Behind the Scenes of Blogging - Commenting Resolutions and Google Reader Readability

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I am still overwhelmed and buzzing from all the responses and feedback you left me on the poll on 'Blog Commenting'. Thank you very much again for your valuable contributions. Not only did it open my eyes but it inspired me to try to become a better blog commenter: I want to leave more comments and show my appreciation to blog posts I've enjoyed reading. I am going to check my Google reader a few times a day, mark my favourites ones and make an effort to leave some time at the end of the day to comment on these posts which caught my attention during the day and which I favorited/starred throughout the day. This was my sytem before, it worked very well, I just need to stick to it.


A few people have asked me to explain how Google reader works so I thought this post could be a good opportunity to do that. I am sorry if the following sounds a bit too baby-ish or if you already know the following information.
If you've never accessed Google Reader, this is how you could access it.
If you are using Blogger/BlogSpot, go to http://www.blogger.com/ to access your dashboard and click on the 'View in Google Reader'






Your screen should now look more or less like this. Note that I have chosen to display all my unread blog posts in a LIST format.






To read the post, simply click on the title of the post, and the whole post should open itself within the same window of Google reader. However, it's not possible to comment on a post within Google reader. For this, you'll have to click on the actual blog post as usual and do your thing there.








However, there are certain posts who only appear in a summary format within Google Reader, and need you to click on that little arrow to read the full post, and you see this to be happening, which is a little bit annoying as it defeats the object of Google Reader really:






How do you know if your blog is set up to be shown as a summary on Google reader or if your readers can read your full posts within Google Reader. Well, you could follow your own blog and see how it shows up on Google Reader or you can check the 'Site Feed Settings'.
To check/change your site feed settings
open your dashboard again,
Then SETTINGS, SITE FEED.


 





Within SITE FEED, select 'full' if you want your readers to be able the entirety of your posts within Google Reader. This is a valuable tip from Louise from Get Lippie.com who I am extremely grateful for. Thank you very much again. And then voila, your readers should be able to read your (blogger) subscriptions posts without any problems on Google Reader



What are the advantages?

- My blog is not very accessible to readers. It has white text on black background which some viewers might find straining on the eyes. Allowing readers to see my site on Reader gives them to see them on white background, without me having to give up my beloved dark background.
- Lots and Lots of people use Google Reader to view your posts: very easy, very quick and for me the best way to keep on top of the content of my 250+ subscriptions. If your site appears in 'summary only', it's one click further away from being read and people sometimes have so many subscriptions, they sometimes don't bother reading it, if they need clicking

Disadvantages


As I see it, unfortunately viewing posts in Google readers doesn't allow you to comment on posts. If you were on the actual blog itself, you would just go the comments box at the bottom and do your thing. Readers are already on your site, so if they want to comment, it's already there for them. However, if you read post onto Google reader, the commenting page is one click away and sometimes people have got so many subscriptions to keep track, they carry on reading the unread post below, next in line, and never click on your actual blog and leave your post.

Full? Summary? Which option is the best I don't know. For some obscure reason, my site feed was on 'summary' before but I have noticed an increase in my pages views since I have changed the settings to 'full'


This post is dedicated to lovely Ann from Girl in the City in Glasgow Blog and I hope to be able to read her posts very soon, in their gorgeous entirety in my Google reader. I hope this has been useful to some of you and that you have not found this too beginner's level or baby-ish.


If you like Google reader, make sure to save it in your favourite bar (if your browser support it) .





Then next time, you open your browser, just click the little symbol of ‘Google Reader’ and you are straight into Google Reader.





Happy Blog reading xx
liloo/@tsunimee

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Poll: Why is YOUR blog post not getting ‘enough’ comments?

People can say what they want: that they blog primarily for the passion of blogging, sharing but ultimately, the more positive comments you receive on your posts,  the happier you are. And you can't help but  feeling a little bit sad or discouraged when some of your cherished posts gets very few comments or in some cases zero comments at all.






2 of my beauty bloggers friends were noticing  yesterday how the number of comments left on their blog posts had decreased, whilst the number of  visits had stayed the same. Why is that? What are they doing differently? What has changed? One thing led to another, this set my twitter timeline on fire and I found myself in the  middle of a very passionate debate:

When bloggers experienced a decrease in comments  is it because  they've lost 'their touch' and not engaging their audience as they have in the past or could there  other factors explaining the decrease of comments left

As a blog reader, do you personally feel you comment enough on the blog you read?
If not, what is preventing you from
commenting more?

