The perception of success
The following screenshot is from an actual blog post. Based upon what you see here, would you call it successful?
I think it depends on perception.
The optimist might see this:
590 LinkedIn Shares
(This also might be what you put in reports to your boss) :)
The Twitter and Facebook manager might see this:
70 Tweets and 21 Likes
I see this:
Zero comments
Same blog post; three different measures of success. One looks great, one is OK, and my measure says its a fail.
But which perception is right? Which one would lead to better blogging decisions?
Let's look at it another way. Here's a the blog homepage of a known brand. Most people probably see it like this:
They scan:
- pictures
- titles
- maybe a category or two
You might judge these posts based on whether the topics sound interesting, or if they are using high-quality unique photos.
Here's how I see the same thing;
See the pattern?
Post after post receives no comments.
In fact, here's how many comments this well-known brand received across 50 posts;
TEN! That's an average of 0.2 comments per post. This is a well-known company, but I'm not here to call anyone out; it doesn't matter who it is, because this is the NORM.
Only 10 people felt this blog was worth a few minutes of their time. Only 10 thought the content was good enough to say "thanks." That's a huge problem that no one is talking about.
Blind to blogging failure
A company blog with no comments after years of posting is a fail . But we don't see it. It should look and feel a lot like this to us:
NO one would look at this frankencar and call it a success. Or say "yeah, you should make more just like that!" It borders on absurdity. But when we see company blogs with 50 posts and barely any comments, we don't notice anything wrong.
And therein lies the problem.
The following post with zero comments is not universally accepted as unsuccessful:
We look at vanity metrics like shares, tweets, and likes. None of those actually matter. Most people who just share don't even read the post. And my plan for the rest of this post is to explain why, and what we can do to fix it.
Oh, and hey, does this guy look familiar?
Five business blogging myths
How did this happen? How did we get in such a predicament?
Companies are confused. They have no idea why they even have a blog. Some think they know, but the reasons generally fall into one of these five myths:
Myth 1: Your site needs fresh content
OK, hang on right there. Google once announced something called the freshness update in 2011. This created undo mass hysteria (just like "duplicate content" did, but let's not even get into that).
Basically this idea of freshness spread and permeated into this belief that all websites always had to be cranking out content all. of. the. time. Yikes, was this bad for the internet IMO. Content can be posted as often as you can but without forsaking quality.
Myth 2: The MORE content the better
Thankfully, I think this myth is finally slowly dying. It only took four Pandas to finally wake a lot more people up to that.
Keep this rule in mind: Unused content is dangerous. It's dangerous for your site because Google is looking for this sort of thing with Panda (I believe). People should actually be visiting your content (hopefully over and over again); otherwise it doesn't belong on your site.
Myth 3: Blogs automatically help SEO
And the variation I hear to this is "blog posts are where you throw all of your keywords. Over and over. " WRONG! Blogging does not automatically help SEO. (Granted this myth may have been slightly more true pre-Panda, but still wasn't a good strategy).
The truth today? Blog posts have more of a chance of hurting your SEO than helping. Unless you are willing to put an honest effort in, I would stay away from that assumption.
Myth 4: A blog is just a news feed
Gah! Are you CNN or TechCrunch? There are thousands of perfectly good news sites, in all industries out there. Unless this is your core business model, I'd recommend staying away from a news format in your company blog. Stop reporting and start connecting.
Myth 5: Blogs are for generating leads
I'm going to defer to Tad Chef on this one. Blogs are for getting leads... eventually. But usually not on "first touch."
If you're blogging for any of the above reasons, I assure you, they're only going to get you in trouble.
"Comments per post" can save us
I believe there's a solution to this madness and feel that whether or not your blog is receiving comments should guide your entire blogging effort. Let's call this simple metric "comments per post."
total # of comments / total # of posts = comments per post
You can use this simple number to measure blogging success (or failure). For any company currently running a blog, follow this flow chart to see if you're on track:
Where does your company blog fit in?
I bet if most companies went by this chart, 95% of company blogs would get shut down. Which in my opinion, wouldn't be a bad thing at all.
You see, comments per post can tell you a lot:
- Should we continue blogging?
- Is our blog "working" and getting traction?
- Are we connecting with customers?
- Should we step back and reassess our purpose?
- Should we stop blogging and remove the blog entirely?
Ideally, you would track comments per post over time as the central success/failure measure of the company blog.
Why "comments per post," you ask? Well, I believe there are exponential benefits to using this as your central blogging metric. Let's take a look at some of the big ones.
Commenting users are engaged
As my two stick figure friends will show you, people who comment are highly engaged;
And conversely, those that do not comment are likely not as engaged;
On-page benefits
- They add social proof that other people actually read your content.
- When you reply back, it shows the public you listen and care.
- Discussions often add extra value to your content.
SEO Benefits
Comments also add more keyword desi....... kidding.
You didn't
really think I was going to go there, did you? ;-)
No, seriously, as Rand pointed out in a recent Whiteboard Friday, SEO takes input from all kinds of sources. Most everything will influence rankings in one way or another.
Here's how I believe a company blog positioned to earn comments reaps SEO benefits:
Let's walk through one example: repeat traffic. How does a comment create a higher likelihood of repeat visits?
Simple: notifications!
Here's how it works;
- Danny Sullivan writes a post on something I am highly interested in.
- It's the most in depth analysis I've seen, so I wanted to ask a question, and add some of my own insight, so I leave a comment.
- Disqus emails me when Danny writes back.
- Naturally, I want to go back, read the response, and maybe leave a further response.
(This should also give site owners yet another reason to reply to people. It's a pretty certain way to get them to come back. And BTW Pat Flynn has a great resource here specifically about his experience with Disqus.)
Early commenting predicts future success (or failure)
You don't have to wait until you're 6 months into blogging to figure out how well it's going. You can tell after just a handful of posts. That's what I believe anyway. Assuming a younger blog (of say 5-10 posts) is getting at least some traffic, if there's no discussion, there's no traction.
When real people react to your content in a genuine way, you know you are onto something. Using social share numbers as the litmus for "success" is a terrible idea.
Simple
Most of all, I like that this method is simple, and pretty accurate in my opinion. You don't need fancy software to tell you if your blog is working.
Why successful company blogs earn comments
I want to switch gears and show you real examples of some of the most successful and commented-on company blogs.
Setup and approach
1. Care about comments or don't blog
My first two examples are of companies that DON'T blog! For many companies this will be your best option.
Let's look at Guitar Center. They actually had a blog a one point;
But they killed the whole thing. I think this was a smart move.
Restoration Hardware doesn't have a blog either;
I wish more companies would start following this trend. I assume Restoration Hardware is honest with themselves, and knows you don't just go through the "blogging motions."
Lack of comments = lack of engagement = people probably don't care about the blog = kill it and move on.
2. Build relationships outside of the blog
Lots of people who comment on my company blog are colleagues or friends. Here is a personal example;
Blogs are just like any form of communication: email, social media, or text messages. Literally think of your next blog post as if it's an email to your best friend.
3. Brand your blog
Marriott's blog by Bill Marriott is by far one of the best business blogs I have found. Their clever branding of calling it "Marriott On The Move" sets it apart. It makes it memorable:
I also want to point out, this actually generates search volume for "Marriott On the Move."
This by the way is what I call " PropWords" (Proprietary Keywords). These are branded keywords that YOU create for a blog name, product, event and so forth that become extensions of your branding.
This is an important signal for SEO right now as I believe Google is definitely looking at these kinds of queries when trying to gauge trust and popularity of a site.
4. Hire people who can actually write
If there was an electrical problem in your office, would you just have any random person fix it? No, you'd probably call an electrician.
If your company needs quality writing on your site, that's going to represent your brand, do you just get anyone to do it? No, you'd probably find a real writer.
That's exactly what King Authur Flour did. And it's paid off big time.
They brought in an actual author (of, you know, books!), PJ Hamel:
PJ writes a large portion of their posts, and responds to comments as well. And believe me, for a company making flour, there's more comments than you'd expect.
Even early on in the blog's life in 2008, it received a lot comments. Something was going right from the start;
Contrary to this, let's look at DreamHost's blog. (And by the way I'm a DreamHost customer, so this is no slight to their product).
But how do they go about finding writers?
DreamHost apparently just wants little robots to crank out content on topics such as "web hosting" or "other." Really? What's "other?" We can just write about anything?
And, unfortunately, it shows in the results. Using comments per post as the measure of success, the blog is not very successful;
5. Use a voting system
Wegman's is running a seriously killer blog. I'll be using more examples from their site. But the first is the use of a simple voting system;
This adds to the level of engagement and social proof. I know what you're thinking, too - 34 shares? Big failure, right?
WRONG. Remember. Comments per post is our success metric. This one received 61 Comments. That's some pretty awesome discussion. I'd take that any day over tweets.
6. Make it easy to register
What is it like if you try to just leave a simple comment on the Southwest Airlines blog?
It's a major headache! Definitely reduce friction when it comes to users being able to quickly leave comments.
Content ideation and creation
1. Relate with values
Jason Fried comes to mind as one of the most successful bloggers of all time. What helped make him so successful? He's not afraid to talk about grilling on a web design and software blog;
But why does this work? It's right in the first sentence. "Simple products that solve real problems." That's a common value. And 37 Signals (now BaseCamp) has always been about attracting people with similar (and sometimes unconventional) beliefs.
This post received 36 comments back in 2006 when they were not as well known;
You might think "well, big deal;" they were pretty well known by then. And I want to point out - in 2003, they were regularly receiving lots of comments;
2. Continue a prior conversation
This is SO underutilized. People are already attentive and engaged around a particular discussion. You can easily continue that discussion in a new post. Just like what Bill Marriott has done brilliantly here;
There's a lot going on here;
- He's continuing a prior conversation (people are attentive and engaged)
- He shows he's actually listening to and reading people's comments, which encourages future commenting.
- He's adding more value by curating the tips readers left, and bring the best ones to the surface.
- He barely had to create any new content himself! Now that's efficient.
3. React to misguided Quora questions
Chances are if someone is asking debatable/controversial questions in Quora, this is going to generate some discussion. You can answer this on your blog and bring some discussion with you. And that's exactly what Rand did here:
I don't think he was thinking "oh, how can we get more comments on Moz." I think he probably saw it as an opportunity to settle some misconceptions about SEO. But in the process it generated some great discussion.
