Updated Jan 2011. I now recommend “Subscribe to Comments Reloaded”. Read on to find out why. Really important – be sure to read the suggestions at the end of the post for setting up your mail templates within the control panel of this plugin.
Do you value your readers?
How much value to you place on each comment you receive on your blog? Do you make contact with each person who leaves a comment? Do you follow up with them when a new comment is added below theirs? If not, why not consider the value in doing just that.
Comments do not count as posts but are considered additional content and are added to the end of a post. They keep the post looking fresh from a search engine optimisation (SEO) point of view.
So long as the comments are on track and mention a few keywords like internet marketing and how you can make money online, they will help your posts eventually rank well with the search engines, at least for the keywords you’re hoping to rank for.
Even off-track comments can help as you will be amazed, after some time, what keywords will turn up as the source of traffic to your site.
All it takes is for someone to mention a unique phrase or combination of words like “zounds, is that the time?”, Google indexes it and then delivers your blog as a top result when someone searches that unique phrase. The only drawback there is that only a handful of people are searching for those unique phrases.
Call to Action
If you do nothing else today install the “Subscribe To Comments Reloaded” plugin as it helps maintain a sense of community and continuity with your comments. What does it do?
When you have the plugin active, each visitor who comments, unless they opt out, gets a follow up email every time a new comment (yours or another visitor) is added after their comment.
Fred (a fictitious comment author) would get an email telling him that someone just commented on a post he was watching. Fred gets a copy of the comment text in the email but if it tickles his interest, he returns to your blog and is exposed to everything else on the blog page.
Your comment streams become more like a thread in a forum than a series of disconnected thoughts left by first (and often last) time visitors. Not everyone will return each time a new comment is added, but it keeps your blog fresh in their inbox.
“Subscribe to Comments Reloaded” has a user-friendly opt-out link if people get overwhelmed with comment follow-up emails. From there they can manage all their subscriptions on your blog. Think about it for a bit – it is better to have 90% of your visitors subscribed to comments and half of them opt-out after a while than it is to have 0% of them subscribed in the first place.
Without this plug-in, or something like it, after your first-time visitor closes his or her browser window, unless you capture their permission some other way, there is a very low chance of them returning in a hurry.
Many first-time visitors find your blog by stumbling upon it. Don’t let them become strangers after just one visit.
Without adding a few essential plug-ins, your blog is more like a one-way publishing machine. Adding just a couple of key plug-ins can turn it into more of a discussion forum and you can begin to establish a real community of like-minded people.
I am extremely surprised that there are a lot of blogs out there that do not have any of these highly recommended, in fact, almost essential, plug-ins active.
Jan 2011 update. I have updated this recommendation to Subscribe to Comments Reloaded. I used to recommend Subscribe to Comments. It is still good, but this one is better. It allows you to manage all subscriptions to every post and page and allows your visitors to subscribe without having to post a comment – another really great reason to install this plugin today.
Suggestions for setting up the plugin
If you do install this plugin be sure to take the time to set it up properly.
Enable double opt-in
On the settings panel in your blog dashboard, click on Options.
Go to the Options panel to set up double opt-in
I strongly recommend ticking the box in the options panel to enable double opt-in. In the Options panel, tick YES beside Enable double check. Make your own selections with each of the other options.
Double opt-in means your reader enters an email address, presses the Subscribe Me button and then has to confirm their subscription by clicking on a link in a subsequent email. Why is this important? Two main reasons.
- It helps overcome accidental typos in the email address. If it is not correctly typed then no confirmation email will arrive. I have changed the notification text a little to remind my readers to double check their email address and that if no email arrives within 5 minutes to subscribe again.
- Double opt-in also minimises spam complaints as anyone could type any email address into every page and post to flood that inbox with unexpected notifications.
Set up mail templates
One of the biggest challenges I had, is to get the mail templates working just the right way. On the settings panel in your blog dashboard, click on Mail Messages.
Go to the Mail Messages panel to set up templates
There are three separate email messages that get sent out to your visitors made up from six templates you configure on this page.
- The new comment notification (subject line + message). This is sent to everyone subscribed to a post or page when a new comment is published.
- Double opt-in email (subject line + message). This is sent to the email address entered in the subscription box to confirm the user wants to receive comment updates.
- Manage your subscriptions (subject line + message). This is sent to subscribers who request a link to a page where they can manage their personal subscription on your blog.
Customise the subject line templates any way you desire. To give you an idea, I added my domain name to the beginning of each subject line standard text so people scanning their subject lines in their inbox can see it came from my blog.
