How to comment on a blog - a beginners guide

For people who may not know how to comment on a blog, I hope this will help you. I read - and comment on - a number of blogs every day and I've compiled some instructions (with picture examples) below that may help you, I hope.

I've also included a brief (and probably inaccurate) description of the blogs to hopefully introduce you to some you may not be familiar with.

1. There are a number of different types of blog. Two of the more popular are Wordpress, Blogspot or Blogger (like this one) and they have different ways of accepting comments. I'll hopefully show you this below.
   
   
2. Writing a comment on a blog is no more difficult than sending an email. Honestly. It's three basic steps:
   
   
   • Fill out your comment
   • Leave your name
   • Press Submit. That's it!
     
   
   
3. You don't have to enter your email address on some blogs. This one is an example. Have a look here to see how that's done.
   
   
4. The easiest thing to do is just look for the word "comment" and click on it. For example, on this blog, you'll see

If you click on the circled link you can add your comment.

The background to this is a post on commenting on blogs, one of the interesting things that came up over on The Faux Sty forum about Darren reaching 100 posts was the comment:

Congratulations Val on your 100th post, I must admit I have popped in a read a good number of your blogs but I have no idea how to post a response over there, so I'll tell you now how good you are at describing the stuff your at - I must admit I find it insightful to read your blogging. Keep up the good work.

I wonder if that's one of the reason that people don't post comments? That even though you might like what someone writes, you're not sure how to reply?

So maybe this guide will help. Let's start with what to look for:

Over on Damien Mulley's blog (Damien writes about Irish internet related news, topics as well as a host of other stuff and is generally regarded as top blogger) you'll see



And over on Alexia's Blog (she blogs about technology and other interesting ideas) you'll see



but, you can also click on the heading and then you'll see the comment form below the post (which is what an article on a blog is called). This tends to be the same for most blogs.



For example, you can see over on Grannymar's blog (cooking, jokes, adventures and toyboys) you can click on the heading or the comments link



The lovely Annelicious (a terribly interesting girl altogether) has a big Add Comment link on hers



When you click on this you'll see a load of stuff (like below). Don't worry about it. This is just for people who know something called HTML and it's still fine to post your response if you don't.



The lovely girls over at Beaut.ie (who blog about beauty products no less) have the below



While Anthony (he blogs about interesting stuff he finds) has this



and just-come-out-as-metrosexual Darren has this



The Dear Lover Blog (very strange letters from boyfriend to girlfriend) has this



Beginning to see the similarity? All you have to do is click! :)

The lovely Maz, a shockingly stylish Limerick blogger (and ex Home and Away addict) has the below:



When you click there you'll see a form like the below. 2 small things:

1. Enter your name and your email address. Your email address will be kept private - no other blog readers can contact you through it, so don't worry - I'll explain why that's there below.
   
   
2. If you don't have a website/blog/URL don't worry! You don't HAVE to fill it in:

A handy thing to see if the blogger (blog writer) has responded to you is to check the box (if there is one) that says "email me follow up comments", like Grannymar has below:



You should know though that if it's a popular post you'll get a number of emails. Don't worry, as I said, your email address is private and only used for this purpose.

The lovely Deborah, over at Humble Housewife, (she blogs about cooking and related tasty stuff) has the below:



Now, when you click there a pop-up window opens - just fill this in as per usual



There are many different blog designs and the comment links are different but keep an eye out for it:

Grandad (a lovable but grumpy ould fella) has his down the bottom



As does the very quirky and up to date Jazzbiscuit



And Shane at Presenttense over at Ireland.com (the Irish Times website)



And award winning political and equality blogger (and Michael Lynn fan) Maman Poulet



and Twenty Major



and Sinéad Cochrane



and so on - see, it's not that complicated!

Rick O' Shea, of 2FM fame has his at the top (just to be different :P)



and an easy to complete form when you click on comments



Sometimes your comments may not appear immediately, like over at Sabrina Dent's beautifully designed blog



and that's because bloggers like to get to know you, so to make sure you're not a machine (or worse, pretending to be someone you're not) they keep a comment in moderation. This is normal practise - your hard work hasn't disappeared!



There are some blogs made in Blogspot/Blogger (like this one) which is owned by Google. Rosie over at Spanish Exposition (the exploits of a twentysomething year old) has a very popular (and great to read) blog:



When you click on her comments link, you'll see this screen, where you have two options. If you have a Google account (Gmail or Googlemail) you can post a comment using that (and don't worry, your password is hidden and secure)



or you can choose the second option - which doesn't ask for an email address - which looks like



Again if you don't have a "URL" (which means a website address) you don't have to enter one.

The lovely Chanberry over at Fictional Sheep and Andrew of Chancing My Arm and Lyndar the Merciless are similar and you can leave a comment in the same way.



Unarocks (music journalist, world traveller and loves-to-have-fun girl) has something extra on her blog:



Again, this is nothing to worry about, it's just making sure you're human!

Finally, (thankfully you say!) CEO of Blacknight Michele Neylon (who blogs about everything from spam to DVDs) has a slightly different form on his



And if you don't know what that means, don't worry about it!

Finally, just on comments - as I said in this post, bloggers write to be read and love getting comments, so if you have an opinion, a thought or just like what you read, feel free to share.

Please try to remember just as you're one person in front of a monitor, so is the blogger and so they prefer constructive criticism, lively debate and gifts of fine wines than abuse. Well, okay, the fine wine thing is just me.

I hope this helped. If it did, please let me know and share your new found expertise with your friends. Happy commenting!


(Fellow bloggers, I hope it's okay I used (and slightly edited in cases) your work. Feel free to take the images if you think they'd help on your blog. Not everyone's an expert.)

Update for bloggers: Iarhflaith has released free Add Comment buttons for your blog - check them out!