5 Essential WordPress Commenting Plugins

5 Essential WordPress Commenting Plugins

Ever have this feeling that you had written a great article and proudly posted it to your WordPress blog? Am sure you do. You know what would make you prouder? For me, it’s when I get lots of comments for it!

Yes, I love comments and I read all of them on my websites. No, not spams or rude complaints about the world but a sound discussion of the topic being highlighted. It’s a testimony that I have done a great job and that it is appreciated by my readers. So, please go ahead and drop lots of comments on my blog!

WordPress commenting plugins

However, the default WordPress comment section is rather simple and well, dull. I know it has greatly improved compared to earlier versions but I’m sure you will agree with me that it can certainly be further improved. Fortunately, there are lots of WordPress commenting plugins that you install to not only beautify your comments box but also manage it.

5 Essential WordPress Commenting Plugins

Here are 5 WordPress commenting plugins that can be used to manage your comments, enhance your comments box, fight spam and provide overall a greater experience for your commenting readers.

  1. Akismet

    Akismet plugin

    Let’s face it, spammers are not too choosy these days. They will spam any websites they can get their hands (or bots) on. So a good spam plugin like Akismet is essential.

    What Akismet does is it checks your comments against its database for spam-like words and phrases. And if suspected of being a spam, the comment will be moved to a separate folder for you to review and take action. Hence, you website shows lesser spams and this will give your SEO ranking a boost.

    You might want to highlight to your readers the fact that comments may be caught and store in spam folder pending review. This is important especially if you are running a contest that rewards readers for being the first few early commentators.

    Category: Anti-spam
    Our Advice: This application is still a computer program. And though it does a great job at flagging spams, it is not 100% accurate in determining all spam comments.

  2. CommentLuv

    CommentLuv plugin

    CommentLuv has always been and still is a favorite among all commenting plugins. This nifty application would pop over to your readers’ website while they are drafting their comments on your website. While there, the plugin will retrieve the title of their latest post or tweet and highlight it beneath their comments once it’s submitted. There’ll also be a link to the readers’ website too.

    This plugin builds a win-win situation. Your reader will get free promotion of their website or Twitter tweets. And this eventually will encourage more comments and backlinks and that’s great news for you. Plus, it helps build a healthy community that shares similar interest.

    Category: Encourages comments
    Our Advice: Provide your readers the option to allow this application as some readers might want to keep their website private.

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  3. SEO Smart Links

    With over 680,000 downloads, this commenting plugin is highly popular indeed, with not just personal bloggers but also professionals and Internet marketers. The SEO Smart Links will automatically link keywords and phrases in your comments (and of course, in your posts too) with those found in your previous posts. This internal linking process will definitely give your SEO ranking a boost. Not only that, it also helps you save time compare to if you were to manually link the keywords!

    This plugin is loaded with lots of other features too. For one, it allows you to create your own unique keywords and matching URLs. And at the same time, it also gives you the ability to set a nofollow attribute, which helps reduces spam comments too.

    Category: SEO plugin
    Our Advice: SEO is a very powerful process that affects your website’s visibility in search engines. I do encourage you to read up on how to improve your SEO if you are keen to increase your search engine rankings.

  4. Subscribe To Comments Reloaded

    Generally, when a reader posts a comment especially when it’s a question or debatable statement, they are keen to know your (or your other readers’) feedbacks. However, it would be too troublesome for them to keep returning to that particular post to check if there are any replies.

    This is where “Subscribe To Comments Reloaded” plugin comes in. It is a subscription manager which enables your commenters to sign-up for email notification for new comments. And also allows them to unsubscribe, block notifications and change notification email address when so wish. Besides providing your commenters an easier way to follow replies, it also encourages them to return to your posts. Hence, higher traffic.

    For you, as the administrator, this plugin gives you the flexibility to manage your comments subscription e.g. to disallow subscription for certain posts.

    Category: Track replies
    Our Advice: We recommend that you monitor your subscription list often to identify your most popular posts and for you to consider doing a follow-up discussion on the topic.

  5. Facebook Comments for WordPress

    This is another popular commenting plugins and one that integrates Facebook. You know how you sometimes get frustrated when you are required to type your name and email whenever you wish to comment on a website. It can certainly put one off commenting. Well, your readers too feel such frustration.

    You can avoid this by installing the Facebook Comments for WordPress plugin. It allows your readers to connect to your website and posts comments via their Facebook account. Judging by the number of Facebook users and the hours they spent logged onto it, this plugin can definitely increase the number of comments your website receives.

    Category: Integrates social media
    Our Advice: Social media users are on the rise especially with the increase of Internet accessible mobile devices. Thus, a comment plugin that incorporates social media sites will make it easier for readers to provide feedback.

The above 5 WordPress Commenting plugins are just a few of many such plugins available on the Internet. You definitely don’t need to install all these plugins. It would slow your website down a lot. Just go through the list and pick the one that you think is most suitable for your website.

Which plugin can’t you live without? Do share your thoughts in the comments section below.

One Responseto “5 Essential WordPress Commenting Plugins”

  1. Faizan Asad says:

    You didn’t mentioned the disqus…..!!!

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