If you do not change the default text in the message templates, the outgoing messages seem to go out as plain text all jumbled together and are very difficult to read, even with the Enable HTML emails option set on the Options page.
Here is the full text/html from my comment notification message template. Feel free to copy it and customise it to suit your needs. I’ll probably change mine a bit over time.
Likewise, put in hyperlink code and breaks for the other two message templates so that the your emails goes out in a friendly format to your readers. If you can’t quite figure it out and want to see what I put in the other two template locations just ask in the comments below.
There is a new comment on <em>[post_title]</em>.<br /><br />
Read the comment online:
<a href=’[comment_permalink]‘>[comment_permalink]</a><br /><br />Comment – submitted by [comment_author]:<br />
[comment_content]<br /><br />Read the original post here:
<a href=’[post_permalink]‘>[post_permalink]</a><br /><br />Manage your subscriptions on nine95.com:
<a href=’[manager_link]‘>[manager_link]</a><br /><br />Visit the <a href=’http://nine95.com’>nine95.com homepage</a>
Cheers, Michael Pedzotti
What do you consider to be the most valuable plug-in on your blog? Let me know below.
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Hi Michael,
Richard here returning your visit to my blog earlier!
Thank you for the advice you gave me, i shall see about installing the plug in you mention as i can see the obvious value of using it.
2 questions?
where do i find it?
and how do i install it?
i have a lot to learn about internet marketing and know little about plug ins and maybe less about installing them, but finding a great blog site like yours is a great day for me.
hope you’ll continue with your useful suggestions and i will be visiting often!
all the best
Richard
ps i’ve ticked the notification box
Thanks for stopping by Richard. I am in the middle of creating a short video on how to add plug-ins to your WordPress blog. If you can wait about a week I will have it ready for uploading. It will be the subject of a new post so if you are on the email or RSS notifications you will get an email when it goes online. All the best, Michael.
Twitter: barry_wells
says:
Hi Michael, thanks for visiting my blog and leaving a comment.
With regard to this post, Spot on, thanks for the explanation. I Will be looking for that plugin through the WP plugins page.
I noticed that you also have a check box below for subscribing to blog updates. Does this add people to your mailing list?
Also a side note: Over the last few days i’ve left comments on various blogs, some of which have commentluv on them. When i have left a comment the commentluv says ‘No last blog post to return’ and yet i have plenty of posts on my blog and my last post is only a week old. Can you shine any light on that Michael?
I’ll be back soon as i have all 3 boxes, below, checked.
An excellent post Michael, i look forward to more.
Regards, Barry
Hello Barry, welcome to my blog. The check box at the bottom sends your name and email to my Aweber blog notifications list. It is an opt-in list. Everyone who leaves it ticked will get an email inviting them to sign up. If they didn’t realise it was ticked or are not interested, they delete the email and Aweber doesn’t add them to the list.
I have also seen that commentluv issue. I suspect the blogger has not updated to the latest version of commentluv. The plugin gets updated fairly regularly.
Excellent advice. I really just assumed that the “subscribe to comments” was always there but I didn’t know it was a plugin. Thanks a bunch, I just installed it.
I do try to respond to everyone. I have no idea how google ranks sites. I got a hit yesterday from someone searching for yep note taker. So I went to google and did the search and one of my posts came up #3.
Kind of goes to show you that everything on your site is a keyword.
.-= Mike Roosa´s last blog ..Forum Marketing Ninja Tip #4 – How May I Help You? =-.
Interesting! I thought comment subscription was active by default too, another thing to tweak when I fix my theme this weekend. Zounds!
.-= Jillian´s last blog ..Making Money With Mechanical Turk =-.
Zikes, welcome Jillian. I loved the Scooby Doo cartoons as a kid. Yeah, I see so many blogs without any apparent plugin enhancements and am concerned that so many people are putting in so much effort but are not capturing the value of each first-time visitor.
Twitter: barry_wells
says:
Hi Michael, I’ve added the plugin to my blog, thanks for the tip.
How do you get the check box for your optin below each comment box? I have an optin below each post but not in form of the check box you’ve got.
Thanks Michael
Regards, Barry
.-= Barry Wells´s last blog ..Part 9 of The Newbies Guide: Uploading Your Website With Filezilla FTP =-.
Barry, I have altered another plugin to do that. I will put the details in another post or a video as it is a little complicated to put into a comment. Keep watch over the next week and I hope to get the answer out. The plugin was written for Aweber and performs a similar job to the script Dave Doolin wrote over at website-in-a-weekend.net. I have not compared the two scripts but the descriptions are similar.
