'Great site!' Comments are Great Spam - Making Comments Relevant

byelsie919

346 followers

10 years ago

It's great when someone has taken the time to go to your site. And even greater that they commented! Awesome.

But wait. They told me I have (and it generally sounds something like this) a good site and lots of good information on my website. But the post is about the most common injuries in Muay Thai.

Is the "nice" comment relevant? No. Does it matter? Yes!

While feedback is always needed, comments are not the place for it.

But more importantly, when you comment on an article, you discuss THAT article, THAT content, the points made in THAT post. Doing anything other than that is spam.

The way I like to see it is if someone from my audience came to my site and read a comment, they would understand what is going on. It would be related, relatable, understandable, and relevant to the topic at hand.

If that visitor, having no clue about WA, saw a comment on the article Most Common Injuries in Muay Thai that just said, Nice site design, great information, etc. and nothing about the topic above, it would seem out of place and strange and unhelpful.

I feel bad myself when someone has taken the time to view and supposedly read one of my articles, but only to leave an unpublishable 'nice feedback' comment on a random post. It seems such a waste.

So, in summary, my tips are these when commenting:

DO:

• Comment on the topic of the article directly, and engage yourself in the environment.
• Read the article properly before you comment, to ensure a genuine comment.
• Keep the website's intended audience in mind - your comment, questions, and opinions may enlighten them when they view the page.

DON'T:

• Treat a comment as a place for feedback.
• Underestimate the power of engagement - topical conversation from any angle is great!
• Expect the site owner to appreciate a comment you posted on an article you barely read.

Hopefully this gives a bit more clarity on good commenting.

Does this happen a lot do you think? I know I did it a couple of times at the very beginning but soon learnt how useless and unproductive they were.

Let me know what you think.

All the best,

Elsie.