When I think of blogs with thriving communities, I immediately think of AdrienneSmith.net. Any of us would be blessed to have the strong readership and commenters Adrienne has.
Drop in and visit her any time and you’ll be amazed at the quantity and quality of comments her posts attract. Here are the numbers for her most recent six posts: 136, 148, 132, 102, 208, and 142.
What these comments indicate is that Adrienne has hundreds of regular readers (or maybe thousands since most people don’t comment)! These are real people who read and comment.
Adrienne isn’t the only blogger with a strong audience. The Blondish.net blog founded by Nile Flores. Her March 5, 2015 post eBook: 10 Reasons Why Your Site Isn’t Converting and How To Fix It has 122 comments on it.
What Do Blogs with Active Communities Have in Common?
The blogger actively answers almost every comment left in their blog. They offer CommentLuv. (CommentLuv is available in a free version.) And most likely they also go and comment on blogs managed by their commenters.
When Kristi Hines @Kikolani and I weren’t so busy working and spent more time commenting, out blogs had as many comments as Adrienne’s does.
How Commenting Can Increase Your Traffic
I know from experience that commenting and then sharing content on CommentLuv blogs can double your traffic. I’ve personally made that happen.
I’ve been planning to get my active community back. Here’s my plan:
- Create a list of active CommentLuv blogs
- Read one of the latest posts on each blog at least once a week.
- When my comment is live, share that content for them.
I will also add any blogs that are relevant to my readers to my Twitterfeed – updated now to use Dlvr.it. This ensures that their content gets tweeted through @GrowMap immediately after they publish it.
How to Get CommentLuv
There are two CommentLuv plugins. The basic CommentLuv version is free. I use CommentLuv Premium. If you can afford it, I feel it is worth it. Here’s why:
- With the free version you can only choose from 1 or 10 of your last posts (depending upon how the blog where you’re commenting has their plugin configured. With CommentLuv Premium you can share ANY page or post on your site when commenting. This is especially useful if you have something important you want seen.
- CommentLuv Premium has multiple plugins built into one including:
- the most powerful version of the GrowMap anti-spambot plugin (GASP)
- TwitterLink so your commenters can include their Twitter username – I often tweet to them when I answer their questions or comments
- Reply-me email notifications so your authors know when they have a new comment so they can come answer it
- More reasons to choose CommentLuv Premium. [NOTE: CommentLuv Premium is no longer available. Contact Gail to discuss what we should do about that.]
- Beta Version of CommentLuv Premium with ABLink feature [No new posts on BloggingSpree since 2015.]
Where to Comment
I am creating a new list of active CommentLuv blogs and will be sharing that list with anyone interested.
Choose a handful of blogs most relevant to yours. It is better to comment regularly on a few than erratically on many. You can always add a few more at a time as you get used to commenting.
For now, here are some top CommentLuv blogs to start with:
- 13WeekChallenge.co.uk
- 3BoysandaDog.com
- AdrianJock.com
- AdrienneSmith.net – alas, Adrienne stopped blogging, but she still has a great CommentLuv community for finding other blogs in her comments.
- BlogEngage.com
- BrendaPace.net
- ComLuv.com and https://growmap.com/commentluv-premium – Andy Bailey’s sites are no longer up.
- CrystalandComp.com
- CustomGrowthGroup.com
- DonnaMerrillTribe.com
- EmotionallyResilientLiving.com
- FamousBloggers.net
- ImJustSharing.com
- InfoCarnivore.com
- InspireToThrive.com
- KeepUpWithTheWeb.com
- Kikolani.com
- MotivatingMum.co.uk
- NoPassiveIncome.com
- NotNowMomsBusy.com
- OrganizingMoms.com
- PracticalMommy.com
- ProductiveWriters.com
- ProfitOnKnowledge.com
- RightMixMarketing.com
- Sarkemedia.com
- SharonHH.com
- ShermanSmithBlog.com
- SocialMediaSass.com
- SocialWebCafe.com
- StacyClaflin.com
- SylvianeNuccio.com
- TechAudit.com
- TechTricksWorld.com
- TheDetoxSpecialist/blog
- TheWonderofTech.com
- TimeManagementChef.com
- WeBuildYourBlog.com
- WorkFromHomeWisdom.com
- YouCanMarketOnlineNOW.com
Special thanks to Dan Ewah for his post The Blog Commenting Superstars of the Adrienne Smith Community. When time allows I’ll go through his post and identify additional CommentLuv blogs. While these commenters benefit from other’s use of CommentLuv, not all of those listed offer CommentLuv for their commenters benefit.
I’m still adding more blogs to this list so come back and check later. If your blog offers CommentLuv, please leave me a comment in this post so I can add you to my lists. Thanks. [Originally published in March 2015.]
