CommentLuv Premium Review – Get More Blog Comments

We all want more comments on our blogs but how do you encourage people to leave comments? I’ve recently started using the CommentLuv Premium plugin in my blog. I’ve seen it used on other blogs and jumped at the chance to get a copy during it’s recent 7 day pre-launch. I’ve now had a chance to use it so I’ll tell you what I think of it in this CommentLuv Premium review.

What Is CommentLuv Premium?

You may have seen the CommentLuv plugin on some sites over the past few years. It was a plugin that gave the commenter a link back to their most recent blog post. When you entered your blog’s URL as part of leaving a comment, the plugin would retrieve your RSS feed and place a link back to your most recent post, with the post title as the anchor text.

CommentLuv Premium takes it to the next level, and adds some features from the other plugins that the CommentLuv creators have made. When you purchase CommentLuv Premium, you get access to four plugins:

1. CommentLuv Premium
2. Twitterlink
3. GASP
4. Keyword Names

We’ll look at each one in more detail.

CommentLuv Premium – How it works

When you’ve installed the plugin, there’s a comprehensive dashboard that enables you to tweak it the way you want it.

You have the choice to use it on Posts, Pages, or both. At the moment I’ve only got it set up on my Posts, as I don’t have comments on Pages (easy to do this using the Headway Theme!).

You also have a couple of CommentLuv badges to use, and you can make them clickable with your affiliate link (you can see the example in the comments section below).

The rest of the options deal with the messages and enticements that people receive. It can get a bit complicated, but I’ll try and simplify it for this CommentLuv Premium review.

The free CommentLuv plugin shows the most recent blog post someone has made. The CommentLuv Premium plugin can be set up to give them 10 blog posts to chose from (or some more options if you’re a CommentLuv Premium owner).

It can be set up to automatically give new posters the choice of their last ten posts, or you can structure it that they need to have a certain number of approved posts before they get access to their last ten posts.

On Blogger Business Plan, I’ve got it set up so that when you have three approved comments, you’ll then get access to your last ten posts for every subsequent comment you leave. I’ve set it up like this because I want to reward people who keep visiting and commenting on my blog. If you’re new here, I wrote this post last week on how to set up a blog commenting system using Google Reader – you should read it and bookmark my blog!

So, if you’ve never left a comment here, CommentLuv will automatically post a link to your latest blog post when you leave a comment. Go ahead – try it. And as you’re doing it, you should see a message that tells you that you’ll get 10 posts to choose from once you’ve got three approved comments.

I can change these settings. If I wanted to make you have 10 approved comments before you get access to your last ten posts, that’s easy to change from the dashboard. If I wanted to change the text you see about how many blog posts you need to get approved, that’s also easy to change.

The next option is about whether those links are DoFollow links or not. Before you get the required number of approved comments, the links aren’t DoFollow. But once the 3 approved comments are in place, you can tick a box so all subsequent links are DoFollow links.

Get social with CommentLuv Premium

The next set of options are all about social networks. As a further enticement, you can give people another option to get ten recent posts to choose from when they leave a comment. If they +1 the post in Google, Re-Tweet it or ‘Like’ it on Facebook, this can also give them access to their last ten blog posts. This will over-ride the need to have a certain number of blog posts approved.

Once again, you can set this up so the links can be DoFollow or not. You can also customise the text around this area on the comment form. You can see this on my comments section. Go ahead – use these social enticements to see how they work and get ten posts to choose from in the process.

One of the other things I like about the social enticements is that if someone Tweets about your post, the tweet will include your Twitter username, and they will also get asked whether they want to start following you on Twitter.  This is a great bonus as people in their Twitter stream will see their tweet and possibly click on your name within that tweet to start following you.

The benefits of being a CommentLuv Premium owner

There are some extra benefits for those who own the plugin.

One is that ability to set up an ‘info box’ that tells people more about who you are and what you blog about. When you comment on someone else’s blog, people can hover their mouse over the link to your last blog post, and the info box will appear on the page. This box shows a picture of you, has a bit about you, and also shows links to more posts.

You have some choice in what displays here. You can show your five most recent posts, some of your favourite’s, or a mixture.

The ‘Favourites’ section is interesting. It allows you to pick five posts or pages from your site that will display in the info box. I’ve added my ‘About’ and ‘Subscribe’ pages as well as three other blog posts that I want to promote.

The plugin will also show some recent posts that you’ve commented on.

The idea of the Info Box is great – it’s a good way for people to find out more about you, and gives people more options of content to click on.

TwitterLink

TwitterLink is a separate plugin which is included in CommentLuv Premium. It’s quite simple – it allows people to include their Twitter username which will then appear as a clickable link on their comment. This is a great way to encourage people to follow each other on Twitter.

G.A.S.P.

No-one likes spam and one of the problems with the free CommentLuv plugin was that it seemed to attract spammers. It was simple to search for CommentLuv powered blogs and leave spammy comments in order to get a backlink with anchor text that in some cases was a DoFollow link.

The GASP plugin was built to counteract that. I’ve been using this plugin and had no problem with spam.

You’ll see in my comments section I’ve got the tick box that says ‘Confirm you are NOT a spammer’. You can change this text if you prefer to make it say something else.

CommentLuv also includes a hidden email field that can only be seen by spam bots. They’ll see this field and enter an email address. The plugin will then know that a spam bot has entered the comment, not a real person.

It’s simple, but it seems to work.

Keyword Names and CommentLuv

The final plugin is the Keyword Name plugin. This is an improvement from the KeywordLuv plugin.

It allows people to put keywords after their name when they comment.

You can adjust the rules around this – you nominate how many comments they need to have approved before this option is made available, how many keywords they can use, and whether they’re NoFollow or DoFollow links.

It’s very simple to set up, and is an additional incentive for people to comment – they get a backlink with pertinent anchor text.

CommentLuvPremium Review – Summary

I’ve found CommentLuv Premium to be very easy to use. I’ve noticed they’ve put out several updates over the past few weeks – always a good sign that they’re listening to feedback and trying to improve. I had to lodge a support ticket and they responded within 12 hours with a solution.

I’m using the plugin because I want to encourage more comments on my blog. I want people to feel that they’re getting something a bit more special than the usual backlink to their site. When you look over the comments section and see the latest blog post names, you may see something you like and click through. You’re probably more likely to do that when you can see the anchor text that CommentLuv provides.

It’s not for everyone. It works on blogs like this one, because most of the people who read it own blogs. They understand the benefits of links back to their own blogs and are more likely to comment.

I read one article from someone who uses this plugin on a blog in a completely different niche. Very few of their readers actually had web sites, so the plugin became more confusing to those commentators.

My advice is to think about your target market. If they have blogs and would like to get meaningful backlinks, then CommentLuv Premium will probably suit.

Hope you learnt a lot from the CommentLuv Premium review. The plugin is currently in pre-launch stage – you can register at the site to get access to it in a few days. And don’t forget to leave a comment below and see how it works!

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About Allan Ward

Allan lives in Adelaide, South Australia with his wife and two boys. He is the founder of Blogger Business Plan and loves helping bloggers learn how to transform their blogs from hobbies into sustainable businesses.
When he's not blogging or working in his financial planning business, you'll find Allan playing guitar, reading or coaching his son's soccer team.