4. Involve others in the creation process
As I keep reiterating, blogging is a two-way communication platform. Wistia here shows us how they involved other companies in the creation and research process;
This undoubtedly had a positive impact on not only the reception, but also the discussion of this content. This post received 73 comments.
5. Add a personal touch
This is SO. Especially. Important. For company blogs! People are going to naturally view you as this big entity. You can counteract that with personal touches. It humanizes the experience and allows you to connect with your fans on a deeper level;
Here's another example from Wegman's
There's actually a lot going on here too;
- The signature is handwritten
- Her title is clearly labeled
- "Since 1971" - wow, this speaks of tradition, commitment, consistency.
- Incredible service - not just "customer service" (bland corporate-speak) but incredible.
The signature says a lot, actually.
Back to Bill Marriott's blog - you can also listen to all of his posts, which is a nice personal touch as well;
6. Bring the offline online with a story
"Tell a story" is starting to get a little overused. Just like "write quality content" it runs the risk of being empty advice. What does that mean "tell a story"? Here are some great examples:
Eric Allen, a flight crew member at FedEx, tells us the touching story of his daughter who was diagnosed with a brain tumor.
Customers just passing by can't help but stop to give their best wishes;
Another superb example of bringing an offline story to online is Verdant Tea;
I want to point something out. For many of these companies the blog is simply an extension of their evolving story.
You don't find a story because you have to blog. You have to blog so you can tell your story.
7. Provide a call to action
How many blog posts have you seen, end with "what do you think"?
It's like we get to the end of writing, realize there's a comment box below, and go "oh I guess I should ask something now!".
I really like how Bill Marriott does it here;
Bill's call to action is specific. A call to action will also rolls easily off an already-good article. We're also reminded of the branding and personal touch at the end. This helps reinforce that we can have a direct, personal conversation.
Maintaining your commenting community
1. Kill off spam like crazy
Comment spam can ruin your blogging efforts in a lot of ways. It looks bad to search engines, and it looks bad to users. Kind of like the broken windows theory for blogs. It casts the impression that no one cares;
No one wants to hang around a place like that for too long. I'm militant about deleting spam on my own site (I check at least once a day).
2. Heavily moderate and make it well known you moderate
Although not a company blog per se, I just think Tim Ferriss sets an exceptional example of moderation;
His readers know that nothing uncool is accepted. This makes everyone WAY more comfortable to comment. They know things won't get out of hand.
Here's an example of a comment on my blog, in reply to someone else. It's not very friendly, so it goes in the trash!
Go forth and delete ;)
3. Listen and respond!
My goodness, what a lost opportunity for so many brands. Responding has several benefits;
- It "doubles" the comment count.
- It shows customers you care and listen.
- It makes them MORE likely to comment again in the future.
- As mentioned before, many comment systems like Disqus will send email notifications, which brings traffic back to your site.
It kills me to see this;
If someone walked up to you in a retail store, and asked you a question, would you just ignore them an walk away? Why are questions in comments any different?
Harvest, however, is very attentive to their customers' questions;
Jonathan does a great job answering a slightly annoyed question.
Here's King Authur Flour again. Someone asked a question and TWO people from the company answered;
4. Continuously prune
The thing about blogs, is they can become overgrown quickly. Noindex or delete posts that have received little traffic, few shares, and no comments.
If you have a big blog, which has been running for a while, you should conduct any number of content audits and prune fairly aggressively!
5. Outreach: Stop asking for shares; ask for comments instead
This has been done TO me (and I wish I could find the example). It worked really well though, and I would suggest it in your outreach process.
Think about it: If you ask someone to comment or leave feedback they HAVE to at least read the content, process it, and think about it. They're more likely to remember you, and potentially share the article anyway. And you might start to build a deeper relationship.
I consider an "influencer's" comment on my posts to be a lasting gift. It's there etched in stone for anyone to see. Social shares fade fast.
To earn a comment is to earn attention
And attention is the web's most valuable currency.
Especially when Bill Sebald is involved :-)
This is crazy (but all too common);
This is what we're all competing with!
The attention web revolution
We're seeing a dramatic shift happen right now. There's way more content, but never more time. Attention is getting harder to earn.
I think my anecdotal chart may explain it best;
Pre 2013 - it was easier to create shareworthy content and call this a "success." But we're entering an era where attention-worthy wins. The early adopters (UpWorthy, Chartbeat, etc.) are getting a head start.
I'm definitely not the first to talk about the importance of an attention-centered content approach:
- November 2013 - Medium tells us the only metric that matters is total reading time.
- January 2014 - AJ Kohn's brilliant piece asks: Are You Winning The Attention Auction?.
- February 2014 - Upworthy reveals their attention minutes to the world.
- March 2014 - Tony Haile's well known piece for Time showed us people aren't even reading what they're sharing. (I should note that as the CEO of Chartbeat, Tony does have a personal investment in this concept).
Executive attention
There's two ways to get your attention.
- That car fire might get your attention. But this would get an involuntary, reactive form of attention. Not what we want from our readings. This is the kind of attention sites like BuzzFeed get.
- Rather, we want the kind of attention where you choose to focus on something (and ignore other things). An intentional attention. Look at wikipedia's definition of Executive (Endogenous) Attention;
"... top-down processing, also known as goal-driven, endogenous attention, attentional control or executive attention. This aspect of our attentional orienting is under the control of the person who is attending."
THAT'S the type of attention you want. Someone intentionally reading, processing and interacting with your content.
A user commenting on a post is usually someone giving you just that.
Full circle
Remember at the beginning? We looked at this chart of a major brand's comments;
Remember, that's only 10 comments across 50 posts.
This is Wegman's stats for the same thing;
Wegman's has 1,857 comments across 50 posts. In fact, the first site is still in the chart. It's just so small, you can't even see it.
On ONE post alone they got 1,092 comments;
A new standard of success
So let's take a look at this again. What do you see now?
These aren't just numbers. This tells a story.
It tells the story of a company that blogs because it thinks it has to.
It celebrates "success" as tweets and likes and votes.
Customers do not connect with this brand.
It doesn't listen to its customers.
There is no dialogue.
No connection.
So, you probably know what to do below, and I will actually respond :)
-Dan Shure
Moz Associate since 2012
Owner Evolving SEO since 2010
PS: Speaking of discussion, I happen to be doing an Ask Me Anything over on Reddit today at 1pm EDT. If you want to ask me anything at all (whether or not it's related to this post), head on over.
An interesting article, but I don't agree with your findings in the slightest. I fail to see how you can say shares, tweets and likes are vanity metrics but comments aren't.
A comment doesn't mean there is a positive engagement with your brand. I appreciate it takes more time and effort to write a comment but firstly it doesn't mean they are all necessarily positive and secondly, it doesn't help to increase the reach of your brand like sharing does.
We use our company blog to be a thought leader in our sector. This has meant that our comms team has been able to get us international exposure on some of the biggest media outlets in the world. It is also on Google News and frequently rubs shoulders with all the broadsheet media in the blended Google News results for breaking news in our sector... not bad for a "fail" blog with no comments!
The overall ROI for our blog therefore is epic. It has been cited by clients as a reason for them trusting our brand and is also used to mail out to clients who prefer to read the content via email. I'm in charge of the search side of things, but the blog is used as an integrated part of not just our marketing strategy, but our entire business strategy.
Blog comments are vanity. Blog comments don't pay the bills. The bottom line is what counts. I appreciate the Moz model of building up a community via their blog and it works for them, but there's more than one way to skin a cat.
I agree with you, Martin, that comments not necessarily are a valid "metric" for determining the success of a blog (as in your case). But in that case, if comments are not really needed and people don't comment if not once in a very rare while, then quit the commenting option. Seeing "0 comments" usually doesn't inspire trust to newcomers.
Said that, especially in mainstream B2C branded sites, blogs are meant as a way to create bigger engagement, and comments in that case yes are metric (not the only one) to pay attention too. But comments can be very different in nature, and that's why I told in my comment that brands should use the correct comment platform.
On the other hand, I sincerely think your blog may be considered the classic exception that confirms the rule, as the 90% of corporate blogs suffer what Danny - IMHO correctly - describes in his post.
Come come now Gianluca, you're flip-flopping like a politician!
"comments not necessarily are a valid "metric" for determining the success of a blog"
as a follow up to you saying:
"I cannot add that much more than you already covered, apart underlining the importance of comments in blogs."
Stick to your guns, tell me I'm wrong, I love a good debate but don't pander to the post with a few thumbs up! :)
I do take your point about if you rarely get comments then just switch them off. We may well actually do that on reflection, but it really isn't a priority or a worry for us. As a sole in-house SEO I've a lot bigger fish to fry in the short term.
Back to my original point, It's not that I'm saying comments don't work for some people, Moz clearly being a prime example, but it was the sweeping generalisation it was that or nothing which I disagree with. However, the real nugget from the blog post is this:
"Hire people who can actually write"
That is what has made our blog a success for us. SEOs often think we are copywriters. Usually, we are not. If we were, then Panda may not have had such a big impact! I don't think we are the exception that proves the rule. I think we found a way that works for us, and that you should never make such sweeping generalisations in digital marketing saying it's "this or nothing".
One man's meat is another man's poison, after all.
Ah! My comment was about the general idea that - as how many corporate blogs are planned and thought for - comments can be a valid metric of engagement, because they are looking for that more than anything else. And it is for that reason that I underlined the importance of finding the comments system that better suits with your audience behaviors.
But that statement of mine is not contradicting yours. And you should know that the best answer in marketing is "it depends" :).
So, comments are a good indicator of engagement with branded content if the brand craft its content strategy over creating a visible community (and that's why I suggest using FB commenting system if your community is solely based and active on FB. This can be the case of Fashion or Beauty or Travel Brands blogs), but they aren't if the purpose of the content you publish is thoughtful leadership within high level news sites/blogs in your industry niche, as it is the case of World First.
Related to my "switch off" comments suggestion, that is based on studies (sorry I don't have the link neither I remember where I read them), which where showing how posts without comments were performing better if comments were not allowed at all, so with the articles/post not showing the infamous "0 comments". In the case of World First I would even look at more sophisticated things, as what social share button really are useful (i.e.: I saw that LinkedIn tends to be the social of reference for sharing your content)
About "hire people that can actually write", I didn't add nothing about that because it's the ABC of blogging (corporate or not). Without that you can only hope in the Holy Spirit for having success with your blog.
