Commenting

Comments are not the sign that someone had read your post. People comment to put an opinion, expand on the subject, agree, disagree, etc. To a large part, high average time on site and low bounce rate is in a way a sign that people read your blog. Personally, I feel bad for people who say "you comment in my blog and I comment on yours" because that hardly achieves anything. It makes it worse because that exercise caps your ability to hit the general public who have similar interests. You should be concentrating on the "non-blogging crowd" that have the same interest as the content you are posting. But if you feel comments are more important, even if its namesake, then that's just sad. Its just a sign that you couldn't pull a relevant audience based on your topic of writing. A lot of people are lurkers who rather form an opinion based on reading multiple materials of the same topic. Even Reddit and youtube has way more lurkers than people who upvote/downvote, let alone commenters. 

This was published an hour ago, and I am sure few have read before the first post. Just because they didn't comment does not mean they did read this thread. of course, getting people's attention is not an easy job especially in a field whose micro niche itself is overcrowded. When I started doing PC hardware reviews, most bloggers would not care, thinking that pc is dead anyways. Now i find them everywhere but they are doing the same thing- wanting each other to exchange comments. why? to create a fake persona that there is "a buzz". But reality it is that they are just faking comments in hopes to get fake comments. Such websites hardly exist for a long time and eventually will be discouraged enough to shut it down. Let's not give importance to something that doesn't hold importance to. Its nice to look at multiple comments but its no big deal. I get about 2 lakh page views per month with less than 10% bounce rate and 45 min average time on site. I don't even use my personal social media networks to put up my content because its a personal space. this way i get organic traffic. Comment or no comment is another part of the story. 

Your arguments don't make sense. Nobody comments on a blog just to 'put their opinion' as you have written. Plus I wonder why you felt you have the freedom to be rude. Your line 'Its just a sign that you couldn't pull a relevant audience based on your topic of writing.' is not a logical argument and phrased pretty crassly. I'm inviting people to discuss the pros and cons of commenting - nowhere did I say - let's have a slugfest. Your entire second paragraph is about how wonderful your blog is. Clearly this is just an attempt at self promotion rather than discussion. 

To work backwards - you say organics is more important and judging acitivity based on comments alone is impractical. There's an assumption here as that I don't value organic activity which I have clearly said I do. Reddit comments and blog comments are hardly comparable. 

I agree with both to some extent. To me: comments, not the "Superb! Well written!" comments, but comments that actually show the person read the post are important. For the reason I started blogging was to gain some fluency in my writing skills. It was to develop my own abilities. I do not, never have, ever will, I think, "monetize" my blog and put a whole bunch of ads there to earn money from people clicking on my site. I do not look down on those people who do monetize. It is simply a question of objectives. Mine are to develop my capabilities. They may have a different objective. No objective is "wrong" or "better" than any other. They are just different. To each his own.

Organics, non-blogger comments are extremely valuable. Yes, there are scratch-my-back-I'll scratch-yours commenters. They normally don't last. And I ignore them if they don't out engaging material out there for me to read. At the end of the day, I have to write material that engages. That is my responsibility. I cannot blame anyone if I cannot write stuff that's resonates with them.

I disagree with both of you to some extent: I see no issue with people commenting to put their opinion out there. Since my blog post is my opinion and since I put it out there for the public to view, I see no issue if someone comes over to put their opinion out there. Fake commenting and building the link farms is a bad idea. 

For the record: TS does not read my blog, I think. And I don't read his. I have only a passing interest in pcs and he probably has no interest in quirky, humorous articles that cover travel, food, politics, poetry and real life in an irreverent manner. To each his own.

Now: Kalpana. I went to check your blog out. I could find no way to actually post comment on your blog. You don't seem to have an option to follow via Wordpress even though you are using Wordpress, as I am. I tried with Safari, Firefox and Chrome and I used to be a techie, about 5 million years ago and still dabble in it. Help me. How the hell do I post a comment on your site?

I wanted to - if only because of your original post..

Hi - interesting take on comments. There are many comments on my posts Sloword. Did you click on any of the posts and scroll down to the end? Plus following on Wordpress is also possible and happens. I'm curious as to why you had this difficulty. 

My two bits .. I have usually found that ppl comment when a blog post invites a discussion, asks questions or provokes a discussion or you hit the nail on the head addressing a problem that someone was trying to find the answer for. I read many blogs everyday from huffington posts to other types of content for study purposes etc. I dont comment at all but that doesnt mean I didnt find those blogs useful.  

on further thought I wouldnt have visited that site at all if I didnt find its content useful in some way. I sometimes give a hello and say well written but only if I know the author in some way or I have been following their work for a while but this rarely happens.

from my personal experience, if you want comments, you have to try writing your article in a way that invites comments. In general ppl dont feel obligated to comment because after 30 seconds on your article they are already reading another and another until their curiousity on their subject of interest is satisfied.