Top Commentator - Commenting to drive traffic

Stuff we need to install

Enda — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 16:35:12 +0000

A while back we posted our goals for 2010. They were quite simple really, but what we also need to do is to get some more interaction on this site but adding some more comment related plugins.

photo credit: Blu Frog Photography

We found this article with a list of some of the plugins we’ll be looking at installing on here soon to see how much we can increase our traffic this year. This site is movin nowhere fast at the minute but it will! Post frequency wont be a problem and we’re sure this site will grow in 2010.

Goals for 2010

Enda — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 22:24:17 +0000

I just read and commented on Tyler Cruz’s post on his goals for 2010 and thought we needed to make some goals for ourselves over here at topcommentator.com. One thing we definitely want to do is to become more active on commentating on blogs. It may take a while to get going but by the end of the year hopefully we’ll be top commentators on enough blogs to significantly increase traffic to this site! There are definite benefits to commenting on other sites so it’s important that we establish some goals.

photo credit: Hulivili

By the end of the Summer we hope to be establish ourselves as top commentators on at least 5 PR3+ blogs and see how achieving this effects the traffic to this site. Yes it’s very small for now but it’s something realistic to work towards. We’ll also need to fix the site up a bit and keep working on achieving some of the initial targets we hoped to achieved when we launched the site.

Top Commentator Plugin Configuration

Enda — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 17:58:35 +0000

So you’ve installed the Top Commentators plugin for WordPress. Login to your WordPress dashboard, and naviagate to the Appearance >> Widgets menu. Click on the drop down arrow of the top commentators widget to reveal the configuration menu shown below.

As you can see, it’s pretty self explanatory. You can configure as follows:

Change the Widget title to suit your own taste eg. Top Commentators, Site Contributors, Nice People who leave comments etc.

If you like you can add a description below the widget title to tell visitors how to get on the top commentators list, there’s more….

As you can see, it’s pretty self explanatory. You can configure as follows:

Change the Widget title to suit your own taste eg. Top Commentators, Site Contributors, Nice People who comment etc.

If you like you can add a description below the widget title to tell visitors how to get on the top commentators list.

You can exclude any users you like. If you normally reply to comments on your blog you can exclude yourself from the list by adding the name that you use to comment. This is also useful for eliminate any spam that gets through the askimet or other comments spam filter that you’ve added to your blog. You might site robots leaving you comments just to get links back to a certain site and this is a good way to eliminate this.

You can specify a time period that the top commentators plugins runs over. This is really up to yourself on how you want to run your site. If you choose a month or a year then you’re rewarding visitors who comment on your site over a longer period of time and this may encourage a long term readership. Alternatively, you can set this to run over a shorter period of time to reward visitors who are helping your site with regular discussion over the last few days only. We’ll be showing how we configure this during the life spam of this site so our readers know exactly what they need to do to stay on the top commentators list!

You can limit the number of names on your top commentators list. If you’re looking to promote interaction on you’re site it’s probably better to increase the number as you’re readership grows.

You can also set the number of characters used in the commentators name. What you choose here depends really on where you’ve placed the top commentators plugin on your site.

If you have no commentators, which we’re sure you hope you don’t after going to the bother of installing the top commentators widget then you can enter some text as an alternative to a blank list. Hopefully you never need this one!

You can block spammers by filtering full or partial urls or email addresses.

Decide how you want to show your top commentator list. You can do this as bullet points or as a numbered list suing the drop down menu.

You can choose to hyperlink each name. To us, there’s no pint really installing the top commentators plugin unless you choose to do this. If you’re trying to promote interaction on your website through user comments then it’s best to give the commentators a link back to their own website to help them get some traffic too.

If the commentators name is hyperlinked, then you can choose the link type to be nofollow if you like. Again, we see this as pointless and we feel that if people are actively commenting on your site and keeping your site alive then it’s best to reward with them with a backlink for doing so.

You can set up the plugin to show the number of comments of each of the top commentators on your list. Do you want to let commentators know how many comments are needed to get on the list or do you leave it as a mystery and hope that they keep commenting until the y get on your list? The choice is yours.

You can set up the plugin to group your top commentators by either email or User Names. This is just to avoid the same people appearing in you’re list under multiple aliases. It’s a handy setting to have and we’re sure that you’ll have everything configured to your liking in no time, and ensure only genuine commentators are making it to the top of your top commentators list.

You can set up the list to appear on your homepage only. Here at TopCommentator.com we’ll have it on all our pages to ensure people who take the time to comment here are rewarded throughout this site.

You can set the list up to only display commentators who have provided a url. This is down to personal choice. There’s no real value to anyone being on the list unless they have a link back to their own site, so we’ll probably leave them off the list. Why not drop someone an email instead thanking them for the feedback, maybe next time they come back and provide a link to their site.

You can set the top commentator list up to display gravators or leave it blank. Anyone is actively commenting to gain exposure for their own site should have a gravator so we’ll be leaving this one switched on. Using a gravator provides a more personal touch and will probably encourage more people to click back towards your site. If you switch this option on you can configure it to show the gravator at a size that suits your site.

Installing the Top Commentators Plugin

Enda — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 14:38:34 +0000

The top commentators plugin is available to download here and here’s some more information on it:

The Top Commentators Widget a sidebar widget to show the top commentators in your WP site. Adapted from Show Top Commentators plugin at Personal Financial Advice, this widget is easier to manage via the control form (no need to edit the PHP file); additional options are also available to make it more flexible. Read the FAQ section on how to customize the widget, and take a look at the screen shot to see the control form for customizing the Top Commentators Widget.

Prerequisites: Your blog theme needs to support widgets.

Installation:
1. Download the top commentator plugin from the location above.
2. Extract the files on your machine.
3. Using your hosting account file manager or by FTP, upload the ‘top-commentators-widget’ folder to your blog’s plugin folder:
/wwwroot/yourblogname.com/wp-content/plugins for Windows hosting
or
/webspace/httpdocs/wp-content/plugins for Linux hosting
4. Login to your WordPress admin panel: yourblogname.com/wp-admin
5. Activate the top commentator plugin using the admin panel. We suggest backing up your site before doing so, just incase there’s any problems.
6. Browse to Appearance >> Widgets in your WP admin panel and you should see that your top commentator widget has appeared there.
7. Drag the Widget on to your sidebar and you’re done installing it.

That was simple, wasn’t it? You’ve installed the Top Commentators plugin and now you need to configure it. Check out tomorrow’s post on how to do this.

TopCommentator.com goes live

Enda — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 23:01:40 +0000

This site launched on the 1st of August 2009. It’s used as a base for commenting on other blogs to drive traffic. Check out our about page for more info.

Here’s a look at our stats to date:

Yeah that’s right, we’ve had zero traffic so far!

Yeah, we have a page rank of zero too!

Have a look at our twitter follower count, it’s abysmal!

So you’re thinking this site is a joke? Well watch our progress and watch our traffic and page rank grow as we bring this site alive by helping to keep other site alive with user interaction! We’ll be setting targets for ourselves to grow this site and prove that we can generate traffic by commenting on other blogs on the world wide web. Watch this space!