alex sysoef
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Jul 24 2008

Get Personal With Your Commenters – Boost Your Subscribers (Video Guide)

{42 Comments}

Best way to boost your blog popularity is by converting your visitors into readers. Nothing can beat loyalty of repeat visitors because they actually like what you have to say. But how do you accomplish such a difficult task?

Many people don’t necessary arrive to your blog on your front page and might have landed on page that interested them but wasn’t the best example of your work. How do you draw people deeper into your blog and present them with your best work. Well, if they commented – you have an excellent option!

I want to present to you a [tag-tec]WordPress plugin[/tag-tec] I have found to be incredibly useful on my own blog and I will actually show you step-by-step how to install and configure it. Plugin called Comments Relish and it will email each First Time commenter with your personal message – there is your chance to draw the person in. Watch the video for details.

Relevant resources:

Update: Unfortunately original plugin has a resource utilization issues and can cause problems on shared hosting. But fear not. Here is a link to a blog post where all those issues have been addressed and plugin works quite nicely.

NOTE: If your blog sends email to every comment made by a persona on your blog you need to take a look at database and determine if cr_emailed table was created. It supposed to do it during activation but failed to work for me. Here is SQL code you can use to create a table (special thanks to Patchlog for pointing it out):

[mysql]CREATE TABLE wp_cr_emailed (
emailed_ID mediumint(9) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
time bigint(11) DEFAULT ‘0′ NOT NULL,
email varchar(255) NOT NULL,
UNIQUE KEY emailed_ID (emailed_ID),
INDEX ( email )
);[/mysql]

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Filed under Site Promotion, WordPress

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Technorati: comments-relish, rss-feed, site promotion, video-tutorial, wordpress, wordpress-plugins,

42 Responses to “Get Personal With Your Commenters – Boost Your Subscribers (Video Guide)”

  1. Geek Hacks (3 comments.) says:
    August 16, 2007 at 10:09 am

    Hey there,
    Thanks for sharing us this great WP plugin, I’m just going to install and test it on my blogs.

    Cheers.

    Reply
  2. Geek Hacks (3 comments.) says:
    August 16, 2007 at 10:24 am

    TheSpot-er, could I also ask you what plugin are you using for the “Share This” feature under each blog post?
    Thank you.

    Reply
  3. Geek Hacks (3 comments.) says:
    August 16, 2007 at 10:58 am

    Great! Thank you very much for answering my questions.

    Reply
  4. Patrick Burt (2 comments.) says:
    August 16, 2007 at 12:40 pm

    I’ve been looking for this plugin for a while and just stumbled upon your article randomly. Cheers and thanks m8! *bookmarked*

    Reply
  5. Brian (1 comments.) says:
    September 17, 2007 at 2:18 am

    Hi Alex,

    Great plug-in. Can’t wait to use it. Your blogging info has been a real blessing to me as someone that is relatively new to blogging.

    Best regards,

    Brian

    Reply
  6. Reinaldo Reyes (1 comments.) says:
    September 18, 2007 at 9:43 pm

    Alex,

    Thanks for sharing all your Word press knowledge. Your Web 2.0 product is the best investment I’ve made, even after the purchase you keep on giving to your customers and subscribers.

    thanks

    Regards

    Reinaldo

    Reply
  7. Fab (1 comments.) says:
    October 8, 2007 at 11:42 am

    Hi Alex,
    I installed comment relish yesterday… and I mention it here : http://www.fabnetrevenue.com/2.....lishments/

    Thanks for the video.

    Reply
  8. Steve (1 comments.) says:
    November 10, 2007 at 5:14 am

    Alex,

    Thanks for this video – I had heard so much about this particular plug-in, so I downloaded it, installed it an….err….stalled!

    Now I’ve got this, I’ll give it another shot, with at least some hope in my poor, forlorn heart that I might this time succeed!

