Love Your Commentors And Be Rewarded
“Comments” provide interactivity levels to blogs, creating one of the major attractions to this particular style of web publishing. But comments are actually a lot more than that. Comments are not just a means of communicating, providing backlinks and a way of sharing opinions… but they’re also a way for you – as a blog owner – to receive the recognition you deserve and the traffic you need.
With a great wealth of plugins available for WordPress, it makes it really easy to show your “commenters” just how much you appreciate the time they took to express their opinions by commenting on your blog. And by showing this in the most meaningful way possible you get to benefit through increased numbers of comments, bigger community, larger reader base and as a result – more options for you to earn $$$ from your blog.
Yep, in the end, “earning” from your efforts is still very important for most of us!
In this post I will provide a list of plugins for WordPress that I found to be most useful and beneficial.
While some of these plugins have been discussed previously, some are new-comers to my blog and have helped me to enhance my “commenting system” by providing either enhanced or even brand new functionality!
So here is the list in alphabetical order …
Better Comments Manager
Excellent plugin that greatly enhances your Admin Management Interface for Comments in WordPress. While it doesn’t replace existing comments management (although it resides along-side), I found myself using this specific plugin more and more. In fact, I hardly ever utilize the default installation anymore.
Click here to see a full list of features and download Better Comments Manager.
Brian’s Threaded Comments
Although information on the author’s blog states that this plugin works with Wp 1.5, I’ve found that it actually works perfectly well on my own WordPress 2.3 blog!
One thing you do have to know though is “how to work with your theme files so as to modify them and have them working properly”. I do love the way it displays your “comments” and how it gives anyone the ability to reply to a specific comment. It’s this type of interaction that helps to create a far more meaningful conversation. Visit and download you plugin here.
Chunk URLs For Comments
Have you seen people post a comment on your post with a long URL that completely breaks the formating and goes out of bounds? This specific plugin allows you to chunk posted links without breaking the link itself. A great option that allows you to keep the functionality and retain full control over the look of your blog. Download this great plugin here.
CommentLuv
A great new plugin I have just found and installed on my blog. Its functionality is so simple and yet genius – every time someone comments on your blog it goes out to the blog URL provided by commenter. It then retrieves the most recent post from their blog RSS and inserts it under the comment. Although the overall processing time takes a little longer, the comment you finally end up with is more than worth it!
What’s in it for your “commentors?”
Heaps! They get rewarded by having their latest post display directly beneath the comment with the link to it!
Now that is some serious link love… and I encourage you to try it by commenting on this post! In the mean time download your plugin here.
Comment Relish
Great plugin that automatically sends email you configure in admin interface to commenter and thanks them for taking the time to provide feedback. eMail is configured by you and provides you with option to incert some custom fields and variables to personalize the message. email is ONLY send on very first comment by a person on your blog to prevent spamming and if you never commented on my blog – test 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 blog..
DoFollow
Fight the SPAM not valid commentors. I believe in giving a full seo benefits to my commenters so if you leave a comment and provide a link to your blog – I Do Follow and I use this great plugin for automation of process. Get yours here.
Get Recent Comments
Plugin allows you to get a list of most recent comments and trackbacks and display it on your sidebar using your own formating fully compliant with your theme. It shows activity by readers on your blog and an easy way to involve your other readers into participation. Download it here.
Live Comment Preview
One of my favorites this plugin provides an option to preview comment as you type it. Light weight plugin with huge functionality and the only thing it’s lacking is ability to display smileys like this one 
Even though it states compatibility with WordPress 1.5 it works just fine with 2.3 and it is definately worth the download, so get it here.
Recent Comments Widget
While not a plugin and requires at least a WordPress 2.1 and theme compatible with widgets this one allows you to display last commenters in sidebar in a nice nested mode. Drug and drop functionality with configurable options on how many comments to display it is a great addition to you blog.
Spam Karma 2
Sharing the link love is great but you need to be able to protect yourself from comments SPAM and there is plenty of this to go around. I get several hundered on daily bases. Lucky me I use Spam karma 2 which identifies and kills 99.9% of it on autopilot Protect your blog now.
Subscribe To Comments
Give your commenters an easy way to follow conversation by subscribing to email notifications when a new comment posted on topic of their interest. This encourages participation and gives people ability to folow conversation without search for whatever topic they took part in previously. Anytime you can make it easy for visitors to do what they want – you increase interest in your blog, so start here.
