Opinions are like, er, noses – everybody has one. Blogging allows you to unleash your views on the world, but if you open up the floor for visitor comments, you’ll get a lot of return traffic. Here are a few tips on how to foster community and stickiness by enabling this feature.

• A lot of blogging platforms allow you to choose whether or not you want comments to be enabled. Enable them.
• Likewise, many platforms allow you to choose whether or not you want people to have to register in order to comment. Do not make them register – it’s a bit of a pain, and far fewer people will participate. Cross the comment spam bridge when you come to it. For now, you can delete anything you don’t want to keep.
• There are many 3rd party comment tools that create a pop-up window for comments. Remember – search engines cannot spider these. Comments are free, automatic content, and you want them to be indexable. Make sure you use a system whereby your comments end up at the bottom of your main post.

These three pointers are a strong start. I’ll delve into more community-building tips in later entries. In short – don’t be afraid to let people get involved with your new blog!