Get More Comments on Your Blogger Blog

Get More Comments on Your Blogger Blog

Do you want to get more comments on your Blogger Blogspot blog? Maybe you are wondering why you are not getting the level of comments on your blog that you had hoped for? Well don't panic. Traffic takes time to build and commenting on new blogs is always slow at first. You could resort to creating your own comments but I strongly advise against it. Apart from being unethical I find you can often spot ingenuine comments a mile away and its a major turn off. Instead take heart. In this article I will be focusing on 7 strategies you can employ to encourage your readers to comment and to build a great community around you in the process.

Reasons Why a Visitor Might Post a Comment
To start with let's look at some of the reasons people comment in the first place. I find readers tend to comment on my blog when they have found a solution to a problem or understood something that they haven't known about before. Another reason to comment is that they may ask how to questions especially about technical problems or ask for advice. If I write something contentious readers may post to let me know they don't agree or conversely they whole-heartedly agree. Visitors post comments when they have been moved in someway.

Blog Visitor Behaviour
Visitors arrive at your site with an agenda. They are usually looking:

for answers to help them solve a problem

to be entertained, uplifted or informed

to connect with other like-minded people

Visitors get an impression of your blog the moment they arrive at the landing page. They make up their minds in seconds about the value of your blog. If their attention is grabbed right away by the look and feel of your blog they might hang around and read an article or two. Mostly people are looking for fairly instant gratification so make sure you give it to them by making your blog worthy of visits.

It is well documented by other bloggers that readers are more likely to comment if they see that your blog is well patronized and already has some action going on. If it's dead most will leave straight away. Most visitors will not get beyond the first page they arrived at. That's the reality of blogging. However, if your articles are unique and cutting edge in some way then you will capture some of the other 20% who will take more than a passing look. Humans being humans people are more likely to post a comment when they are not the first. Most of us don't want to be first to arrive at a party right and this applies to blogging as well.

7 Strategies to Encourage Visitors to Comment

Strategy #1 - Don't Panic - Be Patient - Build Traffic
If your blog is not getting much traffic commenting will be slow too. If your blog is new, say less than a year old, give it time. Once someone comments often this leads to further comments. Make sure you have attended to SEO and created sufficient backlinks to generate site traffic.

Strategy #2 - Always Post Quality Content 
For visitors to post comments on your blog they have to have some kind of warm up to the content. It's that simple. Make sure you post frequent articles of a high quality.

Strategy #3 - Always Respond to New Comments
I make it a rule on my blog that I post a response to every comment made. I want people to come back and to know that there is someone there at the other end. A leading 6 figure blogger, Yaro Starak, made the comment recently that he noticed a sharp decline in comment posting when he stopped responding to each individual comment. Respond to comments and your readers are more likely to return and to even comment again.

Strategy #4 - Ask Questions of Your Readers 
Some readers like to engage and you are more likely to capture these visitors by posting a question on your blog like What's the most annoying thing about Blogger? Tell us about your experince for example. 

Strategy #5 - Write articles that reference or focus on other Bloggers 
Yaro Starak who makes about $40,000 per month from blogging suggested in a recent newsletter that you not just mention other bloggers in your articles but write an article around them as a way to encourage the other blogger to comment on your blog. Haven't tried this one yet but it is on my list so I will let you know how I get on. If you have tried it already what happened?

Strategy #6 - Make it Easy For Visitors to Comment
For visitors to leave comments the commenting process has to be easy. Make sure the following are correctly set on your blog by navigating to Settings > Comments:

Set Show Comments to Yes

Set Allow Anyone to Comment

Set Embed Comment Below Post

Set Moderation to Always (more work but prevents spam)

If you are using a custom template you may have trouble with the embed comment feature. Please refer to my article about how to update your template to incorporate the embed comments below posts feature.


Strategy #7 - Comment on Other Blogs 
It is a good rule of thumb to comment on a visitors blog if they take the time to comment on yours. I'm not talking about spamming someone else's blog just writing a comment about some aspect of their blog that you appreciated, admired or interested you. And of course you can get a link back to your blog in the process.


This article focused on some of the reasons why visitors leave comments on a blog and discussed some basic blog visitor behaviour. I discussed 7 strategies that will help you encourage visitors to comment more. If you have any other ideas about encouraging comments I'd love to hear them. How about posting a comment to let me know how you encourage your readers to comment.

