I recently read a discussion on a group for legal bloggers in which an attorney was asking for comments on his blog. I haven’t met a blogger yet who didn’t appreciate comments. We all have our own personal measures of validation whether its traffic stats, RSS subscribers or how many comments we receive.

But there’s more to it than just saying “Hey, I wrote some blog posts. Can you please go read them and leave me a comment?” Blog comments are like compliments. They have more meaning when they are sincere and unsolicited.

So how do you get more comments? Well, in order to get comments you need to get readers. And in order to get readers, you need to market your blog.

Let’s start with some of the easiest and most popular methods of publicizing your blog.

Blog directories - Think of a blog directory as the “yellow pages” of blogging. Bloggers can submit their listing and, depending upon the directories format, the blogs are then categorized or tagged by topic, making it easier for readers interested in that topic to find them. Most blog directories cover a wide variety of blogging genres, both personal and business. You can also try business blog directories, most of which break their listings down into types of businesses, such as marketing, computers, health, education, and law.

Signature lines - If you have a business and you use email, you probably have an email signature. Most signatures include your name, company name and your phone and fax numbers. But what about your website or blog URL? Including it in your signature lines will let your existing contacts know about your blog. Don’t overlook forum signatures either. If you belong to any forums, check their guidelines about signatures and if links are allowed, add yours!

Leave comments for others - Everyone appreciates comments and sometimes you have to give to receive. If you come across an interesting post, show the author of the post some appreciation by letting them know. However, don’t just leave a comment saying “Great post. I agree.” Engage in conversation, even if you don’t agree. Provide interesting and thought-provoking feedback and others just might follow your link back to your blog to see what else you have to say.

Social networking - If you’re not investing some of your marketing efforts in social networking, its time to start. As I’ve said in a prior post, use places liked LinkedIn, Ning and Twitter to get the word out about your business and your blog.

But publicizing your blog to get more readers and more traffic isn’t enough. Like the saying goes, you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink. Once you’ve brough someone to your blog, you have to give them a reason to want to stay as well as to come back again later.

Now let’s look at how to keep the readers once they’ve found you.

Engaging content - Blog writing is different than any other kind of writing. Its more interactive than journalistic writing, less “wordy” than legal writing. Keep paragraphs short and make your first paragraph attention-getting.

Visual appeal - Make sure your blog is easy to read. Avoid using fonts that are too small or don’t contrast well with your background. Break your blog into sections by making headers clear to distinguish between posts, use photos to draw attention to your content, and avoid using too many distractions like animated images or lots of ad links.

Invite and encourage - Once you’ve managed to draw a reader to your blog then kept them interested in your content, ask for their participation. Invite them to comment by asking questions like “What do you think?” or “Have you ever experienced this? How did you or how would you have handled it?” You can also add social bookmarking services at the end of your posts to encourage readers to add your post to popular sites like Stumble Upon and Digg.

Make it easy for them to come back - If you don’t have an RSS feed, get one. Give your readers the opportunity to subscribe to your blog updates by email or feed reader. Feedburner is a good choice and its very easy to set up and monitor. Once you’ve added RSS subscription options, make it easy to find. Its frustrating for readers who have found a blog they like and want to continue reading to have to hunt down your subscription info. Use an RSS icon and place it somewhere at the top of your blog. Some bloggers even add subscription options at the end of each post.

Once you’ve added some of these steps to your blogging regimen, you’ll see some increased traffic and more comments. If you need assistance with any of these, whether its promoting your blog, designing it, or adding content to it, Advantage Virtual Assistant can help. Its just one of the many services we provide for our clients.