Are comments highly overrated?

September 11, 2011 by John Dilbeck · 29 Comments
Filed under: Affiliate Marketing, Blogging, Business, NovaMind, Sitesell and Site Build It, Success and Failure, WordPress 

I have been debating this topic with myself for several years and I decided now is the time to bring it out into the open and ask the question, here.

(Yes, I recognize the irony in asking you to comment about whether comments are overrated.)

I have built multiple websites, blogs, forums, and social communities over the years. With the exception of the websites, I have tried to start discussions that would lead to more understanding and different viewpoints about topics in which I am particularly interested.

I have been a miserable failure in that endeavor.

It seems that the people who want to discuss the issues don’t want to buy anything, and the people who click and buy what I promote don’t want to talk about it. They just want to buy it and get on with their own activities.

Yes, a few kind and learned souls have added comments to the discussions that have added to the topics, but most commenters, I am now sure, are more interested in getting a backlink than they are in the discussion.

I’m testing my theory

So, as of today, as a test, I have turned off both CommentLuv and the dofollow plug-in. I’ll see for myself over the course of the next few months whether the readers and commenters on this site will slow and/or disappear, or whether there are real, live people who are interested in the topics about which I write.

I have updated item number 4 on my Comments Policy to reflect this change.

As far as I know, there is no way to set CommentLuv to leave the old links on the comments, so that means all of the CommentLuv comments are now gone.

That one part of the test may very well doom this blog to oblivion…

…if I am correct in assuming that people comment more for the backlinks than they do for wanting to take part in the discussion.

This is one more test in an ongoing series of marketing tests I have run over the last decade.

I enjoy the social aspect of blogging and commenting

I enjoy talking to real people who comment and add to the discussion at hand. I enjoy thinking about differing viewpoints. Some of them make me re-think my own understanding of a topic and some actually change my mind.

I really dislike having to moderate my comments.

I hate dealing with all the spam, and it is getting increasingly difficult to discern whether it is a real person commenting, or a hired wordslinger, or a well-programmed robot.

Will the readership of this blog drop?

Will disabling CommentLuv and going back to the no-follow default for WordPress blogs make a difference in the number of people who respond to my diatribes?

I’m betting it will.

I’m betting that the number of readers and the number of commenters will drop. Perhaps it will drop precipitously.

How will the test affect profits from this blog?

I’m also betting that it won’t make a bit of difference to the profit I can track back to this blog. It has never earned nearly as much as my tier-structured websites.

Now that I am adding Facebook comments to those sites, I’ll see if comments are as important as I once thought they were.

Blog or build websites?

Ken Evoy, founder of Sitesell, Inc., has been saying for years that building well-structured, niche-oriented websites will produce more profits than blogging, and I have been having an internal argument with myself about that topic since he first wrote about it.

I like blogging. It’s easy. It’s inexpensive. It’s fun.

However, for me, it does not produce profits.

Blogs are, however, good for when I want to express my opinions about something that has just happened or a new development, whether or not it qualifies as news. That’s what blogs excel at doing. Their reverse-chronological structure is ideal for late-breaking news and/or developments, so I’ll most likely continue to use this blog for that purpose — regardless of the outcome of this test.

I get an idea, do some quick research, and write a new post to the blog. Depending upon the topic and how much I want to say about it, this can take from a few minutes to two or three hours of work.

It’s different when building a money-making website.

I plan those sites carefully. (Sometimes it doesn’t look like it, however.)

I do weeks or months of keyword research. Then, I research my competitors for the keywords I intend to write about. Then, I research ways I can monetize the pages I write.

I’ve been planning for several months on how I’m going to revamp my Act On Your Dream! site, and it will take me a few more weeks to finish the plans and start writing the pages. I know going into this project that it will be profitable. Perhaps quite profitable.

I know how the site will be structured, how the various topics fit with the central theme, and how I will monetize each page, before I write it.

I have brainstormed and organized sections and topics for the site (using NovaMind mind mapping software) and I’ve almost completed building a site blueprint that I’ll finish before rebuilding the site.

I have prepared reader profiles and will write each page to appeal to that particular person. (As well as I can.)

Each page will have one most wanted response (MWR) and I’ll offer two or three secondary actions that I’ll encourage. For most pages, the most wanted response is for someone to click a link and go buy what I’m recommending. Failing that, I want the reader to subscribe to my newsletter (which I’ll resume writing). Finally, if they don’t do either of those, I hope they’ll click on an Adsense ad or look at another page on the site.

The pages will be simple so that readers aren’t confused by a plethora a links as they are on this blog. People said I needed a three-column blog theme with links to lots of things and RSS feeds from my other sites, so I tested it. It has not increased my profits.

