SiteComments: I'm Crushing On Platform Improvements!

We can't discount the importance of comments on our websites. Evidence of user engagement and interaction are essential factors in our digital marketing success.

I honestly believe that when we respond and interact with commenters, we transform ourselves from "some nameless blogger who published a post" to a real human being.

Going forward, I think new readers will respond to evidence of engagement. I know I always scroll the comments on blogs I follow.

From a practical perspective, there's also some evidence that comments are a Google Ranking Factor. Here's an excerpt from a post written by Brian Dean at Backlinko.

SiteComment Improvements

For all these reasons, I'm excited by recent improvements to the SiteComment platform!

I had an excellent experience this morning, and I wanted to share for anyone who may be shying away from requesting comments. Early this morning, one of my newest referrals uploaded a picture and completed their profile.

So, I woke up this morning to discover I had 2 credits that I could use to request comments on my latest post. And, I jumped on it quickly!

Like others involved in the SAC challenge, I've been paddling rapidly to stay afloat with assignments :) So, I haven't been very diligent about offering comments through SiteComments.

Several of my colleagues in the challenge have been super about commenting on posts I've shared. Still, the comment section on my latest post was sparsely populated. Hence, I was eager to change that.

I was elated with the results of this most recent dive into SiteComments for several reasons. Theoretically, 2 credits should have garnered one comment. So, imagine my surprise when I received 4 comments.

But there's more!

Success in the Comment Arena

I was happy to approve all 4 comments because it was evident that all had read the post and they had something thoughtful to offer. Very cool, right?

I also observed something else that I really appreciated. Maybe this is just me. You can let me know if this is important to you or if I'm making more of it than I should. I loved the Gravatars!

Call me crazy, but I really struggle with Gravatars that are weird symbols rather than photos of people. And my biggest pet peeve is when there's just a string of characters associated with a Gravatar in lieu of a name.

I like to address people by name. After all, we are supposed to be having a dialog, and I feel pretty weird attempting to converse with a nameless image. Frankly, it tends to feel a little spammy and fake to me.

But all was well today! All of the thoughtful comments also came with names and photos of real people. So I wanted to take this opportunity to express my gratitude for the continuous improvement efforts here at Wealthy Affiliate.

Are you also enjoying the improvements to SiteComments? Feel free to share your thoughts below!

Happy Blogging!

Linda