Usability guru Jakob Nielsen stated in one of his latest studies that 90% of online community users are lurkers (read or observe without contributing) with only 9% of users contributing ‘a little’ and 1% actively contributing. So 1% of your blog’s users are actively engaging with your blog and the rest are at best occasional contributers.
Darren Rowse on ProBlogger points out yesterday that “the study isn’t just on blogging so the actual numbers could be more or less than these and would no doubt vary from site to site anyway – but the principle is true. The vast majority of readers leave a blog without leaving a comment or contributing to it in any way.”
“To some extent this is just the way it is and we probably need to just get used to it – however when it comes to comments there are some ways to encourage more interactivity on your blog.” According to Darren, participation rate in the comments section on your blog can be increased through simple measures:
- Invite comments
- Ask questions
- Be open-ended
- Interact with comments left
- Set boundaries
- Be humble
- Be gracious
- Be controversial?
- ‘Reward’ Comment
- Make it Easy to Comment
