, it got me thinking about why people are not receiving quality comments.
"The #1 Focus: Comment from the point of view of someone who would have made a Google search directly related to the main idea of the post you're commenting on. This instantly places you in the audience the author was targeting."
From my point of view, the natural comments that get received are through a google search by someone who isn't giving comments purposely.
When people are unnaturally receiving comments, more than likely, it's going to be generic comments.
UNLESS the article that a commentator is reading catches their interest, and they will read the post and write a valuable viewpoint.
The problem with the interest area is that not all areas that interest you interest you. Ha! Ha! if you know what I mean!
So how do we resolve the issue!
Read articles that are of interest to you, then more than likely valuable comments are going to get received.
However, we are back to the problem with the credits. People want credits to get valuable comments on their website.
The other problem faced with reading comments that interest the reader is that there might be a lot of posts listed in the site comments that might not ever receive comments.
Is that the author's problem? More than likely, no, but it is a way to evaluate why a comment lacks interest to many people, and that is how I view site comments from my standpoint.
To give you an example...!
Giving viewpoint.
We all who experience site comments read thousands of WA reviews.
I have nothing against WA reviews, but people are not going to want to read another WA review after just reading one a few minutes before or reading many of them prior.
Then the commentator is going to have to figure out a unique comment after reading a very similar review about WA.
I would naturally skip that blog post and get the next one, but that one might not interest me either.
Leading me to skip, skip, skip, until I find one that I will read and leave a pretty good comment.
Also, I know I'm babbling, but people who leave comments want to help the blogger out as well as helping themselves out by commenting.
So now we are in the grey area!
Here's how I sum it up with site comments.
When I use it, I don't use it based on receiving comments alone.
The comments I received get based on how interested people are when they write their comments.
If I received many valuable comments that I requested in a short amount of time, I know I've written a pretty good article.
You can scale that article through various ways you market your business.
Just like when you write a post, it might not rank well in Google while other articles do.
However, despite the way you pay for comments, whether it's through time or an out of pocket expense, I feel if you are going to use site comments, get other value from it.
That is how I feel about site comments.
I agree with most of what you say here except the skip part. If you don't want to skip, change your preferences and the articles that come up will most likely be something that interests you.
Just a suggestion 🙂
My thoughts exactly! As you pointed out, more often than not we run into posts we're not interested in. Happens to all of us. However, if we're going to comment anyway, the least we could do is leave a valuable, thoughtful comment. Just leaving comments for credits is plain disrespectful.
I know that skipping is rude, but even preferences that interest me may have an article that doesn't interest me at all causing me to skip. Yikes, I know that is bad, but I don't want to leave a terrible comment either.
Hey Enrique, yeah I get what your saying that a thoughtful comment would be great, but again how thoughtful would a comment be when someone reading the article isn't interested in the article in the first place!
We don't have to leave a super long comment but at least it has to offer some insight. We can tell on the spot when someone didn't even bother to read our posts. They write things like "What a beautiful article..." "Thanks for sharing", or other generic one liners. They don't even mention anything about your article or they just copy and paste. That raises red flags for potential readers. If someone gets to our sites through organic search and reads those comments, they'll think it was us who made them. Simply put, they look phony.
I rarely use the skip feature and still manage to skip over many requests without getting penalized. My process is just more time consuming.
I close down Site Comments and come back in about 10 minutes later. Most times this will produce a request I like, or I may have to click try again a couple of times.
When I find a request I will comment on but now I may not have time to do so, I just open the website page and then leave those tabs open so I can still comment hours later.
Exactly!!! This is why I gave examples of both bad and good comments in my tutorial of how to leave proper comments on a website. When organic search traffic comes to a website, most times they read the comments.
If the comments look phony these organic visitors could bounce off our content without looking at it. It isn't that hard to leave a quality comment, even if you did not read the entire post or weren't too interested in it. How To and How Not To Leave Comments on a Website
I only skip when I don't know anything about the subject or if it doesn't interest me at all. Otherwise, I read the post carefully and try to understand it before leaving a comment. As you said, it's not that hard.
Hey Enriuque, my point exactly, if I don't know anything about the subject I skip as well. It's not that my intent is to skip, I'm just making a point.
Let's be real here! Also, we live in a world that not everyone does the exact same thing regardless.
Think about what we are going through right now. Regardless if there is a virus that can kill you, me or other people, people are still outside at beaches.... etc. Even in Italy, there are people doing things they shouldn't be doing!
This is why I made the point about comments being great feedback!
Agreed. Most of the time the credits I have come out of my pocket, meaning I give WA money for these credits. Then to see 3 comments that contain "thank you for sharing this beautiful article" or "I had no idea that this existed". Very frustrating. And like you, I used to approve every comment like that but I've stopped doing that.
I agree. Those types of comments are too unfair for us who needed something with sense. 🥈💨🎯👍🏆🥇🌟
Hi, Denis,
I see I'm not the only one. It's very frustrating indeed. We make our best to write our posts and leave valuable comments on other members' sites, just to receive generic comments in return. This week alone I disapproved around half of the comments I received. It's evident when they didn't read anything. I sometimes edit them but that's not always the case.
Someone mentioned there were changes regarding Site Comments coming later this year. Fingers crossed!
Enrique
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Great point on site comments. I am a WA returnee from a few years back and I recall some issues with people leaving less that adequate comments. I always just chalked it up to that's what happens on websites if you don't have any controls, and so I didn't take it to heart as much, but you are right, poorly thought out comments and wording is frustrating. You are on the right track though, as you know, the more quality comments realized, you know your article hit "that mark."
I am teaching someone one right now how to professionally post for clients, and I am finding that some people really have the knack and some don't.
Thank you for reminding me to use with care. I might have assumed it was fixed. Last time I was premium member, I saw issues with first use of site content, so I didn't use the community for assistance------that is why I may have failed.