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Hello! I'm Suzannah, a serious DIYer and mom of two little ones. Follow along with my DIY fixer upper house renovations, sewing and crafty projects, real food recipes, and de-stressing goals.
I believe you can love your home just the way it is, AND have the power to design and make big changes to make it better.
I'm also the author of DIY Wardrobe Makeovers!

Big deal little blogging tip: Want more comments?

So every once in a while I post blogging tips, which I always feel a little awkward about doing since I don't want to be presumptuous... but I've been doing this for three years now, and I read plenty of blogs, too, so I think I'm at least sort of qualified to share advice. So normally I post three blogging tips, but today I just want to reinforce one, and mention a couple new resources I've found.

Obviously if you want more comments, you'll want to post interesting, original posts that your readers want to engage with. Those will be different for every kind of blog. There are all kinds of advice on building that kind of content... but today's one blogging/getting more comments tip is simple.

My ONE tip for today, that's "kind of a big deal" (words of Ron Burgundy): If you want more comments, turn off the word verification. This one single thing can really, really help people be way more willing to comment!! It is so annoying to have to fill in the blank after interpreting the mystery words and numbers... and they're getting harder these days, I swear. I am way less likely to leave a comment if I think I'm going to fail the captcha or don't have the time to try it a couple times.

So please, PLEASE, right now, go CHECK your settings and make sure you have word verification turned off!! You may not even realize you have it on, but you could be losing important feedback and community-building comments by having that barrier! Here's some instructions on how to turn off the captcha in both old and new Blogger if you need it. And honestly--I have so few spam comments, the captcha is really not necessary for a blog like most of ours. I have mine set so I have to approve comments on posts older than 3 months, so I can click "publish" or "spam" on those when they come in, and spam is kinda more likely to be on older posts. But seriously, no worries, I'm sure you won't have a problem with spam without the word verification. Seriously.

First world problems, amIright....



Okay, but while we're talking about comments... I just found this site, SEOmoz, which has all kinds of cool and useful SEO advice I don't really understand. But I did see a simple article on getting more comments--written by the experts in search engine optimization! (And, if you couldn't guess... the first tip they mention is, make it as easy as possible to leave a comment!!!--AKA, turn off that tricky word verification if you have it on.)

Another great resource for blogging tips is not original at all, but the Alt Summit blog has a lot of advice I was just recently clicking through. Kinda wanna go all through the archives if I have time--pages and pages of simple "how to..."s, but most of them are really short and sweet and easy to read. So anyway, for blogging inspiration and business advice check out the new Alt blog.

Okay, hope you don't mind my soapbox here about word verification--I'll be back to myself tomorrow!

31 comments

  1. I soooo agree! I often type a comment and then just exit before posting when I see word verification.

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  2. thank you! i didnt even realise i had it on and bam went to check!

    :)

    Barnicles

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  3. Agreed! There have been so many times when I have given up arguing with CAPTCHAs and their stupid nonsensical words.

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  4. Thanks for sharing my tutorial! I find that most CAPTCHA offenders don't even know they have it on so the more people who talk about it, the better :)

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  5. I definitely didn't realize I had that on...and when I went to check, I also found out that only registered users could leave a comment! How off-putting is that? Now it's muss less restrictive, thanks for the tip! :)

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  6. I couldn't agree more...I have a hard time reading CAPTCHA plus with mobiles commenting should be made easier...it's already hard enough to type the comment itself :o)

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  7. Anonymous9/20/2012

    Yes, the CAPTCHA is SO annoying. I also see that you allow one to choose "anonymous" on your blog. I'd much rather do that than use my email as an id. Some blogs require an email address which is not published with the comment and that is fine too. Many blogs I read also review comments before they are posted as you mention above. Interesting post today even if not about sewing. Adventures is in my Google Reader.

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  8. Don't feel presumptuous, I have totally used several of your blogging suggestions from previous posts. I also tend to be overly paranoid about internet security, and so it is helpful to hear from a successful blogger that you don't actually need Captcha and other things like that.

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  9. Seriously? Before I turned Captcha on, I was getting HUNDREDS of spam comments a day - for real, I literally couldn't delete them fast enough. Captcha has stopped that - I now get maybe one or two spam comment a month. So for someone like me, whose blog is not their day job, it's the difference between being able to have the time to blog at all, or spend all of that time deleting spam comments and not have any left left to actually post.

    Captcha really, REALLY is a necessary evil.