Well, our blog is still a huge work in progress (if you'd seen it a few months ago you'd have been mortified from an SEO perspective) but thanks for the free consultancy! I'll not go on about it any more specifically here as it wouldn't be of interest to anyone else but me :)
The fact that you say "it depends" though is really the crux of my original point. Find something which works for your business, it isn't simply (to paraphrase 50 Cent) get comments or die tryin' which is kind of how the original post positions itself.
I second Martin in saying that Digital Marketing cannot be defined as "this or nothing". According to me each company needs a plan different from another to actually make a difference and attract attention, even if you are copying a marketing stunt. Likewise, not all blogs could be measured in the same context as mentioned above.
Also, you cannot fade out the # of views and shares on social media for a blog and just measure it on the basis of comments it gets.
Not all blogs are shared by friends!
There are other reasons for a blog to get a good number of shares from readers (Organic) than comments. If that would have not been important or if shares would have been an unsavory marketing stunt Google would identify the patterns easily enough.
I do agree that if a company is blogging just for the sake of it, would definitely be unsuccessful and also would show some pattern in social shares if the blogs are just being shared by friends, relatives and paid sources.
I agree--if the digital strategy properly caters to the audience in each channel, there will be content in each that pushes them further down the funnel.
These are great insights, Dan. And while I don't necessarily disagree with all the points you raised, I have to agree with Chris that performance metrics may not be the same across different niches. Also, didn't Copyblogger recently take off their blog comment section? I don't see them going out of business even after doing such a courageous move.
Ha I actually had a line about CopyBlogger and removed it when editing :)
I think they are a rare exception. They spent YEARS building a huge community and have the luxury of making that decision now. But before they removed them, engagement was generally quite good.
Hey Martin - your company may be a small percentage of outliers that has true business goals aligned with your blog.
I should clarify that I don't mean ALL comments - but those that have substance (like yours!).
I do have an issue with companies where their train of thought is;
"We need traffic or SEO
I hear a blog is good for SEO
So we need to blog!
And we need to post everyday for "freshness" because that's good for keywords and seo"
And topics and writers are chosen with no more strategy than how one might choose what to get at Burger King
And they let it rip - with no plan.
And what are the metrics staring them right in the face to "measure"? Tweets! Shares! Likes!
These give the false appearance of success within a plan that wasn't a plan.
It was following a herd mentality
And months or years later it's a big pile of stuff no one has read
And all that effort could have ben put towards something else.. I see that train of thought and pattern ALL of the time. The issue in today's web as too much content and too little attention. This "strategy" above is going to be hard pressed to earn attention.
Thanks for the response. I wish I could take credit for the entire blog strategy at my company but it far pre-dates my time as the in-house search guy here! However, I have been able to optimise it quite a bit in the past few months (that's a win for my mini "in-house crusade" and having the power to lobby & influence effectively!).
So you're correct in the fact that the blog wasn't created solely for SEO purposes. The plan is part of a huge PR/Comms/thought leadership positioning for our business. SEO is a happy benefactor of this strategy.
I agree, Martin. I don't think comments are the ultimate measure for three reasons:
1. I've had many posts with long average time--per-page, showing that people found it valuable enough to read to the end of a post with sometimes 2,000+ words, yet few if any comments. That's providing value to them and at the very least brand building to me. These sometimes also have many shares.
2. I've noticed that comments can be spread over many places: the blog itself, LinkedIn, Twitter, Google+, Facebook, etc. And it varies randomly from post to post. So comments on the blog itself aren't a good measure.
3. From a SEO point of view, social shares certainly do matter (Moz!)
I'm basically in complete agreement here. People who comment on blogs usually come back to the site to check on how many up-votes or replies their comment received, not to "engage with the brand" in some deeper way. If I value content, I share it -- end of story. How is saying "your post is awesome" somehow more valuable than a retweet or a G+ share? It's not.
A heavily moderated blog can be a very valuable community resource in terms of information sharing, but it's going to become a full-time job to combat all the inevitable spam.
Martin - the dust has settled a little and wanted to add a few points :)
.
I wouldn't suggest killing your "blog" - but I think our definitions of what a blog is might be a little different.
If we need two years for seeing such a wonderful post from you, Dan, then the wait was due!
I cannot add that much more than you already covered, apart underlining the importance of comments in blogs.
That "commenting" is something that's declining as social interaction started since social media got mainstream (I still remember how in 2010 Rand denounced how Twitter shares were stealing space to comments).
For this reason it can be an interesting move to choose well the commenting system of your blog.
For instance our content may have strong engagement rates on Facebook, with people using that platform for commenting our own content; therefore it could be the right move to use the Facebook comments for our blog, so to collect them all also in our site and offering:
As you can see, I am not really thinking in SEO terms right now (even though it may be that Google - now that sees content in iframes - may see the comments), but in broader marketing terms. Apart that it is proved that exists a correlation between more social engagement (i.e.: Facebook comments) and better rankings.
The important is not SEO (well, it is, but not as primary objective), but visibility, recognition, word of mouth, discussions et al.
I disagreed with many of your assumptions, especially as it relates to SEO. I've written thousands of posts in the last 7 years and for you to say it hurts SEO to leave those posts indexed is patently absurd to me. In any case, I do think you are 100% correct that engagement and commenting is the single most important metric to the health and vitality of any particular blog, but its not the only reason you should be blogging.
The one caveat is that I believe you give up to easily. One blog I participated in was basically just blogging to ourselves for a year before it really started catching on. However, we did follow all of the key points of engagement like killing spam, responding to every comment and encouraging discussion.
Blogging is hard. It really is. The issue with most companies is that they do not understand how blogging is supposed to work. They have to let go. Stop trying to put the blog into a tiny little ridged box that leave writers very little room for creativity. Instead hire people who know how to blog and let them run with it. The only voice that matters is the interesting voice and let's face it, a business entity is never interesting - but the people working for them could be.
As for comments, I say don't worry about it. If you are blogging the right way and you are putting out content you are proud of, then keep it up. Link it to your Google Authorship, post on your own social media networks and keep doing it for your own personal enjoyment even if its only to benefit the company cutting your checks. At the end of the day, its still your name out there.
Anyway, thanks for the very informative and interesting read. Even with the disagreements I have, it was a solid write up and excellent analysis on what a successful blog does to create a loyal following.
Agree, Tim. Can't believe the OP said to consider killing a blog if you can't get his formula to develop into what he suggests it should be. That's giving up WAY too easily!
To me it comes down to quality. Saying any blog post with no comments is a Panda threat is crazy. Panda will not punish a website that is putting out excellent content. If you are posting well-written content with graphics, videos, internal and external links and formatting the posts like a boss, then Panda is NEVER going to hurt you. E-V-E-R. I know this from experience.
However, the OP is spot on with every single point when it comes to cultivating a loyal following. This goes for both corporate and personal blogging. Whether you are getting comments or not, you should only kill a blog if you really are not committed to it. If you love blogging and have a wealth of topics to blog about, then there is no way your blog could fail and surely there is no way your blog could get you into Panda trouble.
Just my two cents. I'm not bagging on the OP...just disagreeing with one section of his post, while agreeing with another. :)
Tim - to clarify again, I am not saying a post with no comments is a Panda threat. I'm saying years of blogging with low engagement, repeat traffic, etc adds up to over-indexation of content not trafficked. It's a technical nuance that if misunderstood can sound very different than what I am describing.
I'm using lack of comments as a rough sign of lack of engagement, which means lack of quality. Well written content that people use will of course not hurt you.
I'm not sure Google's Panda algorithm looks at comments to determine "quality". Not yet anyway.
Anyone who writes content for keywords is definitely playing with Panda fire though. Then again, what "other" might some companies be talking about? :)
Hi Tim - no problem with disagreeing on some stuff :) I had a feeling some of the nuances wouldn't be for everyone. I'm only going to clear up one technical thing...
I've dealt with many sites that have over-indexation issues which have lead to Panda, or poor performance in search. When we start aggressively de-indexing content, this helps things to improve. I know many other SEO's have seen this too. We're talking generally about large sites, BTW. A site with a few hundred pages won't be as affected here. And the key is the percentage of indexed vs trafficked via Google. That's what I'd watch out for there.
Did those websites you help have really poor keyword-driven content? Or was it content you would be proud of had you written of? I think that was my focal point of disagreement.
If it was a hundreds posts of just 300 words of content with no images or anything else of interest, then yeah, that's a Panda threat for sure. Content for the sake of content is a foolish SEO strategy. However, if all of that content was high quality and written for users instead of search engines, then I would be absolutely shocked there was a Panda issue with that.
I am guessing its of the former kind. There are very few large sites that have all high quality content for every post...most of the time its content for the sake of content with keyword-focus in mind. In any case, thanks for the read dude! I enjoyed this post greatly.
Epic post Dan I really enjoyed this.
I'm on the fence here. I don't think social shares are just a vanity metric, they do add value.
What comments do so much more effectively though is continue the discussion!
That's a big part of what I want to happen after I've finished writing a blog post. I want people to ask questions. It adds more relevant content to the page and helps me come up with further content ideas. If you take the time to respond to comments (as you've suggested) you're laying the foundations for future comments, future shares and ultimately future conversions.
I don't think they started as vanity, but it's where they have ended up because of our behavior online. Most people barely read what they share. If I'm being honest with myself, I don't think a post is a success based upon people sharing it.
A thought out comment to me represents engagement, which represents a deep psychological "hook" in someone's mind. AJ's piece on attention is a worth while read as well.
Great article, but especially great discussion in the comments of the article! ;)
You clearly put a lot of time into dissecting the value of company blogs & brought up some noble points.
Starting from the top with how we view content – yep, spot on. I can’t help but ‘grade’ everything I see online… how well optimized they are, what they’re doing wrong, how it could be better, number of shares/likes/comments, etc.
Side note – I started thinking about sites that I’ve had the same thought of ‘why the heck do they even have this blog?’ & I went searching for one of them to see if anything has changed… turns out it’s the same one you referenced as “blog homepage of a known brand.” Yikes! While this blog is clearly ‘for SEO,’ I pulled a quick Semrush report & (from what I can tell) their organic traffic/rankings are astounding. I also see that the subdomain for this blog has over 5k pages indexed in Google, and they’ve implemented exact-match internal linking throughout.