I will be changing Act On Your Dream! to a three column format, but it will not look like this blog. I’ll test the three columns. If it increases my income, I’ll continue to use it. If it does not increase my profits, I’ll go back to a simple two column format.

Readers tend to look at more pages and stay on that type of site longer than they do on a blog. Bounce rates are lower, time on page is higher, the number of pages viewed per visit is higher, and profits are higher — all without commenting.

I like the social aspects of commenting.

This was especially true over the last three years when I was sick and mostly unable to work. The online discussions got me through some days when I felt horrible, had no energy, or was in quite a lot of pain.

Now that I’m better, it’s time to get back to work and earn my keep, again. It’s time to do my best and move off of disability and food stamps and back to being a productive tax-paying member of society.

I am grateful for the assistance I got when I was unable to care for myself, but it’s time to move forward.

I just don’t think that blogs will do that for me. I’ve tested them for years and that’s the conclusion I have come to, reluctantly.

Please sir, can we have a blog module on SBI?

I even asked Ken Evoy on the private members-only forum for SBI subscribers, if he would ever add a blogging-with-comments module to SBI, and he said that would not happen. Blogging just doesn’t fit into the structure of an SBI-style tier-structured website.

So, I tried for months to think of a way to trick the system, and never found one that would work. I was pretty hard-headed and stubborn about this.

SBI gets Face-It!

So, now, I can have my cake and eat it, too, and it isn’t nearly the treat I expected.

SBI now has a module that helps us promote our pages on social networking sites. Click a button and it’s active. It’s called Socialize-It! (Note that all the modules end with an exclamation point and that sometimes makes for awkward sentences.)

Actually, Socialize-It! has been around for awhile, but it’s changing and merging with Face-It!

Sitesell recently introduced Face-It! version 1, which makes it easy for us to add Facebook Like buttons to our pages, and we can optionally add Facebook comments to the pages, too.

I thought that would be great. Less spam, because someone has to be a Facebook member to comment and there is less anonymity, as well, and now people could discuss the topics I wrote about.

Each page can have lots of comments, and that will percolate through the Facebook system and bring more readers. The jury is still out on this, but I don’t expect it to bring a deluge of new readers. I’m open to the possibility.

You know what?

Now that I have comments on my SBI sites, it’s really a let-down. I’m disappointed. It seems to me that comments are highly overrated and just add work. I don’t see any change in income and there have been only a few comments, so far.

I think the main reason for this is that the readers of my tier-structured websites are not commenting because they are not bloggers who mainly want backlinks to their blogs.

So, now, we’ll see what happens when I de-emphasize comments on this blog.

By de-emphasizing comments on the blog and offering comments on the website, will there really be any change in profits and my workload?

Has Ken been right all along?

Have I wasted years of efforts in building blogs, forums, and communities? Would all that effort have been better directed to building more and better niche-oriented websites using SBI.

I’ve almost come to the conclusion that he was right, all along. At least, for me and the things in which I’m interested.

I freely admit that Ken Evoy is a much better businessman than I am. He is a millionaire several times over (before founding Sitesell and creating SBI) and he builds real businesses that employ people around the world. SBI has tens of thousands of customers, also around the world.

Not only does he have more experience, but I believe he has a better, more refined thought process about building a business.

I’ve been happy — and remain happy — with my little microbusiness that makes it possible for me to work at home in my home office, or out on the front porch, in these beautiful mountains of western North Carolina. I’m living where I want to live, doing what I want to do, and I’m not interested in building a multi-million dollar business.

I would enjoy, however, earning more than I have the last couple of years!

So, what will I do after the test is over?

That remains to be seen.

I’m going to let this test run until the end of the year.

Disabling the CommentLuv plug-in may have doomed this blog, already. If that proves to be true, then I’ll repurpose most of the content that I’ve written here and move what is appropriate to my income-producing websites.

I am already starting to plan for a website that will replace this blog, if it becomes necessary. Yes, it will be powered by SBI. Yes, it will take more work. Yes, I’ll happily pay another $300 per year to build and host it using the SBI system.

What do you think?

I welcome your opinions, thoughts, and observations.

Act on your dream!

JD

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Comments Policy – a reminder

June 6, 2011 by John Dilbeck · 18 Comments
Filed under: Policies 

This is just a quick reminder that I have adopted a Comments Policy for this blog.

I continue to delete good comments because the writer does not follow the policy, and I’ll continue doing so.

You must use your name. No keywords, no name@keywords, no websites, no company names. Your Name.

If you choose to ignore the policy, I will delete your comment.

Now and then, if I’m in a good mood and have the time, I may edit your name and accept the comment, but don’t count on it.

I love comments from real people who want to add to the discussion. You are always welcome here and I look forward to talking with you.

Act on your dream!

JD

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Quick review of my comments policy

March 18, 2011 by John Dilbeck · 8 Comments
Filed under: Policies 

If you are new to this site, you may not be aware of my comments policy.

