One of the blogs I frequently read is A Smart Bear, run by the super-nice Jason Cohen.
The other day I posted a comment on a post over there, and in response got an email in my Inbox that included this:
You’ll notice your comment also appears in the “Recent Comments” sidebar on every page of the site; that’s there to promote you and maybe get you a few extra clicks.
What a great example of a simple thing you can do to encourage readers to engage in conversation and leave comments on your blog!
I plan to do the same, but not until I find a two-column WordPress theme I like. I’ve been using the Manifest theme by Jim Barraud but it’s only a one-column theme (lending to why I like it so much — it’s minimal and simple, clean and neat) so the ‘Recent Comments’ section is never displayed, and I’m not ready to part with the theme yet. But I guess I’ll need to if I want to borrow this great idea from Jason, and I certainly plan to.
2 Responses
I really like this theme!
Your theme *is* very nice, it has to be said.
No need for two columns though. Why not just put a “recent comments” widget in the footer instead of “elsewhere?”
Or even just the *one* most recent comment, to keep it really clean. Or maybe you can do 2 or 3 side-by-side in a row since you have lots of horizontal space in the single column.
Another fun thing I’ve seen is “biggest contributers” where you list folks who comment the most (trailing 60 days?). That might fit better in your theme?