And this is what you had to say on the topic:

Interesting, no?

So we have readers who don't feel their comment would bring valuable contribution to the debate,  others put off by the dreaded 'captchas' and technicalities associated with posting comments, on top of everyone who feel that they are simply not enough hours in the day to comment as much as they would  like to. The general consensus is that most of you feel they don't comment and wish they left more  more comments on blog posts.


Where do I belong? In every category really.  Since I have been reading blogs through Google reader, I find  myself managing to read blogs very fast: Google reader makes it very easy for me to read, as its  name suggests but it's definitely not intended to leave comments, which is my problem starts. I tend  to 'star' the blogs which I prefer and would definitely comment on 'later' but am put off to click  on the actual blog, and start the technical nightmare of commenting:

Like captchas was not bad enough (most of the blogs I follow - mine included - are on blogger) I  find myself to press the 'send' button many times, cos the first time I pressed it it didn't send  and having to wait everytime I pressed send for the confirmation from my blogger that message has  successfully, confirmation which needs me to scroll up and down the page like a loonie. Even  sometimes when I comment on my blog, I am having to log on again, press send, check to see if has  been sent, a red button appear, I press send again, a second red button appear, then some weird  stuff appears, asking me to preview (I don't want to preview the f*ckin thing god dammit, just send  the wretched thing already, will you blogger, and then after the 4th time I pressed SEND I see that it had  been sent ok. Needless to say that from now on, I always make sure to copy my comment before running  the risk of losing in the process. Like everyone, I wish I had more time, but commenting was easier,  then I would think I would spend more time commenting and make the most of it.

 


Time is definitely an issue and I feel some people (well I do anyway) after commenting on a certain  amount of posts (let's say 10) get tired. So whilst they found your post a very interesting  read, it might have come up at the wrong timing in their reading sequence: they are either reading  from their phone (can you actually comment from a phone) or have already commented on other posts. So your  post, however great it is, suffers that day from not being part of this selected few. This is  my theory anyway. Whilst your content is amazing and comment worthy, people follow more and more  blogs so your blog finds yourself in a big competition of hundreds of others popping up in your email / RSS  reader / dashboard …


Also your devoted readers, inspired by their readings feel like they can bring more to the 'beauty  pot' with starting their own blog as a result and find themselves to have less time to comment.  Whilst I am writing all this non sense and it's 1.45am, I could have been commenting on all the  blogs I've starred/favorited today, and promised myself to comment on. Sadly, I know I won't have reached my  target and would have probably tweeted about your post rather than commenting on it directly.


And then you have this mismatch, as observed by jadlgw above, about the amount of comments she  leaves (because she wants to and enjoys it) versus the amount of comments she gets on her blog  posts. Is it fair to expect a 'satisfying' amount of comment, when you, yourself don't leave many  comments? But then again, are you going to expect the girl behind Temptalia to go and comment on  your blog? When would she find the time? You'd rather she kept the beauty world up to date, as it  happens with the latest Mac collections rather than commenting on lots of blogs, right?


How many comments should we be expecting per blog post anyway? Whatever this desirable or expected  number might be, we need to find ways to cheer ourselves up. If you are a blogger, and reading this  and haven't already done so, I would strongly strongly urge you to subscribe some website which  helps you tracking the amount of traffic your blog is generating. I only opened a free account to  Google analytics a month ago, but if I hadn't opened an account at Sitemeter.com, I would have given  up blogging a long time ago. Being able to see how many visits your blog is getting, even though  it's not very much, allows to see that at least people are reading the fruit of your labour, even  though the comments are not always there to show it.


Thank you so so so so so much to everyone who gave me their views on the topic. I feel it has opened  my eyes. Will it stop me from being upset if a post dear to me doesn't trigger my idea of what a satisfying amount of comments is? Of course not but I am now reassured that we are all in the same boat, doing our thing, in a growing beauty  blogging community.


Please cherish every comment you get, even if it's just a brief and simple one. I do. If you’re still upset, go follow @loulou699, she’ll cheer you up, in less time it would take you to decipher a captcha

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