    Thanks again

    Steve

    Steve’s last blog post..Writers Cramp

    Reply
  9. Donnie Graham (2 comments.) says:
    November 29, 2007 at 10:13 am

    Hi Alex

    I’ve just installed the Comments Relish plugin. Easy as usual with your excellent video help.
    Thanks

    Donnie

    Donnie Graham’s last blog post..Help in the Kitchen

    Reply
  10. Luciano Passuello (1 comments.) says:
    January 3, 2008 at 1:07 pm

    Thanks for this great video presentation. I wish there was an option to delay the relish e-mail (to give a more natural feeling to it), but that doesn’t seem to be the case.
    Thanks again!

    Luciano Passuello’s last blog post..Happy New Year, Every Week

    Reply
  11. Len says:
    February 6, 2008 at 2:53 am

    Hi Alex!

    Great post! Nice video…very informative.

    One thing, I used the contraction, in the subject area of the email for and when I upgraded preferences it changed to .
    Went back and changed it to     , upgraded prefs and it was fine. Not sure if that’s on my end or a glitch.

    Len

    Reply
  12. Dick Ingersoll (1 comments.) says:
    June 2, 2008 at 8:33 am

    Alex,

    It appears this plugin is no longer available do you know of a replacement?

    Dick

    Reply
  13. TheSpot-er (971 comments.) says:
    July 24, 2008 at 8:29 am

    This post was re-posted to provide an updated (better) video and because I think it is still very relevant and deserves attention!

    Alex

    Reply
  14. Barbara Ling, Virtual Coach (19 comments.) says:
    July 24, 2008 at 8:46 am

    Excellent resource, thanks! I’ll certainly check it out today.

    Enjoy, Barbara

    Reply
  15. Justin@Airsoft Rifles (12 comments.) says:
    July 24, 2008 at 12:50 pm

    That is a fantastic plug-in! I could see immediately sending out a message to first time commenters as increasing retaining rates by at least 10 or 20%, maybe even more if the message is written properly.

    Reply
  16. dan@truecrime (2 comments.) says:
    July 24, 2008 at 7:42 pm

    another brilliant article Alex.

    Im on a vps server but still had a bit of trouble and had to manually create the db table but all is good. will test it out and when its set up I will put it on my live site.

    Reply
  17. Patchlog (2 comments.) says:
    July 25, 2008 at 3:30 am

    Here is the correct “create table” statement you have to use in case the plugin doesn’t create the table:

    CREATE TABLE wp_cr_emailed (
    emailed_ID mediumint(9) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
    time bigint(11) DEFAULT ‘0′ NOT NULL,
    email varchar(255) NOT NULL,
    UNIQUE KEY emailed_ID (emailed_ID),
    INDEX ( email )
    );

    Note the extra index for the email field that will help a lot when you have a lot of comments on your site.

    Patchlogs last blog post..Scour: The socially search engine

    Reply
  18. Erika@Web Design Miami (6 comments.) says:
    July 31, 2008 at 5:24 pm

    Forgive me, but I think that I have the comments + post confused – so we can use the plugin AND the http://patchlog.com/wordpress/.....sh-plugin/ addition to get it to work? Gosh, after all of that, will it still be compatible with 2.6?

    Erikas last blog post..Miami Web Design

    Reply
  19. Olly@Computer Components (7 comments.) says:
    August 4, 2008 at 6:27 am

    That’s a pretty good plugin – It sure seems to work with your blog. I see many people comment and many, including myself return to your blog for the latest updates!

    Keep up the good work

    Reply
  20. Dwayne (5 comments.) says:
    October 13, 2008 at 6:45 pm

    Nice article. Great video too. I have it set up and am patiently waiting for a comment. : )

    Reply
  21. Dwayne (5 comments.) says:
    October 14, 2008 at 5:36 pm

    After a comment was posted, I checked to see if the table was created, and it was not, so I tried the SQL statement.
    Not sure if anyone else has had issues with the SQL posted here, but I did. I ended up creating everything manually. It was a little daunting but I got the tables set up correctly ( I hope : ) ). I kept getting an error when using the supplied SQL. It kept telling me I had bad syntax with the unique key line.

