The comment area on a blog is a very important place on a blog, and I feel like many bloggers under-utilize it. Sometimes, to get a good conversation started on a blog, there’s more to be added than just a comments form and the threaded enhancement.

There are many nifty little hacks out there to enhance the comment area, but not all of those hacks get as comprehensive as some of the things I am about to list below.

16 Awesome Comment Enhancing Plugins

What I have compiled below are a list of 16 plugins you can add to your WordPress blog that will enhance your blog in the aspects of the comments area. Hopefully with these enhancements, you should start to see some kind of increase in comments per post.

1. Comment Redirect – After someone comments, redirect them to a new page thanking them for their comment. You can include whatever you want on the page like your RSS feed, link them to related posts, etc.
2. Minimum Comment Length – Will force your commentators to write more than just a couple of words. Increases better conversation, decreases useless comments!
3. Comments Vote – Give your readers the ability to vote the best comments to the top positions of the comment area. Also, they can vote to push down the useless comments. Great way to truly get the most from your readers!
4. ReplyMe – This will email a user any time their comment is replied to on your blog. It’s great for creating ongoing conversations, and will drive back more people for more interaction.
5. Ajax Comment Preview – Allows users to click a button and preview what the comment will look like exactly as it would be posted on the blog.
6. Thank Me Later – Sends an email to someone who has commented on your blog to thank them. You can edit whatever text you want to display in the email with a variety of tags.
7. Tweetbacks – Displays a trackback type formatting of all the times your link was mentioned on Twitter.
8. Commentluv – Shows the latest post from the commentators website after their comment.

In the most recent update of Commentluv, the option to style the output was removed. There is no class for it in the Style Sheet, so if you want to customize it use #comments abbr {...} It’s a long shot, and may conflict with the abbr tag if used anywhere else in your comments area.

9. Comment Info Detector – Get a little more personal with your readers, this plugin shows what country they are from, the browser and OS they use.
10. WP Ajax Edit Comments – Allows user to edit their comment after publishing for a set amount of time you set.
11. jQuery Comment Replies – Hides replies to comments, and gives you the option to show/hide them. Useful for keeping top level comments in focus, which usually have more “meat” than replies.
12. Quote Comments – Quote someone else’s comment and have it show in your comment wrapped in your blockquote style.
13. IntenseDebate – A complete overhaul of your comments area, makes everything look very organized and professional.
14. GD Star Rating – Highly customizable rating system to rate comments in the community.
15. Fun with in-text comments – Add sets of questions, or any other pieces of information to dropdown boxes, let your readers choose from them and include in their comment.
16. @ Reply – Reply to users with Twitter like functions. Click on the “reply” icon and it will automatically insert a link to the comment authors name in your comment.

How Does That Work For You?

16 killer comment enhancing plugins should hold you over for now right? There’s some great stuff up there!

I personally like the idea of Comment Quotes, Tweetbacks and Commentluv. I think I will be adding some of this stuff to my blog!

Photo by Jeanine Anderson

Related posts:

1. Increase Comment Productivity on Your Blog

2. 6 Plugins to Help You Get More Comments on Your Blog

3. Get some comment love for your static website