Blogger Read More Links in Posts with Jump Breaks Feature

Blogger Read More Links in Posts with Jump Breaks Feature

In this Blogger tutorial you will learn how to insert jump breaks into your Blogger posts (Blogspot posts) as an aid to quick navigation for your visitors. Jump Breaks in Blogger provide an easy way to show only a snippet of your whole post on the home page of your blog with a read more link below it for the rest of the story.

I have already written about a Blogger expandable post summaries hack which provides a read more feature for a Blogger blog homepage. For most Blogger webpublishers (Blogspot webpublishers) this hack is no longer necessary because Blogger as part of its 10th birthday celebration introduced a new feature called Jump Breaks. I cover several methods to insert jump breaks depending on whether you are using a Blogger default template or a customized Blogger template.

The advantage of adding jump breaks to your Blogger posts is that your readers can quickly and easily skim your most recent posts for what interests them rather than having to scroll through a whole bunch of long articles. This is definitely a big help for those of us like me who often write articles longer than 500 words. If your posts are short and sweet you may find that adding this read more feature is unnecessary however you can still apply it when you do have a longer post. Below is an example post which illustrates the Jump Break feature in action.


How to Insert Jump Breaks (Read More Links) in Blogger
It is easy to insert a Jump Break into your Blogger posts (Blogspot posts) at any point of your choosing.

There are two methods of inserting the Jump Breaks in Blogger. Which method you choose depends on which post editor you are using. If you are not sure which editor you are using check this out by going to Settings > Basic and scrolling to the bottom of the page. Under Global Settings you will see a radio button next to old editor or updated editor.

1. Method 1
   Insert Jump Breaks - New Blogger Post Editor Only
   In order to use this method you need to be using the updated editor in Blogger or have Blogger in Draft enabled.
   
   • When creating a new post in the Blogger Post Editor position the cursor in the editor at the point you wish the Jump Break to be inserted
     
   • Click on the insert Jump Break icon (currently the last option on the menu)
   
   
   • A jagged dividing line will appear to mark the insertion point
   
   
   • Publish your post as normal
   
   
2. Method 2
   Insert Jump Breaks - Old Blogger Post Editor Only
   If you are using the old post editor rather than the new post editor you can still insert jump breaks into your Blogger posts.
   
   • When creating a new post in the Blogger Post Editor make sure you are in the Edit HTML mode rather than compose mode
     
   • Insert the following code at the point where you want to break the Jump Break to occur:
     

     <!-- more -->

     
     
   • Publish post as normal

Tips and Troubleshooting

1. To Add Jump Breaks to New Posts Automatically
   To save time it is possible to automatically add Jump Breaks to posts with the following method:
   
   • Go to Settings > Formatting and scroll to the bottom of the page
     
   • Under Post Template paste <!-- more --> into the box and save. The next time you create a new post the <!-- more --> will automatically appear. Make sure you are in the Edit HTML mode to see <!-- more --> appear.
   
   
2. To Change the Read More Text
   If you want to change the Read More text for something likeRead Full Story or Continue Reading you can easily do this by:
   
   • Go to Design > Page Elements
     
   • Edit the Blog Posts widget
     
   • Change the post page link text (Read More text) which appears at the top of the page to your preferred text and save
   
   
3. To Manually Add Jump Breaks to Blogger For Users of Customized Templates
   If you are using highly a customized template or have customized your Blog Posts widget you may experience a problem in getting the Blogger Jump Break feature to work. In this event you can edit your Blogger template to enable Jump Breaks.
   
   • As a precaution back up your template by downloading full template to your own computer
     
   • Tick the Expand Widget Templates checkbox
     
   • Using CTRL + F find the following line of code:
     

     <data:post.body/>

     
     
   • Directly below this line insert the following code into your Blogger template:
     

     <b:if cond='data:post.hasJumpLink'>
     <div class='jump-link'>
     <a expr:href='data:post.url + "#more"'><data:post.jumpText/></a>
     </div>
     </b:if>

In this tutorial you have learned how to create expandable post summaries using the new Blogger feature Jump Breaks. You now have the option to easily insert Jump Breaks into your Blogger posts so that longer posts appear with only an introduction followed by a Read Morelink. 

