I love reading comments on my blog and the community that is building here! My site is still pretty new, but I wanted to share a few of my 41 plugins that I have found encourage commenting. I highly suggest you install them too! While you might not see a dramatic jump right away, I really do believe these plugins will help you get more people to interact on your site!
Here’s the list in alphabetical order:
- Brian’s Threaded Comments - This is one of my favorite plugins! It encourages visitors to join the conversation. It also allows for multiple conversations to go on with out being interrupted because commentators can reply to individual comments!
- MyAvatars - This plugin displays the commentator’s MyBlogLog image next to their comment. It definitely helps readers recognize who said what, and adds to the community “feel”! You will also notice your friends when they’ve commented on other sites that are using this plugin! Commentators will need to be registered with MyBlogLog to have their images be displayed, but it also supports Gravatar!
- MyBlogLog Widget - This plugin will let you get to know who reads your blog and why. You’ll get both a public photo lineup of who’s been reading your blog recently and a private reporting page of what your readers read and clicked on.
- This one’s not a plugin, but it’s worth mentioning: Once you’ve set this the MyBlogLog Widget, go to your MyBlogLog profile and get the script you need to display recent vistors on your sidebar.
- Show Top Commentators - This one is essential!!! It will allow you to show off who’s been commenting on your site - and people will want to comment because you can have the plugin give a linkback to the commentator’s site without the nofollow attribute - Free SEO benefits for the commentator!
Useful post!
I will be implementing Top Commentators soon.
I implemented the MyBlogLog widget and it looks good!
Thanks,
Gili
I was looking for the Top Commentators plugin in the past few days and now I know where to find. Thank you.
You could have asked me! Oh, glad I was able to help anyway!
I got to go, but like the previous Technorati plugin, I still need to twick with the php codes. I kept getting the error message even though I have managed to get the Header showed up.
Did you make any change for the calling code listed in the source page? Do we really need to chmod it to 777
I’ll monitor your answer but may be I wouldn’t be able to answer you in time. Talk to you later tonight. Thanks.
I have never had to CHMOD anything with 1&1….
Thanks. I may installed it later when I start to get more commentators.
These are all great plugins and I would agree that they all help encourage commenting on your site. I recently installed the MyAvatars after you suggested it on my site and it is nice to see the pics by each person. It helps add a feeling of *community* as you begin to recognize people.
I couldn’t agree more! Also, I noticed that I tend to look for specific people’s pictures to see what they’ve said!
Nah, I don’t like the MyBlogLog and Avatar idea. It would be fine, but you always get one or two that just have to put a half naked picture of themselves, or a woman instead of a headshot. Ruins the whole idea for me.
I do agree with that!
I don’t know about the comments plugin but for the widget that you get from MyBlogLog it is possible to ban people from appearing. So they only show up once then they get banned and you never see that photo again.
Of course I don’t think it’s possible to pre-emptively ban photos that you find offensive.
Hmmmm…well I suppose that’s something, although I think I’ll just leave it out to save any issues.
However, this little dialogue has shown me the benefit of having Brian’s Threaded Comments. Might just head over and get it now.
I have the MyBlogLog widget at the bottom part of my blog where there there’s a lot of space. I modified it to accomodate more pics so I get all sorts of pics. I think I won’t be banning anyone. Not unless it’s very “offensive”
They are such good plugs in I’ve scripted them up for my blog too. Well not the Top Commentator one isn’t live yet.
I’ve also coded up one for displaying a little welcome back block if you’ve previously commented on my site.
I like the threaded comments and makes it easier for people to reply to a particular comment.
Hrmm perhaps I’ll look into coding up a script for quoting people in the comment section!
I like the “welcome back” message, Stephan Fung’s theme came with that code and I would like to implement that here too….
Of the four, it seems like I only have the third one. All of them are definitely nice in having the community feel in your blog.
Been testing top commentators and brian’s comment plugin..may launch soon.
2 things for you guys to check over:
1) spicypages?? anyone using this system?
2) Been thinking about just taking off the nofollow on the comments area. As a blogroll implies approval of the target content, disabling the nofollow gives all users the benefit without having to “sponsor” homepage links.
Thoughts???
I’ve seen spicypages on your site and it almost looks like a ad banner - that’s why I haven’t looking into it….
I haven’t decided what to do about the nofollow on the comments…
Not my site, I never put the widget on my site. The options they gave took up to much room.
I plan on just taking a few hours to comment on spicypage and see what traffic response I get. Will decide from there…
Oh… sorry, where did I see it the,
Not sure, I thought it looked to much like an advertisement, have decided not to monetize my blog. Will save that for lovely MFA sites
i think these should be standard on every blog, they’re that useful. but i’ve had problems with the Top Commentators plugin. johnanthony told me it made my page wig out when he viewed it through IE. anyone else have problems? u know where to point me to find the fix? thanks!
I’m running all but the top commentors on my site…but that may change this weekend…
All of them are great plugins, though!!
Finally installed subscribe-to-comments, made a great web2.0 post and no one has commented. I should just go back to posting pictures of food, everyone seemed to like that…
Still on the fence about the top Commentators, might just take off the nofollow in all.
Saman,
I’m envious of your work here. For some reason, I haven’t been able to enable avatars with Brian’s Threaded Comments. I have seen my recently created (on Gravatar and MyBlogLog) avatar pop up on at least one other web site. I’m at a loss as to why it doesn’t appear on my own blog. (Any suggestions would, of course, be welcome.) Thank you for giving me something to aspire to!
I see my face in the “Recent Readers” section of this page. My avatar is the default silhouette, though.
I think I understand now, Saman. Thank you again for this post!
Show top commentator’s plugin had some problems with different Wordpress themes, I just wrote about how it’s fixed in details at my blog.
Could you make a primer on how to adjust the css for brian’s threaded comments - I know a lot of us out there are having problems with the way it looks so it’s be great