I hate to say it, but I don’t think the search engines have evolved as much as we sometimes think. That is, ‘just for SEO’ tactics are still achieving top results and beating out sites that offer true value. Of course, other things like brand / domain authority, backlink profile, etc. are at play here, so really it’s the smaller businesses / newer sites that have a more difficult time pulling ahead. That’s why so many SEOs have said “Go for the longtail,” with blogging being a key outlet for that.
Really, I think it comes down to what comments, likes, shares, etc. are all indicating: the start of a relationship between a brand & its consumers regardless of how it’s done.
I also agree that blog engagement is very niche. I still think every brand needs an on-site content outlet other than they’re news section both as a way to show a more intimate side of their brand (which is all about execution) and because, in my experience, they do boost SEO and PR results (again, depending on execution) – but I think even the word “blog” just puts people to sleep. If brands saw it more as a way to showcase the people/expertise/innovation behind the brand, then maybe they’d take it more seriously (or maybe more light-heartedly/have fun with it) and they’d truly engage their audience. Brands need to get back to truly knowing what their consumers want & what excites them to engage.
"it comes down to what comments, likes, shares, etc. are all indicating: the start of a relationship between a brand & its consumers regardless of how it’s done."
"Brands need to get back to truly knowing what their consumers want & what excites them to engage."
Absolutely. It's about the relationships! Spot on.
In general, I like this post and your philosophy. Though I think you are exaggerating by stating "Remove all poor content." and "STOP! Remove the blog entirely!", just like people are when calling "SEO is dead". It sounds cool, but it's just too much. And the following sentence, same thing: "The truth today? Blog posts have more of a chance of hurting your SEO than helping.".
Hey Ektor
Sorry if it sounded dramatic :) But I actually do feel that if a company has been blogging for 50+ posts and doesn't see any traction, reaction, engagement - their effort would be better spent elsewhere. They are likely misguided, and don't know why they are blogging to begin with. It sounds like a harsh recommendation, but it's what I would actually recommend to clients.
Blog posts do hurt your SEO in a technical sense, through things like Panda. Panda doesn't like lots of indexed/crawled content which is not used or visited. 5,000 pages indexed with traffic to only 200 of those pages on a regular basis is not ideal in a technical sense. One common culprit? Blogs! Because companies post article after article no one reads, ever. And these along with categories, tags, date archives and so forth add up to a whole bunch of unused content - which can do harm.
Hey Dan, I really enjoyed this lengthy post that called out most blogs on the Internet for what they lack: engaged readers that also comment.
But like many other readers in the Moz community - at least from looking at the comments - I'm somewhat on the fence. I think your slight dismissal of social shares and "all-in" adoption of "comments are king" (if you will) is not something I can totally agree with.
First, I do agree that social shares can be overrated and don't actually represent the accurate reaction of readers to the content. As you said, people share without even reading or just scan portions of the piece (I know I've done that; sometimes I've shared because of one or two lines I really found interesting and unique).
But at the same time, shares expand the reach of content and increase the likelihood of additional impressions and hopefully more connections between the brand and potential customers.
As far as the comments themselves … Like I said, I'm really torn on your take. I agree with many parts of it, but there are a couple things that deter me from jumping on your ship:
Again, I'd like to reiterate I really enjoyed this post, Dan. After all, I left a lengthy comment! :) Just not sure I can go as far as you did, but I understand your theory and enjoyed many of your points.
One thing I really agreed with: if you don't have good writers who can create content in a professional, engaging manner you'll never consistently receive comments.
Hey Brady - Thanks for the really thought out response! Many of the points here are in the finer details. I'll hit a few;
Thanks! I enjoy the counterpoints and know my point of view might not be accepted by everyone.
You're welcome!
Interesting (about the section you deleted), I bet that would have addressed some of my concerns. :)
While I totally agree a comment represents the highest level of attention/emotional connection, I don't think that means the comment has to be published on the brand's website; something that could feel foreign to a customer/potential customer (especially depending on the industry/niche).
Wouldn't a customer be more likely to bring that connection back to something that's more comfortable to them? Their Facebook or twitter account(s)? Sharing with people (friends and family) that really care about what they have to say/think? Instead of leaving it out there for random web visitors and a brand?
I'd say yes (at least some - if not most - of the time).
I'm beginning to think consumer personality actually has a lot to do with this… Hmmm. A thought for future consideration, I suppose.
Great job and thanks for responding to the comments. As you said in the piece, it's disappointing to a see a brand/author not respond to comments. Kudos!
Hey Dan,
Nice job, great message in here :)
Just on this point: "Myth 1: Your site needs fresh content", I understand your main point which is to stop cranking out content for the sake of it - and it's a great point, and I fully agree 100%. Whether or not Google gives more attention/preference to documents / domains that change frequently/infrequently isn't something many of us have studied in great detail (or at least released publicly). I'm not sure it's a myth unless we can provide significant evidence to the contrary. Personally, I believe a stagnant website is naturally going to lose over time, and I do believe that you do need to continue adding / refreshing content - as long as it's quality, just as you said :) We could benefit from a large scale Moz study, but for now this Moz post (point 4) is a good jump off point with links to patents and Justin's posts https://moz.com/blog/google-fresh-factor.
Dave
Hey Dave - Yep I think we totally agree. In my experience most non SEOs translate "fresh content" into "we need to keep adding new pages" (and it's one of the "reasons" I hear as to why people think they should blog). I agree that revising and refreshing existing pages is part of freshness and should be done. I know JohnMu and the Raters Guidelines both talk about users being able to tell the homepage/website is attended to and maintained, especially when it comes to medical sites etc.
I remember that post by Cyrus! Wow that was almost three years ago?! It's a really great read!
:)
You present a good argument, Dan, and I agree with you in most instances. Most company blogs are interested in leads, conversions or branding, and for them, I think engagement may be a solid metric.
In my opinion,comments are a much better measure of engagement than social shares, for such blogs. The wrench in the works, sadly, is that many blog readers are either (a) lazy, so clicking a share button is quick and easy, or (b) selfishly motivated, thinking that being seen as prolific posters on social media will boost their own credibility. (And to be fair, there are also many that are just interested in reading... not sharing their own opinions.)
I usually encourage my clients to use their blogs to GIVE to their readers... provide them with useful information, free of strong sales pitches, with very subtle CTAs (for more info, contact...). The best CTA for many is simply to solicit opinions/comments.
I don't know that I agree completely with you that if your blog is getting little to no comment action, you should shut it down. I think that decision needs to be tempered with the purpose of your blog and the amount/nature of visitors it receives. Many blogs that exist primarily for branding have almost no comments, yet still serve their purpose.
Still, a great thought-provoking post!
Thanks Sheldon! I agree my recommendation there might be a bit harsh. I do think folks should think for themselves and question my recommendation. There will be many cases where there's a "3rd alternative" instead of an all or nothing. But I hope this post is thought of as time goes by and people see more and more that attention and engagement gets harder to earn, and we really have to question if blindly blogging because "you should" makes the most sense. :)
Dan, I like this post and I understand your position but I think there's one thing you've overlooked. Comments don't only appear on the original post any more. I have had content spawn into extensive comment streams on Facebook rather than the original post. The engagement metric is key, but I don't think social metrics can be reduced to just being vanity metrics.
Hey Dan! What an interesting post this is... I do think we're seeing some migration of blog comments to social networks. I know I tend to engage with people on Twitter and Facebook rather than their own posts sometimes. I'm not even sure why. Definitely good food for thought here and a wonderful, thorough post on a subject I haven't seen covered in this much depth!
One question for you, and at the risk of making myself look like a total noob:
Noindex or delete posts that have received little traffic, few shares, and no comments.
Why? :) I've seen a few posts in the past that take a while to "pick up steam" or gain 1-2 links that eventually get them ranking higher, accumulating additional shares, comments, etc. Pruning too aggressively could kill off content before it gets a chance to shine. Is there a SEO/load time/UX reason to prune?
Hey Nicole
I'm thinking of sites that deal with lots of pages of content - 1000+ pages. Once your indexed/visited ratio starts getting out of hand you start running into index bloat and crawl inefficiencies. For example, 5,000 pages indexed but only 300 trafficked isn't very optimal. So this is where you'd prune. But maybe a 200 page site with only 150 getting traffic - not so much harm there. I do think one should always aim to create content that will get used at some point - and you're right to say it can sometimes take time to get traction
Thanks for your response! That's what I was wondering. Never dealt with a site that big, lucky me. :)
I do have to agree with Martin that other metrics such as social shares can be just as important as comments. Comments are a great way to establish credibility and trust for first time visitors as well as bring repeat visits. However, the actual reach of your blog beyond the original platform is what matters.
I used to work SO hard for blog comments on my business blog, and sometimes it worked. Asking questions, hosting giveaways, promoting the posts all over social media...I got comments. But frankly many times they were silly or time-consuming for me to answer, and tons of spam came through the filter, so I finally shut comments down on my blog and I love it! Call it the Seth Godin comment policy :)
After this post, I'm sure we will see more comment spam related gigs on Fiverr. "60 comments for $5 because it helps SEO!" :-)
I don't think Moz posts really influence the supply of Fiver services, but it's naive to think that comment posting services don't already exist out there, ranging from spun comments to real humans writing stuff. It's often part of successful bloggers "seeding" tactics.
I am pretty sure our profession killed the comment. A couple of points I would like to mention / get some feedback on. I am in a local SEO meetup group with a pretty well know SEO'er and he said he could actually see a ranking factor increase in low quality content when a notable person commented on it. Do you have any thoughts on that? Also, I think it matters not to make it known you heavily moderate. The automated crawlers do not care, know, or even realize. I think the best approach is to go to a hosted or 3rd party comment system like disqus or google+.
Hi Lesley - I think an influencer commenting on something can just be one piece of the puzzle - there is likely some more sharing, traffic, repeat traffic and attention on the piece overall which can all help.
I like to directly or indirectly let users know things are moderated - either by simply deleting attacking comments or stating it more directly like Tim Ferriss. I find it makes people more comfortable in opening up, and they don't feel like another user will just be allowed to attack them in an unconstructive way.
While the number of comments is a useful engagement metric to some extent I don't think a lack of comments necessarily means failure. This blog post is one of several I've read and found interesting today, yet it is the only I've commented on.