I have shown you 2 methods to insert the Jump Breaks and Read Morelinks into your Blogger posts depending on whether you are using the new or old post editor features. I have also given you some tips to make sure you get the most out of the Blogger Jump Break feature including what to do if the Jump Breaks feature does not work with your customized Blogger template. As always I would welcome your feedback about your experiences with the expandable post summaries Blogger feature (Blogspot feature) or any other feature you may be having an issue with.

Related Articles
List of Blog Know How Tutorials for Blogger Blogs
Blogger Buzz - You Might as well Jump!

How to Add a Table to Blogger Blogspot Post

How to Add a Table to Blogger Blogspot Post

This Blogger tutorial (Blogspot tutorial) explains how to put a table into a Blogger post. You will learn how to create tables in Blogger ranging from a simple table to a more complex table with alternating colors.

We will start with a basic table and gradually add CSS styling to the table to improve the look and functionality until we have built the table pictured directly below. No knowledge of CSS and HTML is assumed so this Blogger tutorial is suitable for absolute blogging beginners.

A Blogger Table Caption

Table Header	Table Header	Table Header
Table Cell	Table Cell	Table Cell
Table Cell	Table Cell	Table Cell
Table Cell	Table Cell	Table Cell
Table Cell	Table Cell	Table Cell

Tables are a useful way to display information particularly tabulated information. Tables are good whenever you want to align information so that it is easy to read and understand. You can add text, hyperlinks and even images to a table which makes them very useful for presenting information.

There is no easy way to add tables in Blogger yet. Even if you are using the new editor you will note that no table button is provided. Fortunately it is easy enough to use a bit of CSS styling to spruce up a table and enter this manually into a Blogger post.

How to Add a Table to Blogger Posts
First you will learn how to add a simple table to Blogger. We are going to start with a table with 3 columns and 4 rows including a header row. Then I will show you step by step how to add different features to the table including how to add extra rows, a background color to the header, a border, a caption, change the size of the table, center align the table and more.

Table Header	Table Header	Table Header
Table Cell	Table Cell	Table Cell
Table Cell	Table Cell	Table Cell
Table Cell	Table Cell	Table Cell

1. In Blogger open either a new post or an existing post that you wish to add a table to
   
2. Click on the Edit HTML tab on your Blogger editor
   
3. Copy the following code into your Blogger post which will produce the basic table as shown above:
   

   <table border="2" bordercolor="#0033FF" style="background-color:#99FFFF" width="100%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="3">
   <tr>
   <th>Table Header</th>
   <th>Table Header</th>
   <th>Table Header</th>
   </tr>
   <tr>
   <td>Table Cell</td>
   <td>Table Cell</td>
   <td>Table Cell</td>
   </tr>
   <tr>
   <td>Table Cell</td>
   <td>Table Cell</td>
   <td>Table Cell</td>
   </tr>
   <tr">
   <td>Table Cell</td>
   <td>Table Cell</td>
   <td>Table Cell</td>
   </tr>
   </table>

   
   
4. Make changes to the table to suit your own Blogger template if necessary by changing the following:
   

   <table border="2" bordercolor="#0033FF" style="background-color:#99FFFF" width="100%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="3">

   
   
   • Border width (blue)
   • Border color (black)
   • Background color (red)
   • Table width (orange) Can be a percentage or actual width eg 500px
   
   
5. Now we are going to fix an annoying problem in Blogger which renders too much white space above the table. We do this by adding the following styling denoted in red directly above the table tag and adding a closing </div> at the end of the table code
   

   <style type="text/css">.nobrtable br { display: none }</style>
   <div class="nobrtable">
   <table border="2" bordercolor="#0033FF" style="background-color:#99FFFF" width="100%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="3">
   <tr>
   <th>Table Header</th>
   <th>Table Header</th>
   <th>Table Header</th>
   </tr>
   <tr>
   <td>Table Cell</td>
   <td>Table Cell</td>
   <td>Table Cell</td>
   </tr>
   <tr>
   <td>Table Cell</td>
   <td>Table Cell</td>
   <td>Table Cell</td>
   </tr>
   <tr">
   <td>Table Cell</td>
   <td>Table Cell</td>
   <td>Table Cell</td>
   </tr>
   </table></div>

