Getting and using feedback

You can easily boost your blog articles if you have and use comments. A good way to do this is to ask people to read your article and get them to tell you how they think you could improve it. You may not be able to do this for every article, but doing it even occasionally can help give your blog a fresh perspective.

The best people to ask are:

Fellow bloggers who understand what you do. Sure, your old high school buddy would turn it brilliantly into a quality test - but he may have no idea what works in the blogging world.

Thoughtful readers who have been following your blog for a while. Maybe you've exchanged comments or emails with a reader and built a great relationship: they might enjoy having the opportunity to review one of your draft articles.

Professor VPG-PNGDon't reach out to the top bloggers in your niche to ask for information about your article plans. Yes, they may have great advice to share, but they are unlikely to have the time to do so and trying to start a relationship by asking a favor is not a good idea.

You don't have to use every suggestion you get, but pay close attention to anything that isn't clearly written or that your reader may have misunderstood. Even if it seems obvious, rewrite.

If you're not sure about a particular suggestion, get a second opinion. It's also a good idea to spend the night before applying (or rejecting) any feedback you receive. You'll find that taking a break allows you to see things in a more objective light.

Once you've clicked "publish" ...

Your article is complete and published ... but your work is not finished. Click, unless you have a very large audience "Publish" is hardly enough to draw many readers to your article. Although some bloggers like to believe that really good content will be found and shared, the truth is that you'll almost certainly have to lend a hand.

(Of course, writing great content is paramount: try to strike a balance between creating content and promoting it)

Reply to comments

Once your article goes live, take the time to respond to comments. Many readers who don't leave a comment will still scroll down to the bottom and check out the comments section. So consider this an important part of your article.

Ideally you will need:

Reply to all of your comments (unless they are very short like "Thanks, good article!"). You don't have to reply to every comment immediately, but if you leave comments unanswered for days in a row, it doesn't make a good impression on new readers.

Remove any spam comments, Plugins like Akismet do a lot of the work for you, but it's always good to act quickly to remove any spam. You can also remove offensive comments (such as those that contain racist or sexist comments).

If you're having trouble getting feedback, you can send an email to a blogger friend (or a loyal reader) and ask them to get the ball rolling. There are lots of other great tips on how to get more feedback.