Recently there’s been an important statistic that I can’t seem to get out of my head - only 1% of blog visitors leave comments!

I’ve discovered this through my own research on a number of sites and even Problogger supports this statistic. When you consider that John Chow averages about 5,500 visitors per day and has 7,000 reading through RSS, it actually takes a post to receive at least 125 individual commentators leaving a comment on his site to hit the 1% level. While many of his posts have 125 comments, most of these are made up by individuals leaving more than one comment so it’s safe to say that the number definitely hovers below or around the 1% margin on most blogs.

It’s not a bad thing if you blog for love

While many bloggers enable comments because they enjoy them or are under the illusion that their blog is a community, for those bloggers whose sole purpose is to make money, I can’t help but feel that the space devoted to commentators could be better monetized.

The picture on the right shows a page of John Cow Dot Com and the red highlighting indicates space that is devoted to comments. I chose John Cow purely because it provided a nice example of a typical web page (and it’s about to be shut down?).

With 13 comments on the page, a ‘Top Commentators’ box and a ‘Recent Comments’ list, it easy to see that a little over 50% of the page is devoted to commentators.

When you consider that only 1% of readers are active commentators, it seems a little unjustified to devote such a large space to a small minority.

Look at it this way - 99% of your readers aren’t interested in 50% of your site!

A waste of monetization space

I’m by no means arguing that comments should be removed on every blog as it is an individual choice that is up to the webmaster - although I do believe that 99% of bloggers do not even consider why they have comments enabled!

However, as someone who is solely interested in making money online, I see the amount of space devoted to 1% of readers as being a waste of space that could be monetized into a money making machine!

Instead of having comments, you could devote 50% of your site to an affiliate program or PPC advertising that is guaranteed to provide higher earnings than comments.

You could probably fit an entire sales page in the space devoted to comments!

Are you using your site’s space wisely?

What you do with your site’s space is an individual choice and you need to consider how the consequences affect the goals of your site carefully. I’m a strong believer that every pixel can be monetized and it doesn’t seem to make financial sense to devote 50% of your space to such a small percentage of your readership.

Could you be using your site’s limited space more effectively?

Rich people subscribe to Cash Quests