I actually think people are more likely to comment if they disagree with someone too, than if they agree. So a well written, interesting post that people agree with are less likely to gain comments. Comments can be a sign of engagement but is by no means the only one.
As somewhat of a novice to using a blog for business or even having a business at all I found your article very fascinating. As a small business appealing to mothers would you recommend combining a personal blog (which I've been writing for a while) with a company blog or is that a big 'no no' in this context?
Thanks
Carlene
Hi Carlene
I think this can definitely be pulled off, so long as the audience is generally the same for both - but it's really an art getting it to work in a way where the personal blog seems like it "fits" in context. I'd say if your business is very B2C and your relationship with customers tends to be fairly personable, it's worth a shot.
What I would do first though is test out a few personal-like posts on your business site and see how your audience / customers respond. You can use social media (organic and paid) to get traffic to them and get a sense for how the users like it before making the full leap.
Hire writers that are passionate about your niche. They will naturally share their experiences on the blog and find an audience sooner or later. Building a blog is akin to building a start-up. It does take some time before you can build a loyal audience for your product. I would rather not write anything for a year on my blog (just to feed content) than delete it and move on. Likes/Shares/Tweets/+1's - they all carry a lot of value. I always believe people comment only when they build some loyalty and loyalty comes only when a blog consistently delivers valuable content over a period of time. One can deliver value only when one is passionate about the niche one works in. There I said it again - hire writers that are passionate about your niche.
I have lots, lots and lots of problems with this blog and what was shared here. I'm going to build a few statements with some proof as to why.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Everything seems to be built upon if you can get a comment or not, here.
0 comments = 0 credibility
more comments = more credibility
No comments? = You actually went as far as to say consider KILLING your blog. You actually went as far as to say that Google will not count your blog for rankings. This is BS.
My Case Study (by your standards, a very unsuccessful one): I have 50+ blog posts. Been blogging 3x week on my blog, and sometimes daily, since last August. I have probably .2 comment ratio. My content is 100% original, researched before it's written, and long -- some posts, 2,000 words long.
-Daily, I get chat prompts from people reading my blog. These chat prompts are activated when a reader is on the blog for more than 30 seconds. A sales person converts these into selling clients all the time.
-I rank for about 30 keywords for different blog pages.
If I killed this blog, let's see = I would probably lose 60% of my business!
You cannot, cannot, CANNOT define good (or bad) blogging by said blogs comments.
Now I agree that engaging WITH your audience = more crucial that ever. But to leave the success of your blog on the feet and foundation of the amount of comments you have?
Let's see....
Problems (BIG ONES) in your "commenting = success" scheme:
-You say those who just share and don't comment, don't read. Someone tweeted my article, with a very thoughtful 10 word sentence that was a quote from the LAST paragraph. They wanted their followers to read it. Is that MORE value than a comment? Maybe...!
-What about all the SPAM comments you never addressed? You actually had a SCREENSHOT of one with the Fedex blog! What the HECK is echo saying?
-By publishing these comments like echo's, and who knows WHERE he is linking to, aren't you hurting your SERP results? Allowing spam comments will effectively HURT your blogging more than anything else could! (In this case, spam comments = kill your blog!) https://blog.kissmetrics.com/control-blog-comment-s...
-I'm calling BS on one thing you said. Let's really consider that "successful" woodflame grill blog. I would never, in all my 10 years of content writing and marketing, EVER allow a client to publish a blog about grilling on his company SEO & marketing blog. Google penalizes for off content topics. Matt cutts said on Twitter THIS March, and I quote: " @DocSheldon what "Best Practices For Hispanic Social Networking" has to do with an SEO copywriting blog? Manual webspam notice was on point." Check it out: https://searchengineland.com/guest-post-google-pena...
*cough, cough*...
Moz, you and your guest bloggers are quite amazing, but I don't think this one should have made it through the cut...
Hey ExpressWriters - thanks for your in depth reply! I know we may disagree on philosophies, so I'll let that be - but I did want to clear up;
Thanks for reading - and commenting!
i checked out the 'express' writers blog...yeahhh, so, it's cool to have a blog as long as it is original, researched, and you convert clients who likely just want to make money off the web? i gleaned nothing special from the several posts i read. you reference probably losing 60% of clients and that is "proof?" I think Dan is suggesting going above and beyond. that's awesome people want express writing and you have clients. does that mean you're doing a quality job? please direct my attention to something you've written that you believe to be of equal quality to this post. really. sorry if im coming across as rude, but that's how i read your comment, and since you linked to your site, you open the door to critique.
Have to agree with this guy. Regardless of what good points she might have, Express Writer is coming across very rude, which, let's see = time to check out. Maybe slow down & rethink before posting, especially since you're representing your brand. Unfortunately this is an problem caused by SEOs - where companies like Express Writers pop up & take advantage of myth #2.
Hi Dan,
I too don't agree with the metrics of having comments is an essential for performance measurement. Blogging is primarily for users who visit your site for a particular query they were looking for in search engines. The prime focus of blogging is to drive users for micro conversions and later make them as followers which might later convert to your customers in future. One can offer tips and add value to ones business niche with blogs. Sharing happens when people really like a post and would like other people in their network to read the same. Thus sharing is a way to gain visibility and more micro conversions in the pool.
Interesting post. Thanks. People have been trained to talk, not converse. I'm reminded of Douglas Adams in 1999...
"The reason we suddenly need a word like interactive is that during this century we have, for the first time, been dominated by non-interactive forms of entertainment: cinema, radio, recorded music and television. Before they came along all entertainment was interactive: theatre, music, sport – performers and audience were there together, and even a respectfully silent audience exerted a powerful shaping presence on the unfolding of whatever drama they were there for. We didn’t need a special word for interactivity in the same way that we don’t (yet) need a special word for people with only one head.
I expect that history will show ‘normal’ mainstream twentieth century media to be the aberration. ‘Please, miss, you mean they could only just sit there and watch? They couldn’t do anything? Didn’t everybody feel terribly isolated or alienated or ignored?’
‘Yes, child, that’s why they all went mad. Before the Restoration.’
‘What was the Restoration again, please, miss?’
‘The end of the twentieth century, child. When we started to get interactivity back.’"
My question. Are blogs - with their format of "I tell the whole story in one go, then you can comment" the best way to do this? Perhaps they are just a flawed first attempt we jumped on because there is nothing else?
Perhaps we should leave the blog to the sales people like Marcus Sheridan and the journalists like Joe Pulizzi and do our community building and our crowdsourcing of ideas on a different platform. Or perhaps that platform is already here - only it is peer-to-peer, not company to prospect. We call it social media (though it isn't media). Thoughts?
Interesting philosophical points.
I don't think a blog is flawed - it's limits are what makes them special. Limits/parameters are what give all platforms their identity. Twitter with 140 characters. Instagram with no links allowed except one in your profile. People are going to find ways to use and communicate with the platform around these limits, and hopefully use them to their advantage.
Because of this, I like the "I go, then you go" format of blogs with comments. Just like this post - I spend hours researching and formulating a concept. Put it together. Hopefully get some polish on it. Launch it, and only then is it alive to grow into whatever the commenters choose to do with it. So the commenters actually shape this post into it's real identity (just like you have) well after I write it. That's a pretty cool thing!
I like blogs too because they don't "disappear" the way tweets or social updates do. This post will be easier to find, comment on, reflect on, for years to come. Social conversations are as gone as quickly as they come.
Blogs are somewhere in the middle - not totally rigid and permanent like books, research papers. But don't evaporate like social. It's the most permanent form of collaborative content online I can think of.
You mock Frankencar now, but wait until you need to parallel park!
lol
Come out of the gates steel gazed, roaring like you CARE. why would we do something if it is just going to look like it was dialed in? (oh yeah, some people just want the moneyz). I like money too, but what's more important is care and pride. It shows respect for oneself and for others.
All of your points above are valid. What's very difficult to articulate (sometimes) or get a client to do, is take pride - people notice. they may not agree, not immediately buy, whatever, but people respect those who take pride in what they do. If they dont, it's wasted time.
an inspiring story is that of vince papale, the Eagle walk-on. of course, he had talent, but he took pride in the endeavor and the coaches noticed. Another (using football) is Jerry Rice. yeah, the dude was incredible - he also was one of the hardest working during the season and off season too.
if you care, you'll be relentless in providing for others (that's why you have a business, right?). you'll always have this itch and you'll keep vigilant. im so bewildered by established companies that 'dial it in.' Care is what i look for in a provider - i'll take the guy working out of his house that takes pride in what he does over a Fortune 500 company that throws content at the wall all day.
~ anthony
You hit a good nuance here. Caring. It's that thing you can't quite quantify, can't quite measure - but you know it and you feel it.
Man, you've created quite the conversation here - the validation of your post, essentially. ;-)
Blog comments are an interesting topic. With the advent of quick social convos on Twitter, or more in-depth discussions on Google+, blog comments have definitely taken a hit. And, to a degree, this has impacted the perception of a successful blog. After all, we've had years of "comments are the ultimate currency" and now it's "comments are being switched off".
I think it lies somewhere in the middle. For me, I'm a huge fan of comments being on the point of origin. Sure, we can discuss across Networks X and Y, but if one commenter makes a great comment on Network X, and another makes a great comment on Network Y, never the twain will meet. Unlike collating all on a single post, and seeing the exchanges happen afterward (much like has happened here).
I also strongly believe comments give you a huge insight into your customers - often, more than targeted or retargeted marketing and ads. After all, a generic demographic that makes up your buyer persona may not even be buying for themselves, so how do we know we should target them with our specific offer? Comments, on the other hand, I've seen to be hugely valuable in really starting to know what makes a person tick. And that's gold dust data right there.
Having said that, I don't think the lack of comments make or break blogs. For me, as long as the post is being spoken about, then that's a success metric right there. if it happens to be on Twitter, etc, then fair enough. That just makes for encouragement to work out how to keep the conversation with you. It's when the blog isn't being talked about, like anywhere, that we have a problem.
Great food for thought, Dan, cheers.
Hey Danny - thanks SO much for taking the time to read through what I know is a long post :)
The reason I am so concerned about people commenting ON the post is it's proof of attention. Short of using "Attention Metrics", comments on the post are the "poor man's attention metric". Now, more than ever, I want to know the content is grabbing people's attention on the post its self. Not "out there" in social, where their attention is really on the (out of) context platform they are discussing on. We know most people who share content on social haven't even read it.
