Did you know: seventy-seven million new blog and online comments are generated each month. Shocked? Surprised?

Although all of those comments will not be high quality, this shows that there are active readers out there who want their voices to be heard. Enabling commenting and discussion is a simple way to increase user engagement, time on site, and overall brand awareness. As an added bonus, comments on your content can boost your SEO rankings to help you get more leads.

Let’s dive in to see how you can improve your website engagement by building a community through commenting and discussion.

How Commenting & Discussion Increases User Engagement

Commenting is one of the easiest ways to give your audience a voice and make them feel closer to your brand. Pat Flynn, a blogger at Smart Passive Income, states that “without comments, a blog isn’t really a blog… it’s not just about publishing content, but also the two-way communication and community building aspects behind it.”

We couldn’t agree more.

Yes, there will always be some nasty comments that you’ll have to delete. But for the rest of your audience, commenting allows you to transform customers into a community. By letting your readers share their thoughts and ideas, they get to interact with your brand on a more personal level. The more connected they feel to your brand, the more time they’ll want to spend on your website. The more time they spend on-site, the more likely it is that they’ll convert.

7 Ways to Boost Website Engagement with Commenting & Discussion

Commenting and discussion ups the ante and gets your readers more involved with the topics you’re discussing and your brand as a whole. Here are seven ways to boost engagement by allowing comments:

Talking About Important Issues

We’re not saying that you have to dive into heavy topics. But engaging your readers with relevant on-brand issues will make them want to read more. People won’t comment unless they’re moved or inspired by what you said in the first place, so you have to knock it out of the park with your content.

Sharing Opinions & Thoughts About a Topic

Your blog posts should ALWAYS end with a call to action (CTA) to help your readers spend more time on your site. An easy CTA for a blog post is “let me know your thoughts in the comments below” or asking “what do you think?” This way, you’re inviting your readers to share their reactions to your content and can gauge interest for future posts.

Inviting Friends on Social Media to Participate

In addition to asking your readers to share their thoughts, you can provide direct links for users to share your content on their social media profiles. If they click on the icon, a post will be automatically generated so they can tag their friends and share it with their followers. Ideally, the people who see the shared post will click through the link to engage with your content as well. As more people promote your content on other channels, you’ll get more brand exposure and open the door for more audience members.

Returning to Reply to Comments Left on the Platform

The more of a discussion your commenters generate, the more likely they’ll be to return to your site to see if someone responded to their comments. If someone has responded to them directly, they’ll likely publish another comment. If they haven’t gotten a direct reply, they might stay on your site to read other comments and possibly reply to those.

Sharing Emails for Updates and Benefits

As you build your community, you can start calling on people to share their email with you so you can send them updates on specific posts or early access to new posts. This will make your users feel like they’re a part of an exclusive club and gently nudges them to continue spending time on your website.

Earning Badges & Points for Ongoing Participation

People love earning rewards, and you can turn your commenting platform into a reward system. You can encourage your readers to share their (positive) thoughts more often by enabling them to create an account and gain points for active participation. Users can exchange these points for some kind of reward that moves them farther down your sales funnel – like 10% off their next purchase or a free item with purchase.

Coming Back to Find New Content & Discussion Topics

The more people engage with your content, the more they’ll want to keep visiting your site to stay on top of your latest insights. They’ll begin to feel like they’re a part of your community and will increase the frequency of their visits and ultimately their time on site. As long as you keep the topics relevant and encourage participation, you’ll keep your readers coming back for more.

Insticator Commenting

Turning on commenting is one thing, but keeping track of your commenting platform is another beast altogether. While we can hope that the only people who comment on our posts are satisfied readers, trolls may find their way to your blog.

Comment moderation can be difficult and time-consuming. You have other aspects of your business to focus on. That’s where we come in.

Insticator revolutionizes the idea of a commenting platform. Our elite solution comes with:

• Around-the-clock human moderation, so you don’t have to worry about the nasty comments and can focus on your next incredible post.
• Seamless cross-screen integration, so your users can engage anytime, anywhere.
• A reputation point system to encourage your readers to submit positive comments.
• A fully customizable configuration, so your commenting layout matches the design of your site.
• Ad support that enables you to create incremental revenue from a typically under-monetized area on your site.

Before you know it, your brand’s fanbase will explode and you’ll have an incredible, thriving community. Get started with Insticator today to discover how you can increase customer time on site without lifting a finger.