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This is a guest post: by Alisa Bowman. In addition to being a friend of mine, Alisa is also a freelance writer and blogger. She gives free marriage advice and help. at her blog ProjectHappilyEverAfter.com. You can find her on Twitter @AlisaBowman.

About six months ago, I had 1500 blog subscribers—all of whom left few if any comments. On a good day, I would get maybe 8 comments.

On a bad day, I might get zero

It hurt my feelings more than a little.

And it made me wonder: Is anyone actually reading my blog? Or are all of these people pressing the delete button whenever my blog feeds into their inbox? Am I the most unloved blogger on the planet?

I thought about throwing a De-Lurking Party, as I’d read about other bloggers doing that sort of thing. But that seemed, well. In a word? Terrifying. What if I held a party and no one showed?

No, I couldn’t do that. No. No. No. A De-Lurking Party? That was waaaaay too risky.

So I did all of the usual things that people tell you to do in order to get more comments. I ended each post with this line, “Please leave a comment.” I installed the Comment Luv and the Subscribe To Comments plugins. I begged my Twitter followers to please comment on my blog.

Nothing.

Then, one day, I accidentally purchased the wrong size of bed sheets. I opened the package and washed them before realizing the issue. I didn’t know what to do with the dang things, so in the middle of a post Of Cobwebs, Bedsheets and Butter I wrote: Would you like a set of free Bakugan bed sheets? Leave a comment on today’s post that makes me laugh and forget all of my life’s problems and they are yours.

It was a joke. I didn’t think anyone would want them. I mean, seriously? They were kid’s bed sheets. They were already out of the package.

They had Bakugan designs on them.

That post? It generated 23 comments. As the comments flowed in, I danced around my room saying, “Who-hoo. People really do read my blog. Who-ho. People love me.”

Reward Your Readers

Let me tell you something. I. Did. Not. Want. To. Come. Down. From. That. 23 Comments. High.

Did not.

So I decided to give away more stuff.

I included a line from Where the Wild Things Are in one post’s headline and offered to send a chocolate bar to the first reader who figured out the book from which I’d stolen the line.

I won a bunch of dildos at a conference (don’t you just wish you were at THAT conference?), so I gave two away to my readers.

I re-gifted swag. I gave away crap that I didn’t want anymore. I gave, and I gave, and I gave.

Here are some other things that I did:

Created a Reader of the Month award. I give it to one frequent commenter each month.

Thanked my readers. I thanked them in my posts. I thanked them in the comments area. I told them just how much their comments helped inspire me. I told them just had crappy I felt whenever a post did not generate a lot of comments.

Started a Reader Participation post. I did the first one on a morning when I was busy and didn’t have enough time to write a real post. So I posed a question, asking, “What was the best marriage advice you ever got?” In the body, I told readers that they would write the post instead of me. I would, however, reward one commenter with a subscription to Wired magazine. That post? It got 46 comments. Now I regularly post questions—usually ones that were sent to me by readers—and I ask my readers to answer them.

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This is a guest post by Gloson. Gloson is a talented 11 year old blogger from Malaysia. He also has written a poetry book, and is officially the youngest published poet in Malaysia. Be sure to follow him on Twitter!

Commenting on blogs is a great way to get yourself (and your blog noticed). If you type in your site address in the comment form, you will get a little link on your name in the comment.

If your comments are noticed, chances are some people might click into your website and you’ll get some traffic.

But now popular blogs receive about 50 – 100 comments on each post. And people usually miss most of them.

Here are 15 ways to get your blog comments stand out from the crowd and catch the attention of people.

1. Write longer comments if the rest are short ones

If most of the comments happen to be short ones, then write long comments to make yourself stand out. Don’t forget to format it though, for no one likes reading long comments.

2. Write shorter comments if the rest are long ones

Do exactly the opposite if the rest are long ones. Of course, don’t write two word comments or that will backfire.

3. Be one of the early birds

People usually pay attention to the first comments. So if you are on a post of a very popular blog and nobody has commented on it yet, go!

But before you do that…

Make sure you are leaving a useful comment, and not two-word comments. So being the 10th commentator with a useful comment is better than being the 1st with a two-word one.

But note that doing this too many times on the same blog can be annoying.

4. Use formatting to dress up your comment

If you are not familiar with HTML,

a = <strong>a</strong>

b = <em>b</em>

c = <u>c</u>

Formatting a comment is as easy as a b c . People like to read tidy and formatted comments, and that should stand out from the crowd, if there are not many formatted comments.

For example (My comment on 15 Ways Of Getting (Free) Traffic For Your Blog),

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photo credit: dimnikolov

They say ‘Owning a Blog is No Longer a Luxury but rather a Necessity’. How true!

And so is social media marketing.

As the real focus of this ebook is on social media and in the true spirit of it, let’s take a look at the meaning of blogging from the s-o-c-i-a-l m-e-d-i-a perspective.

Selling – Blogging opens a window of countless opportunities. One of those is the opportunity to sell your product and/or service. Most bloggers, if not all, are online entrepreneurs who blog passionately for money.

What it takes is trust, credibility and the right product. Just be sure that the kind of product/service you want to sell on your blog should be relevant, of value and could really make a difference in their life.
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