#2 – It improves your SEO by adding more user driven content.
As you might think from the name, the Comment Reward plugin rewards people for leaving comments on your blog, by sending them an email they will really WANT to receive. 😉
Why would you want to do this?
You know how people only go certain places because other people go there? And the only thing that makes the place popular is because – people go there – it’s a self fulfilling prophesy if you like.
Once the buzz is going, it doesn’t stop.
Just like real locations in the real world, a busy blog means more interest. The more interest you have, then the busier your blog. Makes sense doesn’t it?
I used to be a big fan of certain pubs just because they ran “happy hours” between 6-7 to liven things up a bit. My reward was cheaper beer. (Sadly, happy hours have since been outlawed in the UK…)
Just like real world promotions, if you reward your visitors, then they’re more likely to come back and make your blog look busy to other visitors.
What your visitors won’t find out until they leave a comment of their own is that you’re rewarding them for their comments by using the Comment Reward plugin.
They will get a welcome email from you which could contain some useful information, and could also have a link to a downloadable freebie.
You can create many of these reward emails depending on how many comments your readers leave and even tell them when the next reward will be available to them just to encourage them to leave more comments.
Once people know what’s going on the plugin virtually compells them to come and make comments on your blog. And if other people see your blog is busy because of all the comments, it encourages them to join in too.
More visitors, more comments, busier blog, more comments. People come back.
And so it goes round and round.
The result?
A really busy blog. More returning visitors, raving fans, and subscribers too if your offer is good enough.
Because let’s face it, someone might be okay with leaving a comment to begin with, but they might not want to subscribe to your mailing list.
However, if you reward them for their comment then they’re much more likely to be okay with signing up to your mailing list, especially if you make them a really good offer (more on this another time).
Do you want that?
You can get yourself going in the right direction just by installing the Comment Reward plugin.
-Frank Haywood
where’s the buy button??
Hi John,
It’s there now, but it’s entirely possible I set the wrong time – 7.00pm my time was when it was supposed to start…
-Frank
Where’s the demo? So frustrating every time you offer any plugin, there are no demo. I know your products are good, but at least let us see how thing works.
Hi Carl,
Thank you and okay, I’ll see what I can do.
-Frank
Hi, Frank
I purchased your “Comment Bait” plugin a couple of years ago. (Hated the name even at the time, but liked the functionality.) I assume this is an update of that plugin (with a much-improved name-change) and that purchasers of the old version can download the updated version. Is that a correct assumption?
If so… how should I go about that? I’ve never been able to cope with your system of a multitude of download pages for every individual product so should I submit a ticket?
Cheers! Hope the sale goes well; it’s a nice little plugin.
Hi Night Owl,
Yes, I never liked that name either and I thought of it. 😉
And that’s partly why I scrapped the product as it was about 2 years ago and let the domain expire. (There’re other reasons too.) This is a complete rewrite of that plugin and I think I want to make some more changes to it too, including adding in some “extras” but I need to have a think about how I go about that.
Yes please raise a support ticket and I’ll get you sorted out as I have a feeling I’m going to have a problem finding out who bought what back then.
And yeah it’s a nice litle plugin.
-Frank
Hi Frank,
Would this also work for enticing people into providing testimonials on my website?
Thanks,
David
Hi David,
I don’t see why not. It depends what you ask them to do, but I’ve often found that if you ask nicely then some people will go for it. You could for example say something like this in your first email:-
“Thanks for your comment, please accept this reward for doing so. You’ll get another gift after you leave five comments. 😉
But what I’d really like to know is what you think about xyz. Would you mind sharing your thoughts with me here?”
And then place a link where you want them to go to. 🙂
-Frank
Hi Frank,
Glad to see good ideas never die. I also purchased “Comment Bait”, but as wordpress was updated the plugin kept working, but it was harder to change the settings. Sometimes the settings page just wouldn’t show the emails, so you couldn’t change them.
Gary
Hi Gary,
Yep it’s a cracking concept and I think it could be taken a lot further.
I’ve just created you an order for Comment Reward and sent out an email from the system. Hopefully Yahoo won’t filter it out, but if they do just raise a support ticket and I’ll give you the download link there.
On the subject of email filtering I think it could be time for me to say a few things about email and deliverability. 😉
-Frank