Do you want to get more comments on your blog posts? We often get asked about tips on increasing comments on WordPress blog posts. In this article, we will share 11 ways to get more comments on your WordPress blog posts.
1. Get a Better WordPress Hosting
Comments are resource intensive. Each time a user submits a comment on your WordPress site, your server runs a PHP script. If multiple users are submitting comments at the same time, this could slow down your site.
You will need to make sure that your WordPress hosting provider can handle it. If you have a larger site, then try a managed WordPress hosting provider like WPEngine for better speed.
2. Use Comment Moderation Instead of Captcha
Adding CAPTCHA to block spam is an effective way to deal with comment spam.
However, CAPTCHA is not user-friendly, and it discourages regular users from commenting.
Instead of using CAPTCHA, you should enable comment moderation on your site and manually approve each and every comment (if you have to).
Comment moderation will not only allow you to block spam, it will also provide you a chance to interact with your users more often.
See our beginner’s guide on how to moderate comments in WordPress for detailed instructions.
3. Allow Users to Subscribe to Comments
By default when a user leaves a comment on your website, they will have to bookmark the link to come back and see if there is a new comment on the article.
If they forget to bookmark or can’t remember the name of your blog, then they will probably never come back again.
You can provide users a chance to subscribe to comments on your WordPress posts. This way they can get immediate notifications when there is a new comment.
This will significantly increase your pageviews and number of comments on your website. Your users will find discussions on your site to be more engaging.
Take a look at our guide on how to allow users to subscribe to comments in WordPress.
4. Notify Users on Replies to Their Own Comments
When a user leaves a comment on your site, there is no way for them to find out if anyone has replied to their comment. They will have to bookmark the page and visit it later. Most users will not do that.
You can easily allow users to subscribe to their own comments. This way they will ONLY receive a notification email when someone replies to their comment.
If you make it a habit to reply to most user comments on your site, then this could develop a highly engaging community around your blog.
For detailed instructions check out our tutorial on how to notify users on replies to their own comments in WordPress.
5. Show Newest Comments First
By default WordPress shows the newest comment at the bottom of the comments list. Now if you have lots of comments on a post, then users will be seeing the oldest comments on top.
This can be easily changed in WordPress.
Simply go to Settings » Discussion and scroll down to other comments settings section. You need to select newer from the drop down menu.
For more details, take a look at our tutorial on how to rearrange comments in WordPress – Display the most recent one on top.
6. Turn on Comments for Old Posts
Most bloggers turn off comments on older posts to reduce comment spam. However, there will be lots of users who might want to comment on these posts.
Since you are already using comment moderation, you can safely turn on comments on old posts.
Simply go to Settings » Discussion and scroll down to other comments settings section. Uncheck the box next to ‘Automatically close comments on articles older than X days’.
7. Showcase Your top Commenters
A good way to encourage and appreciate your most loyal users is by highlighting your top commenters. This shows users that they are part of your blog’s community, and you appreciate their effort to bring life into your comments.
Simply install and activate the Top Commenters Widget plugin. Upon activation, go to Appearance » Widgets page and add Top Commenters Widget to a sidebar.
For more detailed instructions, please see our guide on how to display your top commenters in WordPress sidebar.
8. Display Recent Comments
When users are looking at your homepage, they have no idea what’s happening in your blog’s comments section. For example, there may be a heated debate going on a new post where a user may want to chime in.
You can provide users a chance to look at current discussions by showing recent comments on your site.
Simply go to Appearance » Widgets and add Recent Comments widget to a sidebar.
9. Allow Users to Rate and Share Comments
The default WordPress commenting system is plain and simple. It does not have the social, gamification, and user engagement elements of a modern discussion platform. However, you can easily add these features in WordPress using plugins.
Simply install and activate the De:comments plugin. Upon activation the plugin will beautifully transform your WordPress commenting system into a highly engaging discussion platform.
De:comments comes with features like voting, user awards, social sharing, comment subscription, and many more. It will save you from installing some other plugins mentioned in this article.
See our detailed tutorial on how to improve WordPress comments with De:comments.
