Squarespace Blog Comments - Should You Enable Them?
If you’ve been blogging with Squarespace or thinking about starting your blog, you may have wondered about the importance of comments.
It’s a blog setting that many business owners gloss over, which is why I’m putting together this post as a resource.
Comments might seem insignificant, but in this post I’m breaking down why comments are beneficial, how to enable them, and how to easily respond to comments.
Should you enable your blog comments?
The short answer - YES!
Squarespace by default will have them disabled, but it’s very easy to change this setting.
Here are two key reasons to enable comments…
Community engagement
When you enable a comment box at the bottom of your blog posts or podcast show notes, it invites your readers to interact with you.
This is the easiest way for someone to express how helpful your post is or ask a question. This allows you to have a dialogue with your community and further support them.
It’s nice when people feel like they can have access to you. Of course, if someone is constantly leaving long winded questions at the bottom of each blog post or blowing up your email inbox, then it’s time to set some boundaries. But most people will leave a quick note.
If you don’t have the time to manage all the comments you receive, consider hiring a community manager onto your team to go through and respond to everyone.
SEO
SEO, or search engine optimization, is about making your website visible to search engines like Google (you can read about SEO basics here).
Blogging is the key to getting found on page 1 of Google by your ideal clients. If you’re a business owner who isn’t blogging or decided to put it on the back burner, I highly recommend you reconsider (here’s 7 reasons why you should start blogging).
The power of creating evergreen content through that blog that appears on page 1 is that it has a long lifespan. Posts can last years on page...crazy, right?
You want to know what can help keep those posts on page 1 longer?
Comments.
Yupp. Having comments posted every week or month on your blog posts sends signals to Google that your post is still relevant after all this time.
When new comments are added, Google will recrawl the page and basically “take note” that people are engaging with your content.
This is why you want to make a habit of going through and engaging with those comments as well.
And in case you’ve heard the common myth that Squarespace SEO sucks, I’m here to tell you it doesn’t ;)
How to enable your blog comments
If you’re wondering, “How do I add comments to my Squarespace blog?” then keep on reading.
There’s a few different settings I want to walk through...
How to enable comments on every post by default
Under settings - blogging - comments, you can click “enable comments globally” and “enable comments by default when posting.”
Ta-da! It’s that simple.
How to filter and approve every comment
Afraid of being harassed?
I once had a client who said she had an online stalker of sorts...basically someone who actively harassed her. She asked to have all blog comments disabled, which I advised against.
The solution is to simply moderate your blog comments. That way, you can approve each and every one that comes through and delete any spam or harmful language.
You can do this by checking off the setting “require approval.” Later in this post, I discuss where you can go to manage your blog comments.
How to turn comments off on specific posts
In the rare case that you might not want to allow comments on a specific post, there’s a very easy fix to this.
Go to Pages and then click on your blog page. From there, click Edit on the post you want to change the comment settings for.
Under the settings for the individual blog post, you can click “comments on” and change to “comments off.”
Other comment settings to be aware of
Here are the other settings you can see under the comments section and their mini description that Squarespace provides:
Allow Simple Comment Likes - let visitors like comments.
Allow Anonymous Comments - allow users to post comments anonymously.
Threaded Comments - Allow commenters to respond to other comments.
Show Avatars - Show commenter avatars next to their comments.
All of these settings are up to you. I chose to allow threaded comments because hey, it’s more engagement.
How to manage your blog comments
Every time a comment is left on your blog, Squarespace will send you an email.
To leave a response, you can go into the Comments tab right when you log into your website.
You’ll see this area is split up into 3 tabs:
unmoderated
approved
flagged
If you have your blog post comments on, you’ll see any responses under approved. There, you’ll see the option for deleting it or responding.
I hope that after reading this post, you’ve recognized that disabling your comments on your Squarespace blog is a huge missed opportunity. Comments are an incredible way to build community and keep your blog posts on page 1 for the long-term.
Tired of being buried in the interwebs and looking to grow your organic reach through Google with blogging? Let’s chat about how we can explode your visibility and sales through my Squarespace SEO packages!
Looking for more Squarespace SEO tips? Check out these blog posts: