Quick! Before anyone sees how sad and lonely your blog is.

I’ve just read an article on how to increase blog traffic, where one of the tips is to not allow comments until you have 100+ feed subscribers and 750 unique visitors a day.

O Rly?

So I should just delete the 2000 odd comments I’ve had on this blog, because they show it for the low traffic sad act that it is?

Now the blog that posted this has the stats to back up it’s status, and this  advice will no doubt work in certain niche’s where community is less important than traffic, but this kind of blanket advice could spoil things for new bloggers before they even get started. Personally speaking, I very quickly get bored with blogs that don’t offer comments as there’s simply no interactivity-I don’t subscribe to them, and I rarely revisit. Maybe that’s just me?

When you see a blog with few comments, but half-decent content are you more likely to think:

a. ‘Ah, a new blogger, I’ll drop them off a few comments to get them started’.

b. ‘What a sad waste of space this is - I’m not leaving a comment here, nor ever coming back again.’

I’ll happily subscribe and comment on a new blog with few comments, if the subject interests me - I remember what it was like to be there. Additionally, a couple of blogs  I posted on months ago when all was quiet, have gone on to bigger and better things, and in fact every blog I’ve been reading for any length of time has shown an increase in comments - and that’s what it’s about, giving it time.

Switch off comments? Don’t do it people…..