10. Notify Users When Their Comment is Approved
When a user submits a comment on your blog, WordPress shows them that their comment is awaiting moderation. The users have no idea when you approve their comment or delete it.
You increase your pageviews as well as user engagement by simply notifying users when their comment is approved.
Simply install and activate the Comment Approved plugin. Upon activation, go to Settings » Comment Approved page to configure the plugin.
For detailed instructions see our tutorial on how to notify users when their comment is approved in WordPress.
11. Reply to User Comments
This should go without saying, but if you want to get more comments, then you will need to actively take part in discussions on your website.
This means you need to reply to as many user comments as possible.
You can easily take a look at comments that you can reply by installing and activating the DX Unanswered Comments plugin. It will allow you to filter and see comments that are unanswered.
See our tutorial on how to filter unanswered comments by admin in WordPress.
We hope this article helped you get more comments on your WordPress blog. You may also want to see our list of 40 useful tools to manage and grow your WordPress blog.
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I read this blog almost daily since I signed up and I constantly find new plugins/tools/ideas to add to my site. thank you so much!
Every aspect of this article is very helpful. You took your time to arrange it and it is also simple to understand. thank you so much
Nice article. Comments are really important for any blog. After publishing a good content you must want to get a good feedback. Comment is an excellent indicator of your performance. Thanks for your helpful article.
Very helpful and useful article for every blogger, Thanks for sharing such type interesting article.
I have a WordPress account and I’m kind of struggling with it because nobody ever comments. I allow my users to subscribe to comments, but it seems like I need to be doing a lot more. What can I do to actually get people to comment on my blog and participate in the conversation? There are literally no comments for me to even showcase.
Keep writing useful content and engage with audiences on social platforms. Consistency and patience are the key to success.
an informatic article for beginners.hope these tricks works on my blog.thanks to share.
With these plugins, I am sure I will get more comments on my site. I have enabled the de:comments plugin now and also installed Comments Approved. Thanks for sharing. you guys have made my task easier.
Great point about responding to comments. You can’t respond to everyone, especially on a busy blog, but why some authors allow comments but never respond to any of them (as I’ve seen on some blogs) is beyond me. The whole fun of blogging is knowing read what you wrote and learned something from it, or otherwise felt it worthy enough to engage in a discussion.
I agree with Grant. I’ve left comments on sites that have no replies on them. It’s like crickets and I have no desire to return. The fun of leaving a comment is interacting with the host. Like a party!
Nice and informative post to boost comments. What’s your opinion about using Disqus commenting system instead of WordPress Comments?
Take a look at switching away from Disqus review – Increased comments by 304%
I don’t like Disqus at all. I don’t like to leave a comment on the site that uses Disqus as well!
nice post but not much as your blog reputation…!
Hey what do you mean by reputation here?
This site is mostly beginners only and this article focused to beginners who are looking for comments usage. I can say this is the best article about the comments.
Good advice, I already do most of it on my small, personal faith, politics and culture blog (The Uncovered Lamp) but may use some of the advice. I use the askimet plugin for spam along with Wordfence premium’s anti-spam scanning.
To get more readers and then commenters I try to take part in comment threads on facebook to topics relevant to what i talk blog about and if relevant link to my post on the subject. I may have to check out the plugin for notifying people when their comment has been approved
Thanks for commenting Andrew. Yes linking to your site in other discussions (when relevant) is great for growing your audience.
I have learned a lot from your articles, and I am thankful for that. But you comments unsubscribe system isn’t working and you better check it out.
What about Facebook comments?
Lot’s of people stay constantly logged in Facebook.
My small blog got it’s first few replies soon after I added them.
I added Facebook comments on my site and the engagement wasn’t as high as I thought it would be. Plus you can not retain them 100% also it’s hard to moderate.
-Syed
This was very helpful! Thank you. I plan to add widgets for Recent comments and Comments approved. Love this site! You guys make WordPress so easy to use and customize!
Thank you Mary
Hmmmm interesting article. I might have to try some of these tricks on a few test projects that I am running.