Do commenters come back more?
Problem
- Comments feel like the sign of a healthy blog, so site owners spend hours chasing them.
- Almost nobody comments - the 90-9-1 rule puts the heavy contributors at about 1% of an audience.
Solution
- Read new against returning visitors off your WebCounter counter, and your comment count against visits.
- Put them into the free calculator below and it shows what a commenter is worth and what a higher comment rate adds.
Key points
- A commenter is worth 1.87 silent readers over a year in the default example.
- Going from 1% to 3% commenting adds about 10% more returning visitors - 209 a month on 10,000 new visitors.
- Commenters are 1% of visitors but 5.9% of returners.
- If only 30% of commenters come back, the gain halves to 5.4%.
- Comments are a signal, not a growth engine - a newsletter moves returning visitors far more.
In paid ads or content we saw that the visits worth paying for are the ones you keep. Readers who come back are the cheapest visits of all. This post asks whether readers who leave a comment come back more - and how much a higher comment rate really adds to your returning visitors.
Why commenters come back
A comment is a small promise to return.
- A commenter wants to see the reply, so they have a reason to visit again that a silent reader does not.
- Most readers never comment. Jakob Nielsen's 90-9-1 rule says about 90% of an online audience only reads, 9% contributes a little and 1% contributes most of it.
- So commenters are valuable one by one, but there are too few of them to carry your returning visitors.
- The question is size: how much does moving the comment rate actually move the number of people who come back?
Work out what comments add
Type your new visitors a month, the share who comment now and the share you aim for, how many commenters and other readers come back the next month, how many returners keep coming back, and how many months to count. The calculator shows what one commenter is worth and charts your returning visitors a month at both comment rates.
Prefer a full page? Open the comments and returning visitors calculator on CalcSA. For what a returning visitor is worth in rands, the value of a returning visitor calculator goes deeper.
Worked example: the calculator's defaults
10,000 new visitors a month, of whom 1% comment. An estimated 50% of commenters come back the next month, against 8% of readers who never comment, and 60% of each month's returners come back again. Counted over 12 months:
- A commenter brings 2.25 visits; a silent reader brings 1.20 - so one commenter is worth 1.87 other readers.
- Returning visitors reach 2,097 a month by month 12 at a 1% comment rate.
- At 3% commenting they reach 2,307 - 209 more a month, or 10% more.
- Commenters are 5.9% of your returners, though they are only 1% of new visitors.
- A 3.0% comment rate is what it takes for 10% more returners with these return shares.
Three more cases, same defaults except the one shown:
- Only 30% of commenters come back: a commenter is worth 1.46 readers, and 3% commenting adds just 5.4% (110 a month).
- A site with no comments at all reaching 3%: 15.8% more returning visitors - the first comments matter most.
- A comment rate of 10%: 44.9% more returning visitors - but very few blogs ever get one in ten readers to comment.
Estimates. The 50% and 8% return shares and the 60% who keep coming back are assumptions, as in the calculator. The 1% comment rate follows the 90-9-1 rule of thumb, not a measured blog benchmark. Your WebCounter counter shows your real returning visitors.
Returning visitors at three comment rates
Same 10,000 new visitors a month. Returning visitors a month when 1%, 3% and 10% of them comment:
- 1% comment
- 3% comment
- 10% comment
Show the numbers as a table
| Month | 1% comment | 3% comment | 10% comment |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2 | 842 | 926 | 1,220 |
| 3 | 1,347 | 1,482 | 1,952 |
| 6 | 1,941 | 2,135 | 2,813 |
| 9 | 2,070 | 2,276 | 2,999 |
| 12 | 2,097 | 2,307 | 3,039 |
- The 1% and 3% lines almost touch - tripling comments is a 10% gain, not a transformation.
- Only an unusual 10% comment rate opens a real gap, and few blogs get there.
- Answer every comment anyway - it is cheap, and commenters are your most loyal readers - but put growth effort into a newsletter.
Reading your counter for this
Your WebCounter counter shows new against returning visitors, so you can measure what comments really do. No counter yet? Get your free WebCounter counter - it takes a minute and costs nothing.
- Your comment rate: comments in a month divided by that month's visitors.
- Your return share: returning visitors this month divided by new visitors last month.
- Watch the posts with the most comments - if their returning visitors are no higher, comments are not what brings readers back.
- Count spam comments out - bots leave comments too, and they never come back as readers.
Sources
- Jakob Nielsen, Nielsen Norman Group, Participation inequality: the 90-9-1 rule (2006) - not re-checked at the original for this post; it describes online communities in general, not blogs in particular.
- The 50% and 8% return shares and the 60% who keep coming back are our estimates - no published benchmark for how often blog commenters return was found.
- Calculator: CalcSA, Comments and returning visitors.
Estimates only. How many readers comment and how many come back depend on your niche and your audience; your own counter is the test.
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