For more on attention, see: https://www.blindfiveyearold.com/are-you-winning-the-attention-auction
Additionally, if attention wasn't earned ON the post, there's no way they'll remember it. And if they don't remember it, they may not remember my brand, the content, and never come back.
For more on memorable content, see (you guessed it): https://www.blindfiveyearold.com/content-recall
Sure, things are not as black/white as I make them out to be in this post, so some blogs may not be "failures" just because there are no comments.
Oh, for sure, mate, and completely get that. It's the same reason blog subscribers (especially via email) are - to me - much more valuable than even RSS subs, and especially more than social traffic. They've taken the time to invest, and allow you into their busy lives. That should be recognized and nurtured.
Comments on point of source are the same, and show an investment to spend time with the blogger. Comments are an action; social proof is simply reaction, and reaction that can be automated so you don't even see the title of the post, never mind the content.
Interesting times, for sure.
And for anyone reading down this far, I would HIGHLY urge you to give Danny's post a read! https://dannybrown.me/2014/08/07/blog-comments-digital-universes-and-the-future-of-social-conversations/
Hey, cheers, mate! :)
There's a declining trend in blog comments as people are now more likely to comment on the actual social networks where the content has been shared. I get more comments through Twitter and Google+ on my content vs comments directly on the blog post. Does that mean the post is a failure?
Not to me.
I think you nailed it in the first few sentences with "Which perception is right?"
The answer. It depends. There is no standard for blog success. At SuperOffice, we use lead generation and social shares to determine success. Others, might use different metrics.
Great post and it will cause a debate. I liked the SEO myths to blogging too!
Discussion on social is good and better than just shares. My take is, I have no idea if they are discussing the post itself (and have actually read it) or if they are just discussing off of the limited share context within the platform it was shared. To me, the two are quite different. When someone responds right on the article itself, it's a sign to me they digested it more deeply.
Sorry Dan, I don't agree which has to be a first :(
What we love is having our customers respond to our blogs or Newsletters when we give them a call, take them out for lunch/dinner or visit them. That's how we know our blogs are creating revenue because they help us up-sell to our current customer base who provide us with 80% of our business.
Every time I get an enquiry through my website I can track where that person has been, and on occasion it's been a blog where they have converted - again this measurement is worth more to me than a comment.
To us our blog works because of that.
I often feel showing off number of comments, likes and shares is similar to only ever talking about turnover when it's profit that keeps a business alive.
So - I wanted to comment ( shocking right? ) but guess what.. I ALMOST didn't. I decided to keep scrolling down the page looking for places Dan Shure has actually responded to decide on which comments I might be interested in reading. Finally came across one about "mobile commenting is cumbersome" - or something to that effect...
This finally made me comment. Here is why >>
What about people being forced to login / register for a commenting system. In this case I had to remember my MOZ information (which fortunate for me I did) but in other places where Disqus is used I would have to remember THAT information. Above and beyond the issues with commenting from mobile devices is the simple problem of pure laziness or merely too little time to actually do anything.
I read COUNTLESS blog posts per day, some of which are truly inspiring or conversational in nature... but I AM BUSY :(
No time to login (or try to remember my credentials).
So...
Thoughts?
Hey Thanks Mike for taking the time to comment on something unique.
I think that was addressed a tiny bit with the Southwest Airlines example (with their giant log in form). I agree. Limiting friction for ANY action you want users to take (commenting, purchasing) reduces those barriers.
Personally, I think calling readers lazy or saying they don't have the time is a little bit of an excuse. When people REALLY want to do something (comment, purchase, etc) they'll find a way to do it. And that's exactly the type of content I am hoping more people will create. Obviously reducing barriers is even better.
A genuienly great read about the importance of commenting in blogs. Like a few other commenters have alluded to, comments are great at expanding on the topic written about in a post and help to extend its life and visibility amongst readers of a given community. However, I am not sure social should be seen soley as vanity, It is often these new shares that help to spread the word further about a great post and attract new views and further comments.
Ironically, I'm sharing this post. But I have read it, promise!
An insightful and thought-provoking article, Dan. I definitely agree that to some extent comments are a great indicator of the success of a blog, but I don't think it's as simple as no comments = delete your blog. More has to go into evaluating the success of a blog including social shares (comments included) and post engagement (number of visitors and time spent on post are two telling stats).
Sure, there are some instances when blogging for certain businesses and industries just doesn't work, or rather the way the company is writing their blog doesn't work. Maybe instead of giving up on blogging (especially when a significant amount of resources have been invested), it might be time to rethink the strategy behind the blog.
In my experience, too many businesses go into blogging without a well thought out plan. Instead of setting themselves up for success with a clear plan or goal, they go into blogging blind, and end up not necessarily writing for their audience and buyer personas. Maybe in rethinking their blog goals and strategy, they can create content that people will comment on.
I think this article does a great job of challenging the prevailing thinking that a company blog = good SEO. This article has definitely has challenged my thinking. According to your flow chart, my previous company's blog should have been killed years ago. The company blog didn't gain much traction in the first year, with nary a valuable comment in sight.
However, we stuck with it, producing great content by real writers that solved real issues, and within another year we were getting leads generated through blog comments at a rate of approximately 3-5 / month. For leads on a site where the average product price = $7k, this was big for us, and I'm glad I didn't kill the blog prematurely.
Hi Kaitlin
I'd be interested to know what you mean by "getting leads generated through blog comments"? Or did you mean "getting leads generated through the blog"? And either way, how do you attribute the leads to a particular piece of content?
Glad you stuck with it! I think that's a good choice if it's an honest effort to produce useful content via real writers - not just churn out 300 word posts of stuff written about a million times already ;)
Great piece, great food for thought - both in the post and the comments.
Like many, I don't buy the idea that comments can or should be the only metric a blog should be measured by. But it does reinforce that if you're going to blog, you should have some kind of way of measuring the value of what you're doing, and it should be more specific than just "it's good for SEO." And if you're blogging because you want to establish yourself as a thought leader in your industry and/or because you've got a book to sell (like Marriott, though I suspect thought leadership is more important to him), then comments are a great way of measuring that.
Dan: to you and your commenters a thousand thanks. I am a noob at blogging and social media generally. This is enormously helpful. I am fortunate enough to have had a charmed career in advertising/ marketing/ branding and started a blog recently with the sole aim of giving back - helping others and at minimum saving them from having the prangs I've had. Big ask: could your generosity extend so far as to giving me a few pointers, pls? If so, I have newish tumblr called flyingseraph. If not, no problem I'm sure your advice is highly sought after. Kind regards. Mark ( I am now going to research enabling comments of which I had actually been fearful)
Hi Flying, I am a relative noob as well, and have a similar take. Also, I appreciate your comment.
Best article on blogs -ever-. Dan, you could turn this into a book. Please do!
Hi Dan,
I love this post how it describes importance of comment rather than likes, shares etc. Now a days likes and shares becomes spamy because people don't even read them and gives like & share.
Can you please explain these few things ?
Hi Arun
1. A voting system alone won't lead to blog success. In some cases (Moz blog for example) it can add a small extra layer of engagement, participation, and "social proof". I also might make the readers know the writers are paying attention, and care about what the readers think of the blog. It's also a great way for writers to get feedback so they can write a better post the next time.
2. I'll try to explain the freshness thing a little better. Google, and readers, care about "freshness" for topics that are always changing and growing. Financial topics, news, sports, current events, web marketing - these are examples of topic where information is always new and changing. It's good to a) update old posts to reflect new information. For example, I updated this post about WordPress because all of the screenshots had to be changed to match Yoast's new plugin. Then there's b) covering new stories. If you're in an industry that always has new information, it's good to make sure you're keeping up with it.
Finally, Google likes when users can tell a website isn't old and outdated. This means possible a modern design, labeling when content was last updated etc. this especially can apply to medical information too.
Please don't advise people to follow Upworthy's model. Especially when you call out Buzzfeed for getting only 'reactive attention'. Upworthy is basically the same - and is designed to cultivate social shares, not comments. There are so many people who share Upworthy's clickbait articles without actually spending any time on them.
Hi There - I'm not suggesting to literally do the type of content UpWorthy does. I'm saying that UpWorthy is one of the pioneers of measuring attention with their "attention minutes". So even though it may seem like they are all about shares, they are actually much more concerned with engagement. I agree, their click-baity titles and some of the content isn't all that substantive - but they're ahead of the curve as far as metrics.
An interesting viewpoint! I agree on some points and can definitely see that comments are important, but I also think that branding can positively explode with social shares.
Nice post. While I don't particularly agree that comments should be the sole metric, I think they certainly can be at times. Although I think quality of the comment should be considered. I don't see much difference between a "Great post Dan, very helpful" comment vs a share across FB/Twitter/LinkedIn since they are strongly implying that the content is helpful and worth a read.
I do think that the main takeaway is that tracking content success can be a fairly simplistic process. It's very easy to get into the weeds. Determine what you want out of your blog and find (or create) the metric(s) that most closely associates with that goal. They're out there.
Hi Dan,
Just wanted to write -- as a writer, editor, copywriter and content creator -- that I appreciated your blog post. I do believe companies (whatever they focus upon) could do themselves a great service and spend money to hire writers that can communicate with their customers (current and future) on a person-to-person level. I'd suggest to let the SEO-focused people do their work while writers can focus on that area. It can be a win-win.
I'm always learning new things from articles on Moz, so I don't have a really strong pro or anti opinion on your post. I do appreciate it, though, from the context of educating myself. Thank you.
Thanks Joe - glad it had augmented your learning. As I've mentioned to others in the comments above, this is my philosophy and some examples to follow - so they are there for you if you want to make conversation around your blogs a focal point :)
i learned many things by this article ....
I think Dan makes some great points. Blogs generally take a lot of time and energy (especially on the B2B side). If you're not getting collaboration and engagement, why continue?
Dan:
This article floored me - really, really floored me. I know you're a consummate and respected digital marketing professional, but this makes me question if you've know what closed loop marketing is. Do you have your blog on a real demand gen platform connected to a CRM? Are you tracking conversion assists, inquiries, MOFU, BOFU, MQLs, SQLs and opportunities? I'll keep this comment short because Marcus Sheridan spells out my sentiment in this post he wrote about this article.
https://www.thesaleslion.com/business-blogging-comments/
What you describe above goes completely contrary to everything I've experienced in my marketing career since 2008 when I started blogging.
