Self-Devpt. Nuggets™

In my Blog Comments Multi-Post Series (see table of contents at the end of this post) published last year, I basically said “No” to the above question. If you’re in a rush, I’ll save you the hassle of reading this to the end to find out what I now think: I still say “No”: There is no tangible correlation (negative or positive) between a blog’s income earning performance and the volume of comments it receives.

Over 10 months of closely studying successful blogs/bloggers in a wide variety of niches inform my view.  If anybody has verifiable data that proves otherwise, I’d love to see it. As a Performance Enhancement Specialist, I have a Best Practice focus on establishing reproducible success formulas for venturing into various areas of endeavour.

This 1,500 word post offers you the most recent insights I’ve gained – from studying two famous bloggers (Patrick Meninga and Chris Guillebeau) – to reinforce my opinion.

1. Patrick Meninga’s 5 Year $200,000 Blogging Success Story Podcast Interview: Not Once Was Commenting Mentioned!

When I recently spent time studying Patrick Meninga’s amazing story about how he sold his blog for $200,000, I realized I needed to revisit the subject again.

NB: I recently published excerpts from my new e-book which discusses 21 lessons I learned about blogging for passive income (fromYaro Starak’s podcast interview of Patrick Meninga).

But no one seems to have caught on to ONE big MISSING in Patrick’s story it appears. I find it intriguing that Patrick NEVR once mentioned “blog comments” during that entire 60 minute interview! This is quite odd – considering how many bloggers sometimes even insist that if your blog is not getting comments, you’re effectively spinning your wheels.

It Was An Epiphany Of Gigantic Proportions For Me!

Think about it for a moment. If you have not listened to that comprehensive interview, listen to it here. You’ll agree with me that Yaro literally “downloaded” everything (so to speak) from Patrick about his journey to achieving his amazing success story.

All through that entire session, a constantly repeating theme was for Patrick to “tell listeners what he did…how he did it…what worked and so on.

If Patrick received any blog comments that made him realize he was doing well or succeeding, he would have mentioned it. I’m sure you agree with me. If the site’s commenting community (assuming he had one) had grown as he added more articles, and so inspiring him to continue, I think Patrick would have mentioned that too.

Instead this guy told us he focused on working hard, publishing new content regularly to a daily quota, monitoring search engine results/rankings, and building keywords lists with which to author new content.

Not once did he mention asking people to post comments on the WordPress site all through that interview. Not even once! Yet, the website visits grew…and grew…and grew until he was earning enough to quit his job (over $1,000 per month!).

But that was just the beginning. Eventually, he had the owner of a real world treatment center offer to BUY the website off him for over ten times the normal price that most website owners would ever hope to get theirs sold for ($200,000!).

It doesn’t end there. Since that sale over 2 years ago, the new owner of that website has continued to pay Patrick to write new articles for the website. Wow – talk about getting to eat your cake and having it at the same time!

Again, think about it: that implies the guy has had no regrets about buying the site. Otherwise Patrick would be on the run right now…if you know what I mean

All this came from a website that got more or less no comments worth mentioning.

Patrick achieved success with his website by loading content at a phenomenal rate (25 articles per day – and up to 400 articles per month!) into a website that was getting few or no comments from visitors.

Why Patrick’s Addiction Treatment Website Got Few Comments (My Take)

By way of interest, I spent some time thinking about it, and I came up with one likely reason why that website did not – and probably may never – receive any significant number of comments.

People interested in drug addiction rehabilitation or treatment are most likely to be those struggling with drug addition – or persons involved in caring for and helping such addicts recover.

Both groups are unlikely to be willing to broadcast their interest in such a website in publicly in a comments section

Update (25th March 2013):

This infographic published recently by Patrick (I got it via his e-mail broadcast 2 days ago) puts a dent in the theory I proposed above. It would appear the site did get many comments.

Whether contributors adopted aliases to feel “safe” in commenting is something that comes to my mind.

So does whether they were so worth mentioning to NOT be missed out in the interview…

In other words, I still find it quite striking (especially considering the impressive commenting activity the infographic reports he had), that not once did he mention comments in the extensive 60 minute analysis of his blog’s success. Not one time.

The way I see it, such a level commenting activity could also have pointed him in the direction of new topics to write on (or not) for instance. And that would have made an impression worthy of mention in the interview.

But then I guess sometimes things can skip a person’s mind…

Click here to take a look at the infographic, and draw your own conclusions to guide your blogging efforts

2. Chris Guillebeau Says “Don’t Let Comments Kill You!”

Chris achieved Internet fame by building a large following rapidly in a short period of time using blogging and social media. He’s the kind of person who should know.

