Should I Allow Comments on My Blog?

At some point, many bloggers ask, “Should I allow comments on my blog?” and “Can you use blog commenting for SEO?” Blogs are a necessary part of content marketing. But comments don’t necessarily have to be a part of every blog. If you have comments on your blog, you know that it can take a lot of time and effort to moderate your comments. Is it worth the time, such as if you can use blog commenting for SEO? In this article, we will discuss the pros and cons of allowing comments on your blog. We’ll help you decide whether or not comments are the right choice for your own blog.

Disabling Blog Comments

Beyond wondering about the blog comment SEO potential, there can be some motivations for outright disabling blog comments. There are some websites that, over the years, have disabled comments on their blogs because of many spam and low-quality comments. Not to mention the effort required to monitor all of those comments.

For example, the Chicago Sun-Times eliminated commenting from its website a few years ago due to the amount of negativity, racism, and hate speech.

The same year, Copyblogger removed its comments but brought back commenting after a couple of years. Michael Hyatt removed comments from his blog for a year. Zen Habits permanently disabled their commenting system.

On the other hand, there are other sites that argue that keeping comments on websites is ultimately a good thing.

So, what’s the right choice for the comments on your own blog? Let’s discuss the pros and cons.

How to Decide Whether or Not to Allow Comments on Your Blog

Every company these days should have a social media marketing blog. However, not every blog needs to have comments. There are various ways to aid your SEO efforts beyond considering the potential for blog comment SEO. There are also specific pros and cons to allowing comments on your blog. Before you make a decision whether or not to allow comments on your posts, you will need to weigh the pros and cons.

Pros of Allowing Comments on a Blog

First, let’s discuss the pros of allowing comments on your blog:

Allows Two-Way Communication

Some bloggers believe that comments are a large part of what makes a blog a blog. For many, the two-way communication between the blog writer and the commenters is imperative. It helps build relationships and a community. The act of allowing commenters to engage with your blog makes them more likely to engage with your brand in other ways, like following you on social media, subscribing to your email newsletter, or purchasing your products. These activities can help you stand out just as outright blog commenting for SEO might.

Provides Social Proof

Comments on your blog posts provide social proof. Social proof is a psychological phenomenon where people assume the actions of others to try to reflect the right behavior in a given situation. In marketing, social proof is a tactic for conversion rate optimization to convince more customers to convert.

Allows You to Get to Know Your Audience

Allowing comments on your blog allows you to get to know your audience better. You can immediately see your readers’ reaction to your content and learn what content they like (and what they don’t interact with as much.) You can also write comments back to the original comments to encourage your audience to share more. It’s like immediate analytics for your blog! (Plus, it’s a way to help you obtain your readers’ email addresses since most systems require a valid email in order to leave a comment.)

Cons of Allowing Comments on a Blog

However, there are some cons to allowing comments on your blog, too:

Spam Comments

When considering the potential for blog comment SEO, it’s also important to consider the potential negative impacts of allowing comments. Spam and trolls continue to be an issue for most websites these days. For every real commenter who says “great post!” and wants to engage with your content, unfortunately, there most likely will also be a spam or low-quality comment, too.

Time Spent Moderating Comments

The main detriment involved in allowing comments on your blog is that it requires time and effort to read through the comments and find low-quality comments to delete. Depending on the number of comments your blog receives, this could be a time-consuming effort. This is time that could be spent on other meaningful interactions with your readers, like on social media, rather than obsessing over your comment count. There are certain time considerations involved in pursuing blog comment SEO, just as with other marketing efforts.

Conversations Are Happening Elsewhere

Though many conversations used to happen in blog comments, many bloggers now say that those conversations are now happening on social media instead. When considering blog commenting for SEO, instead of spending time on comments, you can encourage your readers to share the post on social media with their thoughts instead of leaving a comment. Social sharing is as important or more important than commenting these days.

No Evidence of Increased Traffic

According to HubSpot, there is no evidence that blog comments correlate to increased traffic, so looking to blog commenting for SEO may not be the most worthwhile approach. Blog traffic doesn’t necessarily increase with comments. Comments also did not increase the number of links on a post or the number of views a post received. Though some bloggers like blog comments to increase the amount of content on their site, there are many other ways to accomplish this goal. Guest blogging is just one option.

Should I Allow Comments on My Blog?

So, should you allow comments on your blog? That decision is entirely up to you. There are some benefits to allowing comments, like improving your relationships with your readers, providing social proof, and getting feedback on your work. There are also some ways to use blog commenting for SEO.

Additionally, for some bloggers, having a comment section causes a lot of stress and time spent moderating poor comments, which can lead many bloggers to pursue other marketing efforts instead of blog commenting for SEO. If you and your readers aren’t benefiting from the comments section, you can remove it. You can always encourage your readers to engage with you and your content in other ways, like via email and social media.

For help with your own blog and more impactful SEO results instead of blog commenting, contact SEO Design Chicago today! We provide everything from blog writing services to web development help.