About Bev OwensBev Owens writes under the pen name BevsPaper on a variety of platforms. Her Native American Totems blog shares spiritual wisdom with her readers. Bev authors a blog sharing information about the American West at Old West Legends. Her work can also be found on Squidoo and Webnuggetz. Her Google+ profile is: Beverly Owens, she would love to be in one of your circles.
Should I Answer The Comments?
It might take a little while before you start to get comments on your beginners blog. Are you wondering, “Should I answer the comments?” The short answer is yes but it can get a little more involved sometimes because it depends on the comment you have received.
Obviously, you want to build a rapport with your readers. Common courtesy dictates an acknowledgement that someone took the time to comment on your blog. Not all of your comments are going to be woven from the same cloth, though. Sometimes the person leaving the comment will be genuine and leaving a positive comment. While others are just trying to gain some recognition for their own purposes. It won’t take long for you to tell the difference.
To be honest I have a tendency to delete more comments than I let pass through because they do seem to be of the “self serving” nature. If the comment is “Nice post” or “great blog”, I usually click the delete button and move on. If they leave a comment that has some relevance to my post, I will let that go through. Sometimes I will respond with a polite thank you for visiting and sometimes it doesn’t seem that necessary. In the beginning stages of your blog, you might want to respond with that “thank you for visiting” comment.
I love it when someone stops by one of my blogs and asks a question because that creates a situation where a dialogue might continue and spark some added interest to the post or the blog itself. Those are meaningful and relevant to your blog and show other readers that you do like to interact with them. It also shows you that the person who left the comment is truly interested in your topic and will probably be a return visitor to your blog.
Comments are a good way to build those all important relationships with people on the internet. How do you know if you have a comment to answer or approve? The beauty of a blog is that you get an e-mail letting you know that there is a comment waiting for approval. Oh, when setting up your blog be sure to mark that comments have to be approved first…it keeps those spammers at bay.