Stephan Spencer has a great reminder about the importance of commenting: It’s the comments, stupid! I couldn’t agree more with what he’s saying. If you want to have an open discussion with your readers, obviously, you have to make commenting as easy as possible.

This is one reason why I don’t like the captchas that some are using to guard against spam comments. Captchas are those strange pictures of letters or words that have to be retyped before submitting a comment. While I definitely hate spam, this isn’t the best way to prevent it. Your best bet is to use something like Akismet or some other comment spam filter to block out the worst of it. Very little ever gets by Akismet in my experience (and, no, I’m not affiliated with them in any way; I just really appreciate not having to go find and delete a hundred spam comments a day!).

Another great point Stephan mentions is that he’s been slacking lately in leaving comments on other blogs. This is something I’ve got to work on myself. It’s really important for attracting attention, building traffic, and building community. I’ve made a lot of great connections in the blogging world just by surfing from one blog to another and leaving comments. Lots of people see these comments and follow them back to my blog. Many in turn leave comments here. It’s a win for everybody.

Stephan’s blog is full of great information. Be sure to go check it out and leave a comment for him. And, don’t forget to visit Adnan at Blogtrepreneur and leave a comment on his post. He’s almost reached his goal of 30 unique commenters.