03.07.07
8 Steps to Create a Community out of your Blog
In 2006 we saw an explosion of community-based websites; From self-submitted news sites like Digg.com, to Del.icio.us social-bookmarking, to Youtube.com videos, it is clear that the trend of user-submitted content is here to stay and will only grow larger in 2007. One way to boost traffic to your site is to create ways for your users to contribute their own content to your site. It will guarantee that there is always something fresh to read on your site, and take a whole load of work off your shoulders.
So how can you foster a community environment on your blog? There are a number of techniques you can use, some of which I’ve already tried on this site and I’ll overview the successes that I’ve had with them.
8 Steps to Fostering a Community in your Blog
1. Recognize top commentators
The main difference between a blog and a website is a blog offers the ability for its users to interact with the author and each other though comments. Comments are the primary reason why your users will return frequently to your site. I’ve recently installed the Show Top Commentators plugin into the sidebar of this site to recognize top commentators on CyberWyre. The plugin lists top commentators on the site, and links back to the homepage which they specify in the comment. This will provide a little incentive to your readers to interact more and post more comments on your site. Be careful though, as this may also encourage your readers to spam more often, or place homepage links to inappropriate sites.
Going forward, any comment posted on this site will be recorded, and top commentators will have links to their site from the homepage of CyberWyre.
2. Reply to comments!
You can’t expect your users to do all the work for you. Reply to as many comments as you can in order to stimulate more conversation.
3. Write about controversial topics to encourage more feedback
To date, the most discussed article posted on CyberWyre was about a very controversial “auto-surf” ponzi-scheme which took the Internet by storm in 2005 and crashed in 2006. Find topics to write about in your niche for which you know your readers may have very different opinions and some interesting conversations will emerge.
4. Start a Forum on your Site
Another idea to increase the amount of user-submitted content on your blog is to start a forum revolving around the topics which are discussed on your site. Back in February of 2005, I tried this idea with little success. The forum was quickly filled with very inappropriate spam messages (which I have still yet to fully clean up) and it did not get as much traffic as I had originally hoped. I will be creating a new forum to try this once again and will make the following adjustments to my approach:
1. I will make a mandatory “captcha” spam filter on all forum posts & new registrations. Captcha tests are those fuzzy image boxes with some strange text in them which you need to type out to make sure that you are human.
2. I will develop a script to display the most recent forum posts on the homepage of CyberWyre so that all visitors may be able to see the most recent conversations.
3. I will start more discussions in the forum myself and attempt to “seed” the forum. Initially I simply created it and hoped others would do the work for me, which was the wrong attitude.
5. Create a poll on your site
Starting a poll on your site is one way to encourage basic interaction between your site and your users. Back in May 2006, I wrote an article which outlined the process to create your own poll similar to the one in the sidebar of this site. In fact, this poll has generated a bit of traffic to the site with others linking in and referring to the results which have been obtained thus far.
6. Run Promotions & Give-Aways on your site
If you are blogging for profit, and making an income from your visitors, it is only fair to kick some of that income back to them. In June of 2006, I ran a $50 give-away from this site in an attempt to generate traffic. The results of this experiment are discussed here.
7. Thread your comments
I recently installed Brian’s Threaded Comments Wordpress plugin to give visitors the option to reply to others comments. I have already seen this feature being used on the site and threaded discussions have been started.
8. Invite your users to post articles on your site
In March of 2006, I invited users to submit their own articles to be posted on CyberWyre. In the end, I received many interested requests, and four individuals have posted guest articles on this site so far. Guest articles are a great way to allow you to relax a little bit and not worry so much about your content, and also to give your readers access to knowledge which you may not be able to write about yourself.
Are there any other tips that you might have to encourage reader-submitted content, or for building a community out of your blog?
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Thanks for very interesting article. Can I translate your article into polish and publish at my webblog? I will back here and check your answer. Keep up the good work. Greetings
Sure, just please link back to the source.
Matt
This sort of ties into the top commentators idea. I’ve found that participating in others blogs and specialized social networks is a good way to build relationships that will eventually drive visitors to your site. I’ve had good luck with 9 Rules as well as Site Point.
Thanks for another good post.
This article is a very nice one.. i liked it, especially the”commentator script”. Good one!
Cheers!
Recognizing Top Commentators certainly seems to be popular lately. How successful have you found it to be in driving traffic to your site? Unfortunately, those of us on Blogger don’t have this functionality.
Hey Robert,
Actually, I have noticed a significant and continual growth in my traffic since enabling the Top Commentators plug in. From analyzing my server logs, I can’t find any new big incoming links driving the traffic up. I have a hunch it’s from the increased comment activity, but I can’t be certain.
From : Living The Bests Life Site
Ya me too i have been try’n to increase more visitors this comment plugin tecnique might be sue full.
Thanks a lot for the interesting article.I’ll try to follow all your golden rules to get traffic..:)
As far as submitting guest articles, I would love to do that! Not only does it help for exposure, but as one site owner gets fatigued, this can be used as a shot in the arm to keep the blog going and reinvigorate the owner’s passion. Hey, we can all use more friends!
Great tips, I will see how they workout for me.
Your Tutorial worked out very well for me, thanks a bunch for this useful information.
Thank you especially that there is not much helpful stuff like this on the net. I appreciate your work
Good idea! Best regards
Thanks a lot for the interesting article
Very nice article.