I have now removed the comments section from my blog. Why? Because it's not needed nor was it used.
When I built the site, I included the comments section on my blog posts as it was easy to do and I had this idea that I would start interacting with users about my posts. However, I rarely get comments (probably mainly because I'm bad at keeping my blog updated) and so even when I did get one, I accidentally missed it for months before I replied.
Oops, not a great way to generate a good relationship with readers.
Therefore my thinking was this:
- It doesn't look good to have an empty comments section on each blog post.
- Why waste time managing and blocking SPAM comments if there are few, or no real comments amongst them? It's a waste of time and effort.
- What if a user has a genuine question they want to ask about a post? Or how will I allow feedback from my potential audience? Well, there's the contact page and there's social networks (for me, preferably Twitter for this) so I can still interact with people.
- Finally, what if I suddenly get a bigger audience who want to ask questions/give feedback? Well, I can always re-enable comments in the future.