So you got convinced that your business needs its own blog, and you created one. You may have been at it for some time now, and yet you are not getting enough reader participation to suit you. Is there any way you can tweak things in order to get people to interact more? Here are three simple things that you can do to get results.

Initiate the interaction.

When writing posts, occasionally throw in a question at the end – something that will get responses from your readers. Your questions may vary depending on what you want to hear from your readers, but the basic idea is that you start the ball rolling. Needless to say, when people start leaving their comments, make sure that you respond in a timely manner. You can also invite them to ask their own questions, the answers to which could actually serve as material for future blog posts.

Hold a debate.

I got this idea from Robyn-Dale Samuda’s post over at BloggingPro. While he says that he rarely sees this technique used, it can be a way to spark the interest of your readers. By choosing a hot topic relevant to your business and wording your post so that it is clear to them that you want to hear what they think about the topic, you can get people to voice out their opinions.

Make it easy for readers to keep track of the comments.

It can be tedious to keep checking one blog post if someone has replied to a comment you’ve left earlier. Instead of expecting your readers to do this, look for a plug-in that will allow readers to subscribe to comments with a click of the mouse. This way, they will receive notifications in their Inbox.

What are your tried and tested methods of encouraging readers to participate in your blog?