Hey Michael, great post, can’t wait for the videos so I can add it to my blog, cheers Sally
.-= Sally Neill´s last blog ..In It To Win It And Need YOUR Help =-.
Sally, I am looking forward to making them. They will be very first online video creations!
Hi Michael,
Thanks for stopping by my blog and leaving a comment recently, I really appreciate it.
Great post, I value every single comment that is left on my blog and always do my best to reply to each and every one of them, even if it’s just to say thanks.
Not only does it add more content and weight to your blog, but it also shows your visitors that if they take the time to leave a comment, it will not go unnoticed by you. It also tells them if they have a question you will do your best to answer them.
I’ll have to add the subscribe to comments plugin to my blog when I get time, thanks for the heads up on that.
Talk soon,
Paul
.-= Paul Lear´s last blog ..How I built my List from 50 to 2000 in around 15 weeks! =-.
Hey Paul, if a blog were a tree truck then comments would be the leaves. They add colour and texture to the tree and bring life to it. A healthy tree has lots of leaves, just like a healthy blog will have lots of comments. Thanks for your thoughts.
Subscribe to Comments is pretty important. Every now and then I go through and see who has subscribed to what. It’s pretty amazing. People will follow threads which are months old!
I’m running strictly opt-in, and it’s working well enough. My readers are also customers, which is a little unusual from what I understand, but it seems to be working for me.
.-= Dave Doolin´s last blog ..Secrets of the Tomorrow Blog, Today =-.
Hey Dave, it is good to hear from you. I have been following your blog for a while now. You have good quality content.
I have not been blogging long enough here to see any trends with older posts but I will sign up to comment notifications on another blog if I have left a comment and want to hear what the blogger or other visitors think.
I had read somewhere that there is not always a direct correlation between readers and customers, but I still do not know the significance of either that or your situation.
Mike, all content has some value and I really do appreciate you, and everyone else, for taking the time to share your thoughts. I will take the time to not only reply, but visit your blog and return the favour.
Michael,
Thanks for stopping by I truly appreciate it. The plugin is called WP-Cumulus. You have an excellent blog here with valuable content. Content is truly king. Great job! I look forward to reading your posts in the weeks to come.
PJ.
Welcome PJ, thanks for that. I am not sure if I will install the plugin but the cloud/flying affect of the words is fascinating.
Twitter: anna_haller
says:
Hi Michael,
I agree comments are very valuable to have on your site and I make it a goal to respond to all my comments as well. People do read comments, like I read comments and you definitely learn more when reading them too.
As for a valuable plugin on my blog I like CommentLuv, Do Follow & Stat Press. I see you also have KeywordLuv which I will definitely check into using myself.
Take care!
Anna
.-= Anna Haller´s last blog ..Contest for Alex Jeffreys Coaching Students =-.
Thanks for dropping by Anna, I will have to check out Stat Press. It sounds like a useful traffic tool. Do you notice any slow-downs as a result of using it?
KeywordLuv is not used by that many commenters. It is not automatic like CommentLuv and DoFollow but it will slowly add value to backlinks if people visit blogs that allow it and they use it to its full advantage.
Twitter: anna_haller
says:
Hi Michael,
No I haven’t experienced any slow downs at all. I really like it because it gives you real time stats for your blog including visitors, pageviews, spiders, and feeds. The full name of it is called Stat Press Reloaded.
Thanks also for the info. on KeywordLuv.
Anna
.-= Anna Haller´s last blog ..Contest for Alex Jeffreys Coaching Students =-.
Hello Michael and thanks for stopping by my blog! That was way cool!!
I always subscribe to comments, not only because I will then know when and if the blog owner has replied (some do and some don’t) but because on some blogs, the commenters say some really cool things!
I have used the plugin since forever, but didn’t know there was one for the subscribe me to blog updates. That’s really cool. How would a gal set that up??
I also see a lot of folks use comment luv, so I am gonna have to get that one installed, too!
So subscribe me! (oh I guess I can do that myself!!)
Gonna go poke around here a bit, you have a ton of info I am sure I could use!! Thanks!! =)
Lisa~
Hi Lisa, I can relate to that (about subs to comments). I wont always visit the blog every time a comment is made but I will follow the thread via the email updates.
