6: Comments, Contacts, Sharing and Following

Blogger offers many options for connections between the author and reader:-

  • Author allowing Comments on posts
  • Author including a Contact Form on the blog
  • Author including a contact email address somewhere in the blog
  • Reader following through their Google account
  • Author and reader using the Share Button 
Until recently Blogger offered a subscription service. This has not been supported since July 2021. At this time, there's no easy to use substitute available.

You need to consider the operation of each option in making your decision on what best suits your blog.

Author allowing Comments on posts

Comment options in Settings
  • You can turn Comments on or off for the whole blog in the Settings. If Comments are on in Settings, you can turn Comments on and off for each individual page and post. 
  • If you allow comments, you can decide Who can comment? To reduce the potential for spam, we'd suggest you limit comments to Users with Google Accounts or Only Members of the Blog. 
  • Also, turn on Captcha to stop "bots" from posting spam.
  • You can also choose to have Comment moderation prior to publication. We'd recommend you make this choice.
  • You can respond with a Comment but there are no details to contact the person directly. This can be frustrating if the Google Account users name is not specific, for example, "Mary G", and the comment is not specific, for example, "They are my great-grandparents as well".

Authors including a contact form in the blog

  • You can include the Contact Form gadget in the Layout. 
  • The author's benefit is to get an email address for further contact. The reader's benefit is that their comments are made privately.
  • Our preferred approach for connecting with readers.

Author including a contact email 

  • While this makes it easy for readers to contact the author, it can lead to spam and other unwanted emails.
  • To avoid unwanted spam, you can include your email in an image or display your email as "author[at]gmail[dot]com".

Reader following through their Google account

Your readers with a Google account can choose to follow our blog either publicly or anonymously by-
  • Logging in to Blogger
  • In the left menu, click Reading List
  • In the top right, click Manage
  • Click Add
  • Type the URL of the blog to be followed
  • Click Next
  • Choose whether to follow publicly or anonymously 
  • Click Follow

Author and reader using the Share Button

  • The icon on the left of the image above appears in the pages and posts on your blog.
  • By clicking on the icon, you're presented with many options for sharing pages and posts in your blog.
  • You can also copy and paste the hyperlink. 
  • You can share your pages and posts on Facebook in many ways. Why not consider setting up a family group on Facebook.

Remember any questions or comments can be sent through the blog's contact form or posted on our Facebook group.

What's next?

References

Blogger has excellent help HERE.
A quick YouTube video HERE.

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