If you’re a new user to WordPress, then you’re probably perfectly content with the comment features you already have. You may not yet realize the positive effect that adding a comment plugin (or three) can have on your site.
Better comment functions are a great way to encourage discussion and build community on your blog or website. Whether your goal is to encourage people to leave comments, reward them for doing so or even just make your comments look better, there is a WordPress plugin that will do the trick.
Try these 5 WordPress comment plugins to enhance your blog.
DoFollow
This plugin lets users leave links that are then picked up by search engines. In fact, many people specifically search out “Do Follow” blogs. If you’re having trouble getting the conversation started, DoFollow will do the trick. One word of warning though, before adding this one, make sure you have good spam plugins installed and filters in place.
And, if you’re looking for a few good backlinks, you’ll appreciate DoFollow sites when you comment on other blogs and notice your links are then being picked up by search engines as well.
CommentLuv
The CommentLuv plugin for WordPress encourages other bloggers to leave comments on your site by including a link to their last post or tweet. The plugin fetches the feed found at your commenters site URL. Then, when they submit their comment the last blog post link gets added onto the end of their comment for all to see. The CommentLuv website offers tools for enabling this feature on a variety of blogs, not just WordPress.
Gravatar
Gravatars don’t require a plugin, but they’re too fun to ignore.
You can turn them on or off from the admin area in WordPress (Settings > Discussion). Almost every well-known blog or website offers the ability to have a thumbnail show up beside their comment. When users are signed in, their Gravatar automatically appears beside their comment.
Get Recent Comments
Get Recent Comments is a plugin that makes your blog more social by displaying recent comments the sidebar. Simply choose where you want it in your sidebar and set your options and it will display recent comments based on your settings. You can control how the comments are displayed: number of comments, the length of the comment excerpt, order comments by post ID or by date, separate out the trackbacks or ignore comments to certain categories. The plugin even offers support for gravatars.
Echo
Compatible with various blogging platforms, Echo is a commenting system that turns your blog into real-time stream of diggs, tweets, comments and more. Using the Echo for WordPress plugin you can share your content, then watch the live reaction. Echo adds the ability for users to use and large handful of different social media tools to share your posts and you can also enable voting so that users can rate your posts. Existing comments from WordPress are imported into Echo and both Echo and the WordPress native commenting system remain synchronized.
Disqus is another good WP Plugin because it brings in social media discussions about th blog post as well.
Wishing you a picture perfect day!
Don’t forget “subscribe to comments” Seems like an obvious one, but surprising how many sites don’t have it.
@Leslie So true. Subscribe to comments is a great plugin. I’ve used it on several sites. In fact, we should probably add it on TutorialBlog too. Thanks for the reminder!
yeah .. I agree with Barbara I used it too
Hey! These are some great tips! I have a wordpress blog too. You should check it out.
It seems that Echo is a great tool to gain traffic