How and Why to Leave a Comment on a Blog Post

I haven’t had very many comments on my blogs thus far. CLEARLY this is an indication of technical difficulties, or the confusion surrounding the purpose of comments. (Obviously.) Here, let me help you out, so you can start having fun commenting on various websites.

This is for all of you readers who would love to leave nice, long comments if you could figure out how to do it.

The first thing you do is take notice of the “Leave a Comment” words beneath the post. You may not have noticed it before, it’s kind of in fine print. You may have to click on “Continue Reading” to get to that. Or, click on the title, which will take you to the same post you are reading in its own personal window. Now do you see the Leave a Comment hyperlink? It’s after the keywords, or tags.

You will be asked to leave your email address and name. That is not for evil, devious reasons. It is so I can answer you, and also to avoid spam. I used to avoid leaving any contact info on blogs I visited, and therefore avoided commenting. But now I get very excited when I hear back from someone whose post I commented on.

Here are some templates you can use, if you’re not sure what to say:
Template 1: Interesting!
Template 2: Good point!
Template 3: Hey, I had the same thing happen to me!
Template 4: Thanks, this was helpful!
Template 5: Hi Ramona, I enjoyed this book review. Have you read so-and-so’s latest book?
Template 6: I don’t completely agree with everything you said, but like hearing your point of view.
Template 7: Wow, you are an amazing writer and I’d like to offer you a contract for a book series and option for film rights.

Now, for those of you who need a good reason to leave a comment….

I used to visit blogs of all kinds without leaving a single comment. I felt like I was getting the information I needed, but leave a comment? That would be weird. It’s just a website (and by implication, it wrote itself).

That was before I had my own blog, and found out how nice it is to get feedback from the big, wide world. It’s wonderful to know that someone is reading your writing, and it’s nice to get a reaction, too. It also helps lonely writers to not feel like they live in a cave. It’s all about connecting with someone likeminded. When that happens, suddenly the world becomes little cyber communities instead of a vast ocean of strangers.

So go ahead—take the plunge! (Hey, I just thought of something: you could even comment on mine!)