    Setting it up manually with PHPmyadmin, I didn’t know what: UNIQUE KEY emailed_ID (emailed_ID), or INDEX ( email ) were, but I finally figured out how to accomplish it.

    Is there a way to tell if it is working correctly? I am not 100% positive my tables are correct.

    Reply
  22. Kim Dion (8 comments.) says:
    November 17, 2008 at 7:13 pm

    Alex that was a great email just in time because I got a comment today. That is a nice feature sort of like an autoresponder and people will like to see that ther comment was read. I have never gotten a thank you for a comment other than from you.

    Hey, Alex how do we get the photos to show on our comments. Adds a nice personal touch.

    You are the Blog King…

    Kim Dion

    Kim Dions last blog post..Eliminate Google CPC High Keyword Cost!

    Reply
    • TheSpotter (397 comments.) says:
      November 18, 2008 at 8:28 am

      Thanks for the compliment Kim,

      On picture – just go create an account with http://en.gravatar.com/. Every time you comment using email address registered with them – it will place your picture with comment on those blgos that support it. It has to be integrated into theme. Your EWP theme has it. I left one comment for you today and once you approve – you will see my mug on your blog.

      Reply
  23. Paunchiness (1 comments.) says:
    November 17, 2008 at 7:15 pm

    Alex-
    looks like a great plug-in. I am going to give it a whirl over at my blog.

    Paunchinesss last blog post..Vitamin C and Weight Loss

    Reply
  24. reanka (3 comments.) says:
    January 27, 2009 at 11:11 pm

    cool post. I am trying to learn more about making money online and i just want to say that your blog has been pretty useful.

    reankas last blog post..How to write a business plan

    Reply
  25. Dave Ovenden (1 comments.) says:
    February 28, 2009 at 8:51 am

    Hi Alex,

    Thanks for the video – very useeful.

    I have found anothef plugin that seems to do a very similar thing called Thank Me Later which you can download here:

    http://wordpress.org/extend/pl.....-me-later/

    Have you used this plugin? If so, how does it compare in terms of features?

    Thanks
    Dave Ovenden

    Dave Ovendens last blog post..Dave Nicholson Launches ‘Your Software Website’

    Reply
  26. Lorrette - DailyScrew-Ups (2 comments.) says:
    March 30, 2009 at 12:47 am

    Hey Alex

    Thanks you so much, what a great plugin. I agree with you it is a nice ‘customer service’ touch.

    Lorrette – DailyScrew-Upss last blog post..Bulk and Spam Mail: Mail A Brick To A Junk Mailer

    Reply
  27. Felicita Vazquez (5 comments.) says:
    April 27, 2009 at 6:42 am

    Thanks for the video is really amazing. However something is happening with the download link:

    Comments Relish plugin download page/

    It takes you to some kind of directory where I could not find the plugging.
    Even the post about it from Patchlog / has the same problem.
    What do you suggest? Could you have some way to fix this?

    I think this is a serious issue you should know about it since you are recommending a plugging through a post that doesn’t work properly.

    As always Thanks

    Queen007

    Reply

Trackbacks/Pingbacks

  1. Love Your Commentors And Be Rewarded | Web 2.0 How-To Spot-er says:
    October 19, 2007 at 8:20 am

    [...] its functionality by making a comment here. And make sure to download your version here and watch a complete video tutorial on this plugin posted on my [...]

    Reply
  2. Hat Tip to Alex Sysoef of HowToSpoter Web 2.0 Fame! » Personal Edge Insights - Barbara Ling, Virtual Coach says:
    July 24, 2008 at 4:14 pm

    [...] Get Personal With Your Commenters – Boost Your Subscribers (Video Guide) [...]

    Reply

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