A few simple plugins that will help you greatly improve comments system of your WordPress blog and as result increase readership through participation. People love to make their opinion known and giving an option to do it in an easy way will serve you good.
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About The Blog Author
Alex Sysoef is an IT Consultant, Internet Marketer and ProBlogger who shares his passion and knowledge of WordPress, SEO, Social Media and traffic strategies on his blog WordPress Howto Spotter. Connect on Twitter or Facebook
Hello!
Great list! I’m also a big fan of CommentLuv.
I like the idea of Brian’s Threaded Comments and see a lot of sites using it, but it doesn’t do anything for me on activation… might be an incompatibility with my template. But I digress. Thanks for this list, I’m off to get me some Spam Karma lovin’!!
Tee’s last blog post..Breakthrough in Treating Crohn’s Disease
Alex,
Great list there.Will definitely try out some of the plugins to improve the interactivity on my blog.Thanks.
Just wanted to say thanks for your post on some great plugins that I had never heard of. I just added Chunk URLs, CommentLuv, and Spam Karma to my blog at http://www.moongrabber.com
Keep up the good work!
“Jon’s last blog post..$6/Month for 1 year of Dreamhost Web Hosting
Hi Alex
you always come up with some great info, many thanks,
Zo’s last blog post..Alejandra Neri – the next Mona Lisa?
G’day Alex,
Thanks for the list of plugins to help improve communications on my blog.
I’ve added Better Comments Manager, CommentLuv, Comment Relish and Subscribe To Comments.
Cheers,
Tom
TomJohnsons last blog post..Saturday Tools for the Weekend Gardener
Thanks Tom,
Actually it didn’t. Your comment is held for moderation but one of the minuses of Brians Threaded Comments plugin I’m using on this site – it fails to let you know that.
I just installed Commentluv on my blog.It´s a cool plugin because it encourages people to make a comment and it makes the blog more interactive.
Toms last blog post..How To Keep Your Visitors At Your Blog Longer
Thanks… there are some real winners in that list!
Much appreciated.
Stevens last blog post..I think I can’t. I think I can’t. Oh… oops, I was wrong.
Am using subscribe to comments too on my blog. However, I will be trying out the Comment2Luv and the threaded comments one.
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marvelous post Alex – I haven’t seen such a complete review of comment plugins anywhere. Have you looked into Lucia’s Linky Love plugin -I’d be interested to hear your opinion.
All The Best
Alex Newell
Alex Newells last blog post..How To Choose a WordPress Theme
Thanks Alex,
I actually use it on this blog – it controls how people get the PR juice on my blog. Requires 3 comments approved to get the full DoFollow from my pages. I love that plugin.
Thanks for all the great plugin ideas. I wish I had known about Comment Relish plugin a long time ago. I can think of several ways to make more money with that one. Keep up the good work. I stumbled your article as well.
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Hi, Alex!!
Great post. I will start implementing some of these features.
However what is the principal difference between Thanks me Later and Comment Relish since they have the same functions as you explain?
Felicita Vazquez
Queen007s last blog post..A Publishing Revolution
It is a matter of what you like more
I like them both and use them both on different blogs. Although “Thank me later” requires that you approve comment before email sent.
Alex
Great Post there alex, I get really excited when I find a blog that gives value to readers instead of the norm….buy this, I will definitely try commentluv on my blog. thanks again for the great post.
Hey Alex
Do the plugins work with blogger blogs too? Im in the bum marketing budget right now
. Still learning what is or is not able to be done with blogger.
Thanks
Mike
.-= Mike Jansen´s last blog ..How to make your own electricity. =-.
Sorry Mike,
Anything I post about on this blog DOES NOT apply to bloggers or wordpresss.com blogs. You have to have a WordPress blog installed on your own host and have you own domain. Quite frankly – anything else is a waste of your time as you will learn later.
Hey, Alex!
This almost qualifies as information overload! How’s one to choose? ‘Guess I need to read some more, huh?
Regards,
Ron Ingram
Having options are always better in my book
Now choosing is up to you.
Hi Alex,
Amazing stuff.
I use Comment Luv.
I just downloaded the Comment Relish plugin.
Thats a great plugin. Thanks for that source,
but when i installed it I got the following message
when I go to settings:
You do not have sufficient permissions to access this page.
Can you tell me what to do to correct it?
Thanks