Changing the response system

Over the years of blogging, I’ve done my best to respond to the majority of comments on my blog. Sometimes I do it right away, other times it’s down the line. The majority of the time, however, the commenting ends with my response.

There’s no engagement per say, no talking. It’s one comment, the response, and then done.

Poof. Just like that.

Over the years, I’ve seen how others will comment via e-mail. I always wondered if that was a better way of doing things. The main issue I had was I couldn’t get my blog’s settings right in regard to sending me an e-mail so I know there are new comments.

If those e-mails don’t come, then it becomes a massive pain to try and do it so the person getting it back realizes what it is!

That has changed and I now get e-mails whenever somebody comments on a post, so it becomes much easier to do this.

That’s why I’ve decided to take a different route in regard to comments.

I feel it’s extremely important to not only respond to all comments on your blog, but to also know the person you are responding to reads it. Let’s be honest — not everybody returns to your blog and checks to see if you’ve commented back.

That being said, I do feel it’s important to publicly comment the majority of the time as I think it allows others to possibly have a discussion etc.

So, moving forward, I’m going to attempt to be more engaging with readers. When somebody comments, I’ll respond via e-mail, but also will copy and paste the answer in the comment section. It won’t take a lot of extra time, but at the same time will keep things in a spot where people can talk and engage with one another.

To me, that’s highly important.

This past summer, even though I still had a post per day, I didn’t interact and engage as much as I normally do. I didn’t respond quickly and I stopped visiting too many blogs. That’s all on me, though. I got busy and didn’t allot myself time to do this. That isn’t good when you are running a blog — especially a personal one. See, personal blogs often survive off traffic that comes from others seeing you comment elsewhere and coming to visit.

This is especially true when you look at my blog and the things I often write about.

So, I’ve slowly started to get back to doing that. I’ve been enjoying it, too. My goal is to start planning things out more — such as visiting blogs three times a week for a certain amount of time. That makes it structured so I can go read more than one post if needed, think about comments, visit more places etc.

In return, hopefully I’ll see my traffic go up as it has taken quite a hit with me being inactive outside my own blog.

And I want to interact more, so that’s why this change in my commenting system. I’m going to make sure everybody gets some sort of a personal response because, honestly, if they take the time to comment, they should get something back. Plus, it might open doors for more discussion etc.

There are times this might not happen (I don’t always respond on “Snapshot Saturday” because it’s more relatives commenting about the photos, so they are getting the engagement they need), but most other things will be open game. I am hoping this will help me continue to find a way to make my blog grow, while at the same time staying true to what my original goal was with it — to have a platform to write whatever I want, whenever I want.

Feel free to leave a comment, or e-mail P.J. at hoohaablog@gmail.com. Also, please “Like” A ‘lil HooHaa on Facebook! You can also follow me on Twitter @softball29!