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  10. Ya that's very true Blogger makes it really hard now even me as a human sometimes taking a hard time to guess the word. I would try 3 times before giving up but if i am browsing on mobile phone i would think several time before leaving comment. So much hard work :)

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  11. Ya that's very true Blogger makes it really hard now even me as a human sometimes taking a hard time to guess the word. I would try 3 times before giving up but if i am browsing on mobile phone i would think several time before leaving comment. So much hard work :)

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  12. Ok, since we're talking about comments today, I'll leave one - in paragraph #2, you say you want to post "uninteresting" content. I'm pretty sure "interesting" content would be better!

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  13. I hate word verification! Sometimes when I am commenting from my phone, even if I get the dumb made up word right it still says I did it wrong. No matter how many times I try. I eventually give up. I start to remember which blogs have word verification and never even try to comment on those blogs from my phone. Half the time I look at blogs I am on my phone so for me, it really does make a difference.

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  14. The Perfect Nose kindly let me know that my blog had word verification. I didn't even know! I'm so glad she told me and I changed the settings. Would anyone like to try (write test or something) just so I know it's set properly?

    Thanks for the tips!

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  15. I have already checked and turned mine off. I get dozens and dozens of junk comments, but blogger screens them out, so it's not a problem at all. And I really struggle with those codes. I'm glad to read that it's not just me - I thought it was another of those signs I'm getting 'older'...

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  16. I turned mine off a few months ago and my comments have increased. I hate filling it out on other blogs. I have to really like the blog to fight with captcha.

    guyanesesista.com

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  17. That's tip number 1! I have always wanted to tell bloggers to turn it off, but I feel like it's not my business so I don't. Also, I can't pass the word verification to do it. Thanks for passing on the message!

    I also have a tip, bloggers should allow the "comment as" "Name/URL" option... sometimes I am at work and I do not want to sign into my google account to commenet and have the option to just submit a comment with my "name/url" is so useful.

    Doing it for this comment to :)

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  18. OMG, I have been complaining about recaptchas HEAPS lately, and guess what? I just checked my blog and it was ON! NOOOOOO! lol! Hopefully people will be more free to leave comments now! I hate recapchas with a passion!
    Thanks for the tip. Ugh I always assumed mine was off.

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  19. Agreed. So annoying and if I get the word verification wrong I usually don't try again a second time. I just move on.

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  20. YUP!!! Could NOT agree more!!! I often bail on leaving a comment if word verification pops up, especially if I'm trying to comment using my phone.

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  21. I used to complain all the time and then I found I had mine on too. I turned them off and I do get a lot of spam. But, it all gets caught. I just need to no longer get all my comments e-mailed to me. I tried out a different commenting thing for my personal blog because I couldn't get the "reply" function to work in the themes I was using in blogger. I haven't gotten any spam there. Although, some people are commenting and I am getting e-mails with their comments, but the comments aren't showing up on the blog. Weird, right?

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  22. Anonymous9/21/2012

    Totally agree. I even get too lazy to sign in to my email or whatever account so I end up posting as 'anonymous'. Question: do you think you can start selling tutorials or something or maybe even just making sewing videos starting with the basics? I'm interested in buying a sewing machine (have no idea what I should look for when buying one, btw) but I have no idea how to use it!!

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    Replies
    1. Glad you find my blog helpful! I do some tutorials, and am working on a book with Potter Craft to come out June 2014, but I don't have any sewing machine 101s. But if you do a Google or Pinterest search, I'm sure you'll find plenty of helpful blog photo tutorials!

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  23. Trying to leave a comment from my mobile phone with captcha is even more annoying. Glad you have the word verification turned off.

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  24. Your blog tips helped me when I started my blog back in June, like making the design less complicated and turning off captcha. I rarely comment on sites with captcha too much of a bother

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  25. Thanks for the advice!

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  26. Anonymous9/23/2012

    with you on the verification thing! This has prevented me from commenting on some of my favourite blogs. Always fail the captcha thing no matter how many times I try!

    Joy

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  27. Yes, I agree too. While I will still comment if I really want to, it is annoying. Another thing that does stop me in my tracks is commenting in some blogs while using my iPad I can't make corrections without going to preview, then clicking on edit...if I make a couple of mistakes I give up. Any one know a way around this bug?

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  28. Oh my gosh, I've always hated that stupid word verification and every time I went to comment on someone's blog and the word verification popped up I'd think "they so need to turn that off, I'm so glad I don't have that on mine!". Just now though, after reading this, I thought I'd better double check that mine is off. OMG. Guess what... mine was on! All this time I've unknowingly been tormenting people... yikes! Thanks for the tutorial!!

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  29. That's what i was looking for. I will definitely share it with others.

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