Please read it before you submit any comments.

I have not made any changes recently, so any readers who have been here awhile already know its contents.

I have been getting a lot of comments that are marginal, and a very few good comments. I would have approved the latter, if you had followed the rules I’ve established for this site.

I will not approve any comments that don’t have your name listed as the author. Any comment, no matter how good it is, will be deleted if you use keywords, a business name, a website URL, or anything other than a name. That’s final.

This site is for PEOPLE talking to PEOPLE. Anything else is unacceptable.

Act on your dream!

JD

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New Comments Policy

November 4, 2009 by John Dilbeck · 10 Comments
Filed under: Blogging 

(This is a follow-up to my post about comments: Why do I accept or delete comments?)

Today, I adopted a new Comments Policy for this blog.

It’s pretty straightforward and in line with things I’ve said before. I don’t think any regular reader of this site will be surprised.

It all boils down to a few simple principles: I want to know who you are, don’t use keywords in your comment link, play nice in this sandbox, and add to the discussion.

Starting today, no matter how good your comment is, if you use keywords in the link, *poof*, it’s gone. Deleted.

Use your name. I only want to talk to real people. If you don’t like that, please leave and go elsewhere, preferably offline.

Add to the discussion. The only reason I have comments active here is because I want to hear your view on the topic. I want to share what I know and learn from others.

If you want to leave a comment here, read the policy.

And, again, I want to thank all the other people who leave thoughtful, informed comments that add to the discussions and help us all increase our knowledge and skills.

Good discussions bring a blog to life and I’m very happy that there are some great people adding to the quality of this site. Thank you.

Act on your dream!

JD

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Why do I accept or delete comments?

October 2, 2009 by John Dilbeck · 11 Comments
Filed under: Blogging, Musings 

Even though I have had little to say on this blog for the last month or so, I’ve been here reading the comments that have been submitted, and I’m sad to say that the great majority of them have been deleted. Some have been submitted to Askimet as spam.

I don’t like doing that.

I deliberately set up this blog to follow comment links and I think that’s fair if you’re going to take the time to contribute to our discussions.

However, the word “contribute” is the key word in that sentence.

A one sentence response telling me I’m doing a good job just isn’t contributing to the conversation, and I delete those. I’ve deleted several dozen of these non-helpful comments over the last month.

Trying to spam this blog with off-topic comments, especially when they link to sites I’d never link to, is a good way to get sent to the spam page where your comments will be deleted and reported to Askimet.

If you want me to approve your comment and welcome you, then there are several things you should do.

Tell me who you are.

Either use your name as the link back to your blog or sign the comment with your name. Preferably first and last name.

A marginal comment with a name in the link and the comment will generally be approved.

However, if you use keywords or the name of your site in your link, that’s one strike against you.

If you don’t use your name in the link and don’t sign your comment, that’s a second strike against you.

If your comment is marginal and you have two strikes against you, I’ll delete it. This isn’t baseball, so I don’t have to wait for three strikes.

On the other hand, even if you have two strikes against you and your comment is relevant, useful, and adds to the conversation, I will usually approve it.

I like talking to real people, not keywords and not site names.

I’m going to be even more strict about this in the future.

As much as I enjoy discussing these topics, I hate not knowing to whom I am talking.

There are other reasons I would delete a comment, but I don’t feel a need to go into all of them here.

Once I get back on track to where I feel like I can add information related to affiliate marketing, I’ll resume posting here.

I’ll be looking forward to your comments and discussions, as long as you are a real person who treats me like a real person, too.

Act on your dream!

JD

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Small towns, social networks, and communicating

December 28, 2008 by John Dilbeck · 14 Comments
Filed under: Blogging, Business Networking, Communities, Social Networking 

During this time between Christmas and the new year, I’m doing a lot of thinking about what I plan to accomplish in 2009.

I am narrowing my focus and will be concentrating on just two areas: 1. affiliate marketing and 2. promoting businesses in Murphy, NC.

That means I will stop doing many of the things I’ve been doing. I’ll stop blogging on a lot of different topics and I’ll close down blogs and websites in January that are not related to my two primary areas of interest.

It also means that I’m going to be much more active in my community than I’ve been able to be for the last several years – both online and offline. Yes, that means that I’m actually going to leave my cave and talk to real people in the real world, again.

I really love living near Murphy, NC. I love the people, the small town atmosphere, the scenery, and being away from the big cities.

I don’t like how hard it can be to meet new people and to earn a living here. Sometimes, I think the two go hand in hand. In order to earn a living, perhaps new people in our area need a way to tap into the changing social networks and to make friends with people who know where the jobs are and can hire them.