   
   
6. Let's add some further styling to our table header to improve the look of our table as denoted in red. Change the background color and color attributes to suit your own color scheme if you wish
   
   

   Table Header	Table Header	Table Header
   Table Cell	Table Cell	Table Cell
   Table Cell	Table Cell	Table Cell
   Table Cell	Table Cell	Table Cell

   
   

   <style type="text/css">.nobrtable br { display: none }</style>
   <div class="nobrtable">
   <table border="2" bordercolor="#0033FF" style="background-color:#99FFFF" width="100%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="3">
   <tr style="background-color:#0033FF; color:#ffffff; padding-top:5px; padding-bottom:4px;">
   <th>Table Header</th>
   <th>Table Header</th>
   <th>Table Header</th>
   </tr>
   <tr>
   <td>Table Cell</td>
   <td>Table Cell</td>
   <td>Table Cell</td>
   </tr>
   <tr>
   <td>Table Cell</td>
   <td>Table Cell</td>
   <td>Table Cell</td>
   </tr>
   <tr>
   <td>Table Cell</td>
   <td>Table Cell</td>
   <td>Table Cell</td>
   </tr>
   </table>

   
   
7. Now let's add another row to our table for Blogger so you can see how this is done
   
   

   Table Header	Table Header	Table Header
   Table Cell	Table Cell	Table Cell
   Table Cell	Table Cell	Table Cell
   Table Cell	Table Cell	Table Cell
   Table Cell	Table Cell	Table Cell

   
   

   <style type="text/css">.nobrtable br { display: none }</style>
   <div class="nobrtable">
   <table border="2" bordercolor="#0033FF" style="background-color:#99FFFF" width="100%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="3">
   <tr style="background-color:#0033FF; color:#ffffff; padding-top:5px; padding-bottom:4px;">
   <th>Table Header</th>
   <th>Table Header</th>
   <th>Table Header</th>
   </tr>
   <tr>
   <td>Table Cell</td>
   <td>Table Cell</td>
   <td>Table Cell</td>
   </tr>
   <tr>
   <td>Table Cell</td>
   <td>Table Cell</td>
   <td>Table Cell</td>
   </tr>
   <tr>
   <td>Table Cell</td>
   <td>Table Cell</td>
   <td>Table Cell</td>
   </tr>
   </table>

   
   
8. In this step we are going to center the contents of our Blogger table. This can be done in several ways but we are going to take a short cut here by assigning a style to every table row
   
   

   Table Header	Table Header	Table Header
   Table Cell	Table Cell	Table Cell
   Table Cell	Table Cell	Table Cell
   Table Cell	Table Cell	Table Cell
   Table Cell	Table Cell	Table Cell

   
   

   <style type="text/css">.nobrtable br { display: none } tr {text-align: center;} </style>
   <div class="nobrtable">
   <table border="2" bordercolor="#0033FF" style="background-color:#99FFFF" width="100%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="3">
   <tr style="background-color:#0033FF; color:#ffffff; padding-top:5px; padding-bottom:4px;">

   
   
9. Now we are going to jazz up our Blogger table by adding alternating colored rows to improve readibility and appearance. By far the easiest way to do this is to assign a class.
   
   

   Table Header	Table Header	Table Header
   Table Cell	Table Cell	Table Cell
   Table Cell	Table Cell	Table Cell
   Table Cell	Table Cell	Table Cell
   Table Cell	Table Cell	Table Cell

   
   

   <style type="text/css">.nobrtable br { display: none } tr {text-align: center;} tr.alt td {background-color: #eeeecc; color: black;}</style>
   <div class="nobrtable">
   <table border="2" bordercolor="#0033FF" style="background-color:#99FFFF" width="100%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="3">
   <tr style="background-color:#0033FF; color:#ffffff; padding-top:5px; padding-bottom:4px;">
   <th>Table Header</th>
   <th>Table Header</th>
   <th>Table Header</th>
   </tr>
   <tr class="alt">
   <td>Table Cell</td>
   <td>Table Cell</td>
   <td>Table Cell</td>
   </tr>
   <tr>
   <td>Table Cell</td>
   <td>Table Cell</td>
   <td>Table Cell</td>
   </tr>
   <tr class="alt">
   <td>Table Cell</td>
   <td>Table Cell</td>
   <td>Table Cell</td>
   </tr>
   </table>