The subscribe to blog updates (bottom tick box below comment form) is a plugin that I tweaked a little to behave the way you see it. I am making a few videos of my fav plugins and how I have tweaked the code a little. Now all I have to do is remember which ones I tweaked so that I don’t overwrite them when an updates comes through
For any blog post that I comment on, I subscribe to the comments on that post. I also use the “Subscribe To Comments” plugin, and it is great. I could not agree more when you said: “…it is better to have 90% of your visitors subscribed to comments and half of them opt-out after a while than it is to have 0% of them subscribed in the first place.”
To me it’s like the reader is opting in to that topic/post.
Thanks for sharing this valuable information Michael.
Have a great week!
-James
James Hampton@Network Marketing Coach´s last [type] ..Thinking About Getting Into Network Marketing? – Part One
Hey James, my blog would be so much less active (and it’s only be going a bit over a month) if I did not have “subscribe to comments” operating here. It opens up the communications channels like no other plugin I have used.
Thanks for the great post and especially for the great advices that you have made to us and i am sure that they are going to work for us well. Keep up the good work.
You’re very welcome. I am glad to have helped you. Do check out the plug “subscribe to comments” as it is one of the best to keep a conversation alive.
SEs are not what they have been few years ago. It takes lot more work these days to get a site ranked. No choice for online marketers btw as SEs still generate traffic
SE are kind to me
I also get a lot of traffic from the comments I leave on other blogs 
I really enjoy reading your blog! If you keep making great posts I will come back every day to keep reading.
It was very informative and I also digg the way you write!
Thanks Parker. With that encouragement I will have to go and make another post
Thanks Rechard.
Comment makes a discussion board for reader’s opinion. I every time use a comment section when I see post that are very informative for me.
It allows a community of like-minded people to discuss their views.
For the benefit of those still subscribed to comments on this thread I have upgraded this recommendation to “Subscribe to Comments Reloaded”. It is an improved version of the original Subscribe to Comments and well worth the 10 minutes it will take to download and configure.
Do take the time to read through all the options, installation instructions and suggestions provided by the plugin author. It is a really great back-end management tool as you can see who is still subscribed to your posts and pages.
Cheers, Michael.
Twitter: barry_wells
says:
Hi Michael, Happy new year to you.
The updated version looks great. When you install it does it automatically pick up on those that are subscribed to comments with the previous version? I did get all the comments through today but wondered if you had to adjust the settings to include previous subcribers?
I’m off to visit my mum in the hospital now Michael, but upon my return I’ll be looking into installing your recommendation.
Truth be told your previous recommendations have helped improve my blog so much that i’ll try all of your recommendations Michael, and i advise others to try them as well
Thanks Michael,
Respect and Regards, Barry
Barry@The Newbies Guide´s last [type] ..If You Are New to eBay Try Newbies Auction Profits- FREE
Thanks Barry for the kind words. I do set out to be helpful so it is good to hear that is the case.
Hi Barry, yes the new plugin copies the subscriber settings from the old one and then builds on this new set of data.
The trickiest part – but well worth the effort – was configuring the email templates and options. Please do read the lower part of the post as I added a lot of tips on getting it running smoothly with the least amount of grief.
Stay tuned for a massive post coming up on building profitable websites. Yeah, I know that’s a cliched term nowadays but this one will be the framework for most of my niche site work that I’ll be doing in 2011. As the year progresses I am going to refine the “10 steps” into a digital product and combine my actual results to put proof behind the concept.
For now though, do get this plugin going – it is not mine but it is a good one – and you’ll be amazed at the amount of information you’ll find that was previously hidden in your Word Press database regarding comment subscribers.
Cheers, Michael
Twitter: barry_wells
says:
Hi Michael, I’m slowly making my way through the back log
I’ve now installed the plugin and thanks to your tips and example above it was easy to set up.
I like the feature where we can select whether to have the subscription box checked or not, which wasn’t possible in the previous version.
Having subscribed to your blog comments for some time I have received numerous examples of the plugin in action and the improvement is fantastic.
Thanks again Michael,
Respect and Regards, Barry
Barry@The Newbies Guide´s last [type] ..Twitterfeed to Twitter- Share Your Views Please
Hi Barry, I like the subscription tick box option as well
I’ve almost got that other one fixed (SEO Super Comments) so that the Keywords will link to the comment author URL and something else will link to the dynamic comment page.
Michael
I have the little idea that comments can play a very important role to give a good impression of the blog to both, your visitors and search engines but if and only if they promote the discussion and have some value otherwise spammy and unethical comments can have the negative effect. I have noticed that some bloggers have disabled the blog comments to get rid from spammers this is also not a good practice.
If it wasn’t for the comments I think I would give up blogging. It gives me a real connection to others in the online community. Blogging and comments are a strange mix but somehow they are successful in bringing people of similar interests together.