Today, I was reading an interesting article at SocialMediaToday.com, How Small Towns are Social Networks, and it sparked some ideas I wanted to share with the author.

I agree with her observation that small towns are social networks and the photo of the bulletin board with all the business cards reminds me of several similar boards in Murphy.

I was wondering how one can best combine the offline networks of bulletin boards and newspapers with the online networks of Twitter, Facebook, and local portals and forums.

If the businesses are mostly promoting offline and the potential customers and employees are increasingly going online, how do we combine these networks so that it is easy to connect and to get to know each other?

Maybe I’m a bit uncommon as compared to most of the people here in western North Carolina. Instead of reaching for the yellow pages to find a phone number, I search on Google. Only if I can’t find what I’m looking for online would I consider going offline.

Yet, I believe most of the people in this area approach this type of information gathering first from the offline world, and many of them never go online for local searching.

I don’t have any data to back this up, it’s just a feeling from having talked to people.

With the price of offline advertising going up and online advertising going down, how long will it be before the businesses bring most of their marketing activities online?

How long will it be before the residents of Cherokee County take their local information gathering activities online, primarily?

How can I position myself and my services to help put these two groups together so we can all benefit?

As I said, I had some ideas I wanted to share with the author of the blog I was reading, so I was ready to comment and saw the following: “To Comment on this post, you must first register. Click here”

Sigh…

I really had something I wanted to say, so I registered, something I am doing much less of now than I used to do.

Over an hour later, I’m still waiting for the authentication email so I can post my comment, and you know what? I’ve lost interest. Even if I get the email now, I won’t bother activating my account just to post a comment.

Yes, I was a hot prospect then, but I’ve gone completely cold, now.

I even clicked on the link to the original post, but it, too, requires registration. That link takes me to Reddit, and that’s not what I’m looking for. I want a way to contact her directly.

Wait a second, that’s not accurate. Over an hour ago, I wanted a way to contact her directly and carry on the conversation. Now, not so much.

No more. I’m no longer interested.

I think back to just a few months ago when I changed my primary blog to this one with the main goal of making it easier for my friends and visitors to join in the conversations by commenting. It is working out very well, and I’m making friends with fellow bloggers around the world.

I would have enjoyed exchanging ideas with the author of the article I mentioned, but I can’t even see her profile without registering.

To top it off, there are links to the Twitter profiles of three people in the article who are referenced only indirectly, but there is no link to her Twitter profile that I can see. I did a search on Google, and I think I found her Twitter profile, but the photo is different and I’m not sure it’s her.

So, while she makes some good points about social networking, the way I found her has been time-consuming and frustrating.

It turns out that I followed the URL on her Twitter profile to her website and confirmed that she was the author of the article. To her credit, her own blog has links to her email address, Twitter profile, and Skype accounts. Not only that, but the article makes it easy to comment and she even uses CommentLuv. See it here: How Small Towns are Social Networks

Had I found the article on her actual blog instead of a syndicated version of it on SocialMediaToday.com, I would have been much more likely to have joined in the conversation and I would not have felt so frustrated trying to find a way to communicate with her.

Now, I’ve opened up at least one door by following her on Twitter.

Perhaps I’ll even find the motivation to share my thoughts with her on her blog – if I can remember what they were.

In the long run, what will I remember about this experience? Will it be her insights on local networking or will it be the frustration of trying to communicate?

So, how does this apply to affiliate marketing?

What are you doing to make it easy to establish conversations with your visitors? How well is it working?

Maybe you are doing a good job of conversing on your blog, but what happens when your content is syndicated elsewhere? Are roadblocks thrown up needlessly? Why? What can you do about them?

If you recommend a product or service as an affiliate, do you make it easy for prospects to contact you to gather further information or to clarify any points you’ve made?

Do you respond to those requests in a timely manner? Do you provide additional information? Do you answer the specific questions that are asked?

In my opinion, the main point of having a blog is to start a conversation.

What are you doing to make it easier for your reader to respond to you?

What are you doing to make it more difficult?

Are you even aware of things that may make it more difficult?

Truly, I don’t want to pick on her, because she’s doing the right things on her own blog. Still, I found her article on another site that is syndicating her content, and finding a way to join in the conversation was difficult and time-consuming.

Is that her fault, or is it the fault of the site that syndicated her article?

I don’t see it as her fault, at all. It seems to me to be the unintended consequences of social networking extending our reach to other sites that may not make it so easy to participate as our own sites do.

In the long run, it will probably be worth an hour of frustration, because I found someone who shares some of the same interests I do. Now that I’ve found her blog, and just now subscribed to it, I’ll look forward to reading what she has to say, and it will be easy, then, to join in the conversation, should I want.

I’m going to take a short break and see if I can work up the enthusiasm I originally had to join her conversation, now that I’ve found it.

Act on your dream!

JD

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