@ChadPollitt
Just because a blog post does not have comments does not mean it's worthless. People are busy and often don't take the time to write a comment. But they will take the 2 seconds to reshare on a social network which still helps get your message out there. Comments aren't everything.
Very interesting. We are revamping our blog, for the same reason. Nice work.
I agree that social shares are great but don't indicate the same level of involvement as comments (besides the fact that most "share" buttons are ugly, take time to load and break some designs). A comment implies you must have read (most) of the content. As a potential customer, there's nothing more reassuring than seeing discussions are encouraged and responded to by employees/staff. Of course, this paradigm probably doesn't apply to all sites and industries as Prashant wrote above.
After reading this article, I wanted to check how easy it would be for a newcomer to comment. I had to register, and somehow it failed because I used an old browser. Long story short, I got some help on Twitter and it all worked out. To optimize the process, I would allow new users to comment at the same time they create their account, and send it for moderation as they validate their account.
In the end, as others have said it's about caring, you see it every day and it goes for any business transaction. If you take the time to reply to questions, you'll probably have a deal even if what you're offering isn't exactly what the visitor was looking for initially.
Interesting post - I love the suggestion that we treat each post like it's an email to a friend! I am an ex-journalist now blogging and consulting and am forever telling SEO/social network clients to "speak" like a human on their blogs and networks and encourage interaction through comments. And if they can't write - don't! Unfortunately there are a lot of wanna-be writers out there who think posting about their latest industry achievement in dry technical language a la press release on their blog, and updating once every three months is just fine!
Thanks - I know I heard that "email to a friend" suggestion somewhere, so I can't take full credit. Tim Ferriss has a neat way of saying it - he says to write as if "you're two beers in talking to your best friend" ;)
Hey Dan, bold article - you had to expect some flak with how obsessed with "blogging" SEOs as a whole are.
While I agree that comments could be the only metric that matters for some blogs, I'd argue that comments are completely irrelevant for others. Our blog (and I suspect those of the other SEOs commenting) is a great example. We get very few comments; our target personas largely don't care about commenting.
However, we primarily use the blog as a public house for the content we use to nurture new leads. It also demonstrates thought leadership and sets us apart from the competition (very effectively I might add).
However, we do SEO. We're a B2B company operating in a flooded marketplace with little to no barrier to entry, so the only thing that sets anyone apart is who you know or what you know. In this industry our blog is incredibly effective regardless of how many comments (or even social shares frankly) we receive.
I do think that in a lot of industries (the majority of our clients included) blogging is probably the last thing they should be doing. Why? Because we all have limited budgets and I rarely encounter a client that couldn't be better-served by improving information/site architecture, optimizing conversion rates, improving page copy and meta tags, and creating more reference and sales content than you might expect to find on a blog.
If you can pump out consistently amazing and unique content on a blog and you understand it's largely a brand awareness play and not direct response one, and you've already tackled the CRO / architecture stuff, then go for it. But if you're an insurance company writing 500-word posts on how to winterize your home I'd be willing to bet your budget is better spent elsewhere.
Thanks John, for your insightful addition. In hindsight, I may have been too black and white about it. I perhaps could have explicitly stated there are some exceptions (rather than assuming folks might accept that as a given).
I'm with you - my main objective is with the "mindless" type of blogging you refer to with insurance sites.
Just signed up specifically to tell you how much i enjoyed this article, especially the 5 Myths, thanks for sharing!
Awesome, welcome to the Moz Community :)
Very interesting article. I find overlap and very well chosen examples with undeniable sources of information.
Blogging has not said its last word, even if Google becomes more persecuting. This article allows to be more careful in how blogging.
Dan, I do think that your post has a lot of valuable insight into the world of quality blogging, but I see this more as a "how-to" than a focused watch-dog. Martin's comments make perfect sense. The types of comments, numbers of comments and activity of its members are reflective of the target as much as they are the quality of the blog. While I think our site (www.atilus.com) could stand some better engagement on the blog (as we are relying on a few posts to carry all the comments), I also see our target as more of a researcher than an engager and we want those researchers to have access to our content and expertise as well. While I do think you offer ideas for growth, I cannot say that comments are the only valuable metric for blog success.
Let's look at the flipside for a minute. I, as an internet user, have spent countless hours reading thousands of articles but rarely do I make a comment or even share an article. Being an internet marketer I'm well versed with all the sharing options yet I bother with none 99.9% of the time. I have read hundreds of MOZ articles yet this is the first time I decided to comment. Does that mean I don't find MOZ's posts useful?
Should your further quantify your hypothesis with a percentage figure? Eg. let's say the average person would post one comment for every 100 articles the read, then for every 100 reads on an article you should get 1 comment? This sounds realistic to me, and maybe that's the reason most company blog posts don't have comments because they simply don't get enough views.
If you write an awesome post in the forest and there's no one around to read it, is it still an awesome post?
Hi, thanks for the comment. I can relate to all of your points. I think there were a few assumptions I made that I should have stated more explicitly;
GREAT EFFORT PUT INTO THIS POST. thanks!
Late as I am to the conversation, I have to agree with @Martin that this is way too generalized.
The business model of the company really plays a big role in content marketing and blogging. Many in-house SEOs and content marketers will attest to that.
One factor within user behavior can be the most important thing within business model A and mean absolutely nothing within business model B. At blogger and industry events, this is a common discussion since many bloggers assume they can transfer KPIs from one company to the next; and to be fair many companies assume bloggers will simply understand their goals without explanation.
If you are looking at the same KPIs for two blogs belonging to totally different businesses with different business models; you're setting yourself up for some real balance sheet shocks.
I also think that comments are the best way to show the power of your content. Its necessary to get first couple of comments on the article but once you get that, it will be much easier to get the ball running "if the content is worth while" !
Thank you for the insights Dan!
Hey Dan, Great observation!!!! Comments on a blog are key to shine in front of the readers. But frankly saying, most of the business bloggers are afraid of SPAM comments on their business website (Blog). This tends them to not have any comment on their blog. Sometimes it creates a critical situation for them whether to put their all efforts on generating quality contents or fighting with the Spamers.
But your research is really appreciable.
Thanks
This is called a complete article, you have mentioned everything that matters in Digital Marketing.. Good work..
Awesome post & great ideas here Dan. Leaving comment to let you know that I actually read the post, will visit again, and now have a psychological / emotional connection with the Dan Shure brand ;)
Wow - such a long post. One of the best parts till now was: Comments also add more keyword desi....... kidding. but I am nort finished reading but I have to go - come back tomorrow and read the rest, I think it is a pretty interesting topic.
I'd like to add that I frequently, and I mean, almost always, read if not SKIP articles, just to see what other people think of them. Comments are amazingly entertaining, and I get this sense of validation when other people have the same thoughts I do. I did this while reading this blog! I was really looking forward to reading the comments, to see if other people were thinking the same thing I did, and then I would get all these good feelings if they did. I had to force myself to finish reading this blog story, I wanted to skip to the comments so bad. Comments add so, so much to the conversation. In journalism, people can be tricky about their messages, confuse facts, and commenters are the eternal watchdogs, the one's who call author's claims into question. I love it.
Also, I love NYT "picks" approach. When NYT "picks" my comments-- oh man, I want to add it to my resume.
I think this is exactly what started happening on this article. I bet folks;
I REALLY appreciate you actually seem to have read the article first! I agree, it's tempting to want to skip it and let others form opinions for you.
NYT picks sounds clever - when people know their comment might get put on a pedestal, that's certainly a good incentive!
registered for Moz just to say 'thank you' - what a great post!
Hello Dan,
Thanks for writing this extensive and complete guide to blogging! It is a good piece of advice and I will surely pass it on to my network. Especially those that are thinking of having a website and "must have" a blog. I might even translate it to Dutch, if not already done by some over here.
I particularly like the examples given!
I subscribed to the email notifications to see wether your post gets the numerous comments I think it deserves :-)
THANK YOU. This is a mega-important topic. One major mistake we see people make - they put too much time and energy in their biz Facebook page. WAY too much time and energy. And then they're surprised when the conversation - if any - only happens on FB, and not on their own site. While we've long been active in, and appreciative of, social media, it is still just the syrup on the sundae - the big bowl of ice cream is our website and the community conversations there. Don't go running around hollering WOOT! 1,000 LIKES! - go around hollering WOOT! 20 COMMENTS! WOOT! 10,000 PAGEVIEWS! etc. Ignore advice like "oh, have a social-media contest" or "just share this viral puppy video." Be real. Be yourself. Thank your readers/participants/collaborators publicly and often. Make sure your website is where the good stuff happens. - TR
Great blog, the flow chart was great! Blogs are one of the hardest things to get right for me its easy to write them but to get them really working requires so much effort.
If you're right and 95% of corporate blogs are a waste of time then I wonder how long it will take for companies to stop publishing them. I guess the dominance of Wordpress as a platform for small business sites will continue to encourage these businesses to include a blog on their site.
Suburb point! I failed to mention how technology has helped make blogging ubiquitous. Pre WordPress etc only those who had the dev resources could create one. Funny how the technology shapes behavior.
Great article :)
After all, I hold the thought that vlogging might be more effective than blogging; am I completely wrong? Actual readers (and customers) might feel overwhelmed by the amount of blogs (good or not so great). Specially when talking about companies, AV content - at least for me - is way more useful.
Thanks for the great article (shared and read!)
I absolutely think you can get results with video. See Wistia for some really good resources!
Ah yes, keep settings like auto-approve comments turned off! There are definitely times when automation is not a good thing. Like spam comments going unnoticed and good comments not getting the attention of shared appreciation they deserve.
Great post, Dan! Your post came at the perfect time for my business - we're just about to launch a new site and give a company blog a try for the first time in 20 years. Thanks for all the great suggestions, I will keep them in mind while creating content and designing the blog! I felt a little validated by "You don't find a story because you have to blog. You have to blog so you can tell your story." - this is exactly the reason we wanted to start a blog. Our company has a lot of personality, stories, and knowledge and we needed a platform to share it all with our customers.
I also wanted to mention another comment benefit - aggregation of your customers' knowledge and experiences. For instance, I read the Moz blog every workday. But I don't stop reading when I get to the end of the post, part of the reason I read everyday is for the added knowledge in the comments section. And while I don't comment often, I certainly remember and respect the Moz brand because of it's blog!