   
   
10. It is also easy to add a caption to your Blogger table. For a caption above the table simply add the caption line as shown in red. For a caption below the table add the caption line in red and a style as shown in blue
    
    

    A Blogger Table Caption

    Table Header	Table Header	Table Header
    Table Cell	Table Cell	Table Cell
    Table Cell	Table Cell	Table Cell
    Table Cell	Table Cell	Table Cell
    Table Cell	Table Cell	Table Cell

    
    

    <style type="text/css">.nobrtable br { display: none } tr {text-align: center;} tr.alt td {background-color: #eeeecc; color: black;} tr {text-align: center;} caption {caption-side:bottom;} </style>
    <div class="nobrtable">
    <table border="2" bordercolor="#0033FF" style="background-color:#99FFFF" width="100%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="3">
    <caption>A Blogger Table Caption</caption>
    <tr style="background-color:#0033FF; color:#ffffff; padding-top:5px; padding-bottom:4px;">
    <th>Table Header</th>
    <th>Table Header</th>
    <th>Table Header</th>
    </tr>
    <tr class="alt">
    <td>Table Cell</td>
    <td>Table Cell</td>
    <td>Table Cell</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
    <td>Table Cell</td>
    <td>Table Cell</td>
    <td>Table Cell</td>
    </tr>
    <tr class="alt">
    <td>Table Cell</td>
    <td>Table Cell</td>
    <td>Table Cell</td>
    </tr>
    </table>

    
    
11. One more important property needs to be addressed in our new Blogger table to improve the look. We can reduce the double border into a single one. The easiest way to do this is to change the cellspacing to zero as denoted in red. Or, alternatively we can apply the border collapse property to our table as shown in blue. Note: Border collapse may not be supported by all browsers particularly if the cellspacing attribute is defined also)
    
    

    A Blogger Table Caption

    Table Header	Table Header	Table Header
    Table Cell	Table Cell	Table Cell
    Table Cell	Table Cell	Table Cell
    Table Cell	Table Cell	Table Cell
    Table Cell	Table Cell	Table Cell

    
    

    <style type="text/css">.nobrtable br { display: none } tr {text-align: center;} tr.alt td {background-color: #eeeecc; color: black;} tr {text-align: center;} caption {caption-side:bottom;}</style>
    <div class="nobrtable">
    <table border="2" bordercolor="#0033FF" style="background-color:#99FFFF; border-collapse:collapse;" width="100%" cellpadding="10" cellspacing="0">
    <caption>A Blogger Table Caption</caption>
    <tr style="background-color:#0033FF; color:#ffffff; padding-top:5px; padding-bottom:4px;">
    <th>Table Header</th>
    <th>Table Header</th>
    <th>Table Header</th>
    </tr>
    <tr class="alt">
    <td>Table Cell</td>
    <td>Table Cell</td>
    <td>Table Cell</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
    <td>Table Cell</td>
    <td>Table Cell</td>
    <td>Table Cell</td>
    </tr>
    <tr class="alt">
    <td>Table Cell</td>
    <td>Table Cell</td>
    <td>Table Cell</td>
    </tr>
    </table>

    
    
12. Now go ahead and add your data to your new Blogger table. Filling in each instance of "Table Header" and "Table Cell" with your own data. The information you add to the Blogger table can be text, hyperlinks or even an image
    
13. Save your changes to the Blogger table by saving and publishing your post

Please feel free to use this Blogger table as a template whenever you need to add a table to your Blogspot post. If you want to regularly add a table to your Blogger posts that consistently looks the same you could consider adding the table CSS styling to your Blogger template. 

In this Blogger tutorial (Blogspot tutorial) I have demonstrated how to build a complex table in HTML and CSS to insert into a Blogger post. You have learned how to manipulate a variety of table properties and attributes to create a table for Blogger that matches the color scheme of your blog and is functional and appealing. 

Related Articles
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How to Remove Image Border in Blogger Template Simple 
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How to Add, Delete or Remove Blogger Image Borders
How to Align and Justify Posts in Blogger
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