I think that we should take what Gary had to share to heart and implement what he had to say & share every second that we get and do it with a sense of passion. After all, if we’re not passionate about what we’re doing, what’s the point in doing it at all?

Darren, thanks for hi-lighting the key take-aways here and sharing the video! You and Gary V. rock!

Between Gary, Tim Ferriss, and Guy Kawasaki I was blissed out!! (And getting to meet you too F2F was delightful; you have a wonderful presence – very unassuming yet so powerful with your knowledge & accomplishments!)

Thanks a mil for the vid link too; I’d seen a few formats but hadn’t seen David Peralty’s on Vimeo. Awesome!

Cheers,
Mari
@marismith

I have often found the comments to be as informative as the initial blog entry itself, and will sometimes return to a page because I want to see if anything additional is added. If comments are turned off, I’ll read the page once and generally never return.

Additionally, I noticed that blogs with the comments turned off tend to repeat themselves more often. Now this isn’t a measured observation, it’s just a general trend that I’ve seen. I’m sure that anyone here can point to exceptions to this. But for me, I tend to stay with blogs that have active communities and loose interest in those that don’t.

I always believe that you should follow your own instincts. All readers are not alike and enjoy different styles and personalities. You will attract your own crowd as long as you offer something of value.

And how many first comments spur others to comment?

As a result, Darren can Tweet “There’s an interesting conversation developing regarding blog comments @ tinyurl.com/myblog” and a bunch of others who may have only read the initial article, will return, read our comments, and perhaps comment themselves, or even write a new article on their own blogs, linking here…and *b00m*! A whole slew of new readers for Darren!

Disable or disregard comments at your peril.

@ Tommy: You’ve never heard of me because I’ve just entered this blogging arena, Gary’s been doing it for years. But don’t worry, you’ll start hearing about me soon ;)

@ Adam – Creadiv: Not every comment needs a reply. Yes, it’s good to reply to comments that need a reply – when your blog is very young. But then again, you don’t need to. I instead focus on more productive tasks such as traffic generation…

“If you don’t respond to your readers you won’t have them for long.”

That’s bullsh1t. Ever heard of Steve Pavlina or Seth Godin? For god’s sake, they don’t even have comments enabled. Are they loosing readers? No. I can bet that if Darren removed comments from his blog, it won’t affect ProBlogger one bit. Only 1% of your audience really comments, so it doesn’t matter in the end…

Oh yeah, don’t say these people are an exception rather than the rule. They are the exception not because disabling comments or not replying to them is bad not because hardly anyone actually tries disabling comments, they automatically think it’s bad…

Nice tips, Gary V. Thanks for sharing them, Darren.

All success
Dr.Mani

P.S. @Liz@Inventing My Life: Re your comment “I have already stopped reading some blogs that I initially liked because the blogger never responded to any of my comments”

By this rule, people would stop reading Seth Godin’s amazing blog (which doesn’t allow comments)… and the reader would be the loser. Comments, feedback and interactivity are nice – but content RULES!

By answering every comment on your blog and responding to every email, you’re creating raving fans out of your community and those are the people who are going to spread the word about you.

Building relationships and cranking out killer content are two of the most important things you can do for your website. By focusing on these two aspects, you’ll never have to worry about traffic.

I also really like his comments on doing what you love. So true.

Love it!

- Kim