Hi Dan
I read the majority of articles on my phone which, even on a responsive site, discourages commenting simply because of touch-typing. If a site is not responsive (as Moz sadly isn't) I'll use Pocket or Instapaper to read the post, at which point the likelihood of me commenting is further reduced. It takes a lot for me to fire up the laptop, find the post again and comment. I've done it here because you, as an expert in engagement, have written a truly thought-provoking piece but under the above circumstances this rarely happens. This is, I suppose, a good argument in itself for hiring expert writers.
My question then: In your experience does responsive design increase comments? I feel it should but am very interested to hear your take.
First off, excellent comment and I absolutely agree that the rise of mobile usage likely decreases the likelihood of comments - it's cumbersome, and I rarely ever comment with my phone.
However - what you said here verify's my larger point;
"I've [commented] because you ... have written a truly thought-provoking piece but under the above circumstances this rarely happens."
Exactly! If something is good enough, thought provoking enough, different enough - people will take the extra step.
I don't have any data on responsive design and correlation to comments, unfortunately. But again, I think it comes back to doing something exceptional enough that people will make the effort to come back and engage.
When you consider the fact that companies that blog get 55% more web traffic and 70% more leads than those that don’t, it's important to be as effective and efficient as possible in your blogging efforts.
Blogging is critical to internet (inbound) marketing and success in eBusiness. Blogs (blog posts) not only allow you to demonstrate thought leadership, but they allow you to educate your market (prospects), answer their questions and solve their problems. This was a power packed blog; full of information. Thanks for sharing.
I had better comment. It would be awful if this post on commenting got less comments than some of the blogs mentioned in the article.
Thanks Dan for this post.
I am running a technology company, Indies and we work on several domains and technologies. We have Store as well selling e-commerce products. With my experience what I feel is companies need a custom strategy for each blog. There can be several conversion factors when you are writing a blog post. It can be a subscribe, comment, link click, social media like or anything else which finally helps company achieving their Marketing objectives. Though importance of each of these conversion factor may change from blog to blog, you can not ignore either of them.
For a store, reviews and social share are more important than comments. While a site serving developers community would be more interested in getting more comments and continuing with the discussion.
You always need to find the optimum mix of conversion ratio. As like a post with 600+ social share and 0 comment is useless (not always), I would say a post doubtful (again not always) if it has 40 comments and 10 social share.
I have a little doubt about your suggestion to Delete the posts which are not getting comments or traffic? Should one really do that? Any other suggestion from others would be great.
Very good analysis and insights overall, Dan. I do think blog posts have more value beyond just comments and engagement levels though. Taking a quick peruse of Restoration Hardware's site, I think a 'What's New' or similar or a better propword would add value. If I was interested in their products, I'd want a section that indicates fresher info than just the more static product/location pages on their site. Blog posts, in addition to the above and search engine/referral traffic, can also provide content for your social networks and email marketing, which has value.
Hi Jason! That's an important point. Some users do want to see signals of something being new (and Google even recommends these sorts of signals - for example I have an evergreen post on my blog I always update, and put the date I last updated at the top).
Blogs create this date as a bi-product, but of course one should have a blog for other reasons - and if needing to show freshness there are other ways to do this as well.
While I don't think comments are a silver bullet or uber-metric by themselves, it does frustrate me how often it is overlooked when assessing the quality and effectiveness of corporate blog content. So put me down in the 'agree' camp.
Of course social sharing means that what may once have been a comment on the blog is now a comment in Facebook or LinkedIn, etc. So that can't be discounted. But social sharing numbers are less reliable as an indication of whether people genuinely read and responded appropriately to the article. We all share articles we've only partially read - which is why it's best practice to place your social bar near the top of the article.
But then, it should go without saying that there should always be a firm, measurable goal (or a couple) that is tied to genuine business outcomes to evaluate success or failure. Twitter shares aren't a business outcome unless you can prove how they contribute to the bottom line. Assuming they do isn't enough. Brand awareness isn't a measurable outcome for most businesses because we can't all run focus groups every six months. And people share on social all the time without any awareness of the brand they just 'engaged' with.
If the prime goal is to drive email signups, or improve traffic to certain product pages thanks to SEO, or to drive ebook/white paper downloads (or whatever the primary goals may be), then those stats overrule any other vanity metrics, including the number of comments.
I recently came across a blog post on one business site that had no comments and very little social sharing activity. But the company was able to show that it had become one of the most visited pages on their entire site, even higher than pages in the main nav, and was driving visitors to other areas of the site. And it was planned that way, as a simple blog post that provided a guide to email design - purely a utility piece. Well written, with good examples, but not something people necessarily will debate in the comments. And as such it had a goal it achieved extremely well (attracting search traffic from the right audience) without the need for massive vanity metrics and comments discussion.
But when so many corporate blogs I see don't have a measurable goal beyond shares or comments, then a lack of comments is pretty damning.
Hi Jonathan - thanks for your story of the company with a post driving people to other areas of their site. This brings up an interesting conundrum. What about the other 95% of posts they have that don't drive that result? I agree, a few individual posts might do something, but often the blog as a whole doesn't accomplish this. I'd see doing an 80/20 like this worthwhile every so often. Cut the stuff that doesn't do anything, maybe even turn the few best posts into evergreen resources.
Thanks!
Many awesome takeaway points here Dan.
As for the company I just started working for recently, I think that there has been too much focus on just creating as a blog post for our clients within a 4 hour time frame. I have feeling that many branded blogs these days are set up just because it looks good and supposedly is good SEO. The get it wrong here folks - a good and relevant blog can be great tool for brands to create an online community and improve SEO. But I think it really depends on what kind of industry you are writing for and effort put into it.
For example, at the moment I'm considering setting up a branded blog page for a client who is in the 'vehicle glass repair and replacement industry'. I'm sure that our team can come up with interesting ideas for engaging content to put up in potential blog page, but there is a limit how many interesting blog posts you can write about that topic. For this reason I have started to consider other content that just plain text like for example images, infographs, videos ect.
By the end of the day (in my view): blogging should be about quality content that interests your desired target audience and thereby you engagement with your audience by exchanging ideas and discuss relevant topics in the commentary field.
Dan - I totally agree with the 5 myths.
Time and time again I see prospective clients simply blogging tons of low quality and in a lot of case non relevant trash on their sites. I'm not talking about SME's, as they are the obvious culprits, but large and sometimes brands across Europe and the US.
Not only is this a waste of time, money and effort that could be better spent elsewhere, they're a perfect example of a site primed to be hit by Panda.
What companies along with their SEOs need to consider is how Google are going to view and amend their quality scores based on this content.
A low quality blog will simply create bad user stats, bounce, exits, time on page etc. And when the blog pages outnumber the main site it becomes a big problem, not just for the blog but for the site overall. Google's trust will decline as will the authoritative metrics, to the point where Panda deems the site as low quality. And we all know Panda is a site wide penalty meaning a low quality blog will crash and burn the entire site.
So the point I'm making here is avoid writing blog posts just for the sake of creating content and for SEO. It ends up being low quality resulting in bad UX and stats and Google now have an algorithm to tackle it. Panda!
Hi Dan, I think you really nailed it with this article - it's frustrating that so many believe that 'more content' = 'better content' when it comes to blogging. Writing as frequently as you can is great of course, but not at the expense of the quality and the value to readers that it should provide.
In my experience, a blog is often expected to deliver leads or email sign-ups all too quickly, and when it doesn't people can be reluctant to go back and re-assess what they are publishing. However, if you aren't prepared to do that then the likelihood of the blog ever delivering leads is slim.
Getting over that hurdle and actually seeing comments come in is really rewarding - but failing to respond just begs the question: why bother to write the blog in the first place? Responding and keeping that conversation going is really key here - it shows you are human, and it shows that you care - about the commenter, your brand and your post.
I agree TJ. I like to use real life analogies. If you own a shoe store, and someone walks in and asks a question or gives a compliment, would you ignore them and walk away? I don't see how companies treat their online customers like this.
Wow that was a great post
but I have a question, what if my personal blog (and it would explain many things) works on medium.com? I am dead or can I fix it?
First off, personal blogs are very different (purposes, goals, reasons etc) - and you are not dead on Medium at all! What are your goals by posting on Medium? Or blogging in general?
I´m starting my personal blog because I want to make personal brand and be influential in graphic design issues (in the hispanic world, actually I´m hispanic and my bad english show it jaja). So I sholud invite my readers to go to interact with me in twitter?
I'd recommend having your own site on your own domain that you control as the 'center' of everything. Then you can use platforms like Medium to extend your reach but always eventually get people back to your site. Twitter is a great place to try to grow your following and audience, and you can add your own amplification to your content, network and engage with people.
Well what can I say... This is a SUPERB post Dan. Many, many takeaways here. Where would I begin touching on the topics you've raised? Too many fine points to list! I'll let others get the ball rolling first. And yeah, I'll be back ;-) I will say one thing though regarding brands replying to folks, I also find it totally irksome when you see multiple users reaching out for some help/guidance etc. and what do they get.............silence. WTF is that? In your example above of the lone Facebook commenter, this lady is basically saying: I have money. Right here in my hand. I want to give it to you. Please let me give it to you. Just take it. What a missed opportunity! Either invest or just get out of the game please. For me at least, it seems totally arrogant and definitely my view of the brand/blog/author is pretty much tainted from that point on. What would their telephone customer service folks be like? Yikes.
What a great post.You described beautifully the importance of Comment in Blogging.Comments ( responses) are also inspire to write good content in future and Inspiration is good for blogging to get success.
Wow, really comprehensive post. I learned a few things!
I think your messages are something that get shuffled along in the marketing factory. Everyone wants to focus on what they got, not what they missed.
Its a great article with in depth blogging information. I am not 100% agree with you that comments are measure for blog success. I do read many blogs and share over social media but rarely comment. For me, comments are required when you want to pass on some feedback to blogger, rest of times, just share whatever is useful and ignore crap.
Anyways, this great article needs place in my pocket app for future reference :-)
Brilliant post! Tweets and shares are all the rave - but if nobody is talking about it, a blogs success is impossible to gauge. Would like to have read a bit more on the myths you provided above.
Thanks Dan, This article is really helpful for digital Marketers.