I have seen some blogs with comments that close 30 days or so after the post is published. I keep moving on to the next blog as my idea of a great blog is one where I can add to the conversation and hopefully add value at the same time.
Thanks for your thoughts.
Michael.
Hi Michael,
In order to have fidel readers and constant visitors you must respect some rules, marketing and SEO rules. You must have a lot of good high-quality content that will go both viral and bacterial. A very important step for geting to those above mentioned is to get to be friends with the readers, it is very important to reply to comments in my opinion, replying to comments shows respect to the commentator and he will come back for sure. Though, lol, I won’t think it’s a lack of respect if you won’t reply me, haha. Thanks for sharing this!
Best wishes,
Cristian
Cristian@Jocuri online´s last [type] ..Jocuri 3d
Hi Cristian, I usually reply to all comments unless it is part of a small conversation involving several comments from the same person. Then I try not to “have the last word” all the time
Regardless of all the tricks for making money online I think the best way certainly is what you said above “good high-quality content”. Timeless content will win in the long-haul over any SEO tricks played with poor quality content.
Regards, Michael
Great work, I don’t have words to appreciate the author…..
That’s odd. A custom writing company lost for words
Oh well, I helped by changing your website link so it points to mine. If you come up with some words let me know and I will point it back to your site.
Twitter: barry_wells
says:
Hi Michael, even though i’ve been away from the PC lately I’ve been keeping up with events by subscribing to your comments.
This one certainly gave me a laugh, way to go Michael
I really do like your style
Respect and Regards, Barry
Barry@The Newbies Guide´s last [type] ..Working Behind The Scenes and Inviting Guest Posts
I usually just dump spam but this one caught my attention and made me smile. If spammers were a little bit smarter they’d probably not be spammers so it sort of proves a point, I think.
Hi Michael,Good suggestion for bloggers and I am also a blogger and I understand that each reader who read blog and leave comment wants a response from blogger and it is not good to ignore or not having time to reply to our readers because both posting and to reply our readers are equally important.
waterpearls´s last [type] ..Ultimate Business Planner Review
I enjoy visiting blogs where the blogger acknowledges and replies to most comments. I don’t expect 100% reply but at least some acknowledgement is good. It also shows that the blogger is interested in the people behind the comment and not just wanting to get more comments/content on the page.
OK.Will install this “subscribe to comments reloaded” plugin.Mine is wordpress blog.But i don’t find any “options” under settings panel.Please guide me.Thank you.
Hi ,really like your blog because are very interesting and very useful articles here ,I will return soon for other items.
Jocuri Joculete’s recently blog ..jocuri barbie
Hi ,really like your blog because are very interesting and very useful articles here ,I will return soon for other items ;
Jocuri Joculete’s recently blog ..jocuri barbie
i have a lot to learn about internet marketing and know little about plug ins and maybe less about installing them, but finding a great blog site like yours is a great day for me
great tip again mate – freshness of content, and keeping your readers engaged is key!
I am so thrilled for having found your site.
Hi Michael,
I just installed the plugin on my blog. Thanks for the tip!
Cheers!
Erik
I accept the value of the readers comment is much more important. now it’s called as online reputation management.
Hmmmm. That is a popular term – online reputation management – I need to write a post about it now
Thanks for the tip.
Twitter: datafan
says:
Depending on what the particular domain is targeting. Anything that has to do with “make money online” seems to get spammed to no end so I turn off comments all together. My hobby type sites I pretty much leave comments wide open with moderation.
thanks for sharing your great perspectives with us!! i’m going to try that plug-in that you’ve mentioned!! i’ll come back to tell you the results, i’ll thank you when the results are great!
kaynamalon´s last [type] ..dating tips
Wow, what a great yet simple idea. I will be sure to go and add the plug in now. Thanks for the post and the ideas.
Great post, I value every single comment that is left on my blog and always do my best to reply to each and every one of them, even if it’s just to say thanks.
Aionerex´s last [type] ..angry birds free download
I can sometimes miss comments as they come through but I try to catch up every now and then
Thanks for your contribution.
Hi Michael!
Thanks for stopping by! I really like it because it gives you real time stats for your blog including visitors, pageviews, spiders, and feeds. The full name of it is called Stat Press Reloaded. Thanks keep up the good work.
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It also shows that the blogger is interested in the people behind the comment and not just wanting to get more comments/content on the page. |
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Thanks for sharing us the value of the comments.. This is really important.. Thanks for sharing them to us!
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