10 quick ways to make your blog interactive

Whenever you are having a conversation, you want the other person showing interest in what you are talking about. A blog is a conversation with your readers, so your readers shouldn't think of it as a one way conversation; where only you speak. To keep readers interested; to give them a personal attachment with your blog, here I present 10 quick ways to interact with your blog readers:

  1. Comments: This is the most basic and important followup after each of your posts. Your readers express their views on what you have said. You need to take their views into account and respond to that on a regular basis. Don't be narrow minded, let the conversation evolve in your comments. Liz@Succesful Blog is great at doing that, check out her blog.
  2. Shoutbox:People are always in a hurry. They always are. Sometimes, its too much work to click and add a comment. Add a simple shoutbox and pace up the process of getting your readers' views. It can be a great place for new blog ideas, new friends. It helps a lot in building your loyal readership. Get a shoutbox now. Use Shoutmix, its very easy to configure and is very stable to use.
  3. Forums: This again helps you to keep your readers coming back. ..Its very easy to configure and get a forum. It will give you new readers from the other forums that site has built. It gives better shape to discussions as compared to a shoutbox (different available sections and threads). There is a great Freeweb widget, to get a forum on your blog. It is a little tough to configure, took me 15 minutes. But it is worth it.
  4. MyBlogLog: It is important to know your readers, and set your next content accordingly. It also helps you to build your own community of readers and its easier to announce new things to your readers that way. There are a couple of very useful widgets provided by MBL. One helps you to keep track of who visited your site recently (profile,blog they operate etc.).The other one keeps track of your most popular posts. Both of them help you to get closer to your readers. Go, join my community or if you dont want to, join MBL.
  5. Recent Comments Widget: It shows the recent comments on your blog; helps other to know what is being discussed on this blog and who is saying what. Again, helps to build a blog.
  6. Contests: Contests is always seen as greyhat SEO because many (almost 90%), don't use them as they ought to be used, atleast I think so. The essence of contests is to get out creative thoughts from your readers, on any topic you want. Not only it helps them participate actively, it also helps you to know who is good at what. If you want to see an example, participate in my One piece humor contest.
  7. Open Comments Night:I got this idea from Liz's Tues. Open Comments.Its a really great idea to help your readers speak up. Every week she chooses a new topic and everybody is invited to comment whatever they want about the topic. It gets a little fussy with all people speaking, you can integrate it into the forum on your blog. Stories are told and experiences are shared, as a result you get very close to your readers.
  8. Join forums:This is a little tiresome, but it helps you to know the people interested in the topic of your blog. Join forums related to your blog with high traffic and you will get to know a lot of people who are interested and are potentially loyal readers to our blogs. Mostly, you increase your blog traffic, but you might get to know some highly talented people and become friends. I met flanflinger on a cricket forum, and he is a regular reader now. He has even considered writing guest blog entries for me and since he is a high profile guy, I am sure it will get me more readers.
  9. Read your readers' blogs: Get into a habit of reading and commenting on blogs authored by your regular visitors. This keeps them interested and helps you to make new bonds.
  10. Backlink blogs: Whenever you blog about something you have read somewhere, make it a point to backlink to it. Don't copy paste their ideas, add your own inputs to it. These backlinks show up on the original blog and if that person likes your article, he might become a regular visitor. If you don't know much about backlinks, read this article on Backlinks.
These are just some of the ways, I am sure my readers know many more innovative ways. Please share your ideas with us in the comments. Always remember that your blog readers are your guests and should be treated appropriately.

14 comments:

Holly Schwendiman said...

Over at An Island Life this discussion of how to handle comments came up and I shared similar thoughts on how important it is to cultivate positive relationships with timely responses, return visits, etc. You really get what you give! I'd rather have 3 meaningful comments than 300 meaningless ones.

Hugs,
Holly
Holly's Corner

Basketer said...

Absolutely. It is always good to stress on quality instead of quantity. But, to get any kind of comments from users, you have to indulge them into your conversation , that was what I tried to pickup in this article.

Anonymous said...

I think the most important point in the context of a "web log" (which is changing anyway) is the notion of 'added value'. Unless you're specifically posting a set of links, a 'story/link'-specific post needs some additional input from the blogger. Nice post.

Anonymous said...

I like all of your points, particularly the backlinks section. I really did not understand the importance of backlinks until your piece and the links. Thanks!

Adrienne
ONE MILLION BOOKS!
'Notes From the MotherShip~Naked Invisibles'

Basketer said...

Kuiper and Adrienne, thanks for visiting. I am glad that you loved the post I wrote. This was my first n ways to ___ post, and I am planning to write many more, hope you like them too.

BillyWarhol said...

Some excellent tips for Bloggers basketer!!

All great but i like yer MyBlogLog one Best!

In fact i'm popping back there right now to add U as a Contact - i would have b4 but i find that 15 daily adds to be wayyyyyy too limiting!!

MBL is far & away the Best thing i've used that has Increased my Blog Traffic exponentially!

Typically my number of Daily Visitors was languishing around 100 but after joining MBL they've shot up to 400! Quite a Leap!!

Now mind U - u do have to put some Time + Effort into it as U rightly stated*

Cheers! Billy ;))

Peace*

Basketer said...

Yeah BIlly

I agree that MBL can get you a lot of traffic. The best thing about it is you see resluts immidiately, as you did. I have also seen a surge in my traffic recently. Keep producing quality content and using these tools we can get readers for us.

Lets Keep Blogging!

Arunima said...

hey mohit this post is pretty good n i did try 1 of the methods(shout box) on my blog.
Good Work!

Anonymous said...

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Adeel Imran said...

nice , i got 2 or 3 tips from these posts,

Sincerely,
Adeel
http://gobblerr.blogspot.com

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Berita Terbaru 2011 said...

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Extenze Scam said...

These backlinks show up on the original blog and if that person likes your article, he might become a regular visitor.

Unknown said...

Your blog is so excellent that I like it very much, you must be good at writing.

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