I discovered Chris through his (Art of Non-Conformity) world domination mission’s first manifesto. It was emailed to me by Burt Dubin – creator of the Speaking Success System and mentor of some of the world’s highest paid speakers (whose products and services I promote to experts across Africa).

I remain forever grateful to Burt for that thoughtful gesture.

If you have not read Chris Guillebeau’s website and many useful manifestos you’re missing an opportunity to change the way you look at life and achieve true fulfillment! Click here to visit his website – there’s a lot to read and learn.

If you end up with a site that attracts lots of comments, it may go from giving you pleasure into a nightmare of sorts. That’s probably what comments management became for some famous people who chose to close comments on their blogs.

One example I mentioned in my series on my comments is Steve Pavlina. I wasn’t surprised to find him mentioned by Chris in his second PDF manifesto as well. Seth Godin is another famous person he mentioned.

When Steve did what he did, it caused a major uproar. Some predicted the demise of his site. Long after that we all know nothing of the sort has happened. Steve had carefully done a cost benefit analysis before pulling the plug on commenting.

At the end of the day, as a productivity expert, he was able to define what really mattered most for him to succeed. And comments management simply did not fit in.

Chris Guillebeau rightly points out that you don’t have to be famous to be able to “safely” dispense with comments on your blog if you feel so inclined. He offers the example of his friend, Naomi – who did just that and lived to tell the tale

So, it’s really up to you to decide.

This Is Not An Anti-Comments Post…Only a “Health Warning”

Keep in mind here that I’m not against allowing comments on your blog. What I’m saying is that in your writing and blogging efforts, avoid falling into the trap of drawing validation for continuing your work from the number – and type (read: positive or negative) – of comments you get from your blog.

If you do, you set yourself up for a potential “crisis”.

What happens for instance, if people suddenly stop commenting – for whatever reason? Or what if the number of people who comment starts dwindling? Even worse, what if more people start posting negative comments? All of these are real possibilities.

Think about it. If you started your blog with the right mindset, you would know that YOU should be in the driving seat of your blog’s evolution.

YOU should be working to a plan you prepared by yourself – or in collaboration with trusted others. It goes without saying that you may have to modify it based on input from others where necessary.

But for the most part this would be YOUR vision in motion, so to say. And that’s why focusing too greatly on whether or not you get comments, or whether the comments are in line with your expectations can be emotionally stressful.

Here’s my suggestion: Save your physical, emotional and intellectual energy for the most important tasks. The main one being keeping up your content creation and marketing. That’s the key to your ultimate success.

Final Words: Don’t Kill Your Enjoyment of Blogging By Fretting Over Comments

Commenting is an activity that many bloggers – some are top rated experts – readily brandish as a powerful indication of the success of their blogs. And  many of their followers use this as a measure of the value they should place on any blog they visit. And for their niches, they are probably right.

The web is literally packed with thousands of how-to articles explaining what you need to do to succeed in this highly visible blogging activity. And yet I have not found one post or article offering reliable data showing a tangible correlation between nurturing an active commenting community on a blog, and the success – I mean financial –  it achieves.

And that’s not surprising – at least to me. The insights I have shared in this article indicate it’s not a one size fits all thing. You cannot make a blanket statement about the importance of comments in measuring the progress or success of a blog or website.

Quite often it will depend on the topic/theme of the site, the nature of activity it discusses, and the preference of those who frequent the site, among other factors.

It therefore follows that a comment-less blog can become financially successful. Examples abound on the web – for anyone willing to look objectively.

One such website (with blog) is this one, from which Burt Dubin earns thousands of dollars in passive income year-in, year-out by selling speaker mentoring products and services to buyers all over the world.

So, don’t kill your enjoyment of blogging, with an unhealthy obsession with getting and managing comments.

Remember: you can still succeed even if you do NOT get any!

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Blog Comments Multi-Post Series – Table of Contents

Post 1: Should You Worry About Getting Blog Comments?
Post 2: Deciding If Your Blog Needs Comments To Succeed (5 Questions To Ask Yourself)
Post 3: Six Potentially Useful Measures of Your Blog’s Performance (Hint: Comments Vs. Five Others)
Post 4(Final): Using Your Blog To Make Money – Little Used Strategies You Can Exploit

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To get your FREE copy of the FULL ebook  titled “21 Valuable Lessons I Learnt About Blogging for Passive Income, from  Yaro Starak’s 60 Minute Podcast Interview with Patrick Meninga”, (Includes my 20 page VERBATIM text transcript of Yaro Starak’s 29MB podcast – with time stamps.) – send email to me via tayo at cbstudio.biz with “FREE Transcipt PDF EBook” in the subject line.