Comments blog-comments-and-seoDateline: A verbose corner of cyberspace

It has always struck me as somewhat annoying when reading a blog post to have to scroll back to the top of the story in order to hit the link to make a comment. Most templates seem to have this particular quirk, perhaps because it’s hard to code a comment button that lands at exactly the end of a post of unknown length. (At least unknown to the programmer.) However, I recently hit upon a solution, and added it to a couple of older posts, and IT WORKS!!!

What’s the solution? Simply add a “Jump to comments” link at the end of your post. How to do this? Read on! These directions apply to WordPress, but the same basic logic is surely available in Blogger/Blogspot too. (Just don’t use their commenting system, hahaha.)

Step one. Compose your post, and finalize your title. The title needs to be finalized as the URL for the comments is based on the title of the post.

Step two. Determine what the URL for this new post is going to be. The URL is the web address of your particular post. In the case of WP, it can be seen at the top of the compose window next to “permalink.” In WP, the format generally is https://nameofblog.wordpress.com/yyyy/mm/dd/the-title-of-the-post-separated-with-hyphens/ where yyyy/mm/dd is the date the post was composed. To get the full URL, you may need to play around a bit. In my case, I had to copy the first part of the URL, paste it into the end of the post (temporarily) and then hit the “edit” button, copy the text there, hit cancel, and then paste the text next to the first part of the URL at the bottom of my blog. From there, I could easily copy the whole thing. Note that this URL must be EXACTLY correct for this to work.

Note: though it’s an extra step, it might be easier if you simply publish your post, then go to your front page, click on the link to comment on the most recent post, then you can easily copy the URL, and then just do Step 3 as an edit to your already-published post.

Jump to link find URL

Step three. Insert a hyperlink at the end of your post with text along the lines of “Add a comment,” or “Jump to Comments,” or whatever you want. Once you decide on the text, type it out and then select the entire “Jump to comments,” then hit the “Insert Hyperlink” button as shown above. For the hyperlink, type in (or copy and paste from where you already pasted) the URL of your blog post followed by “#comments.” Omit the period, and make sure that the “c” of comments is lower case. After you’ve inserted the hyperlink, make sure that your temporary pasting of hyperlink text is gone from the post. You might want to play around with an older post first, just to make sure you’ve gotten the hang of it before you “go live” with a new post.

Jump to Comments Hyperlink copy

And that’s it! Once your readers get to the end of the post, they can click on “Jump to comments,” and this should drop them right to the beginning of the comment section.

Step four.  Publish your post, make yourself a margarita, and think of witty replies to your commenters.

You may need to tinker with step 3 immediately after publishing the post if for some reason the hyperlink text is wrong. In that case, you can copy the URL from the top of your post immediately after publishing (but make sure you are already in the comments section first), then make an edit to create the link and then update the post.

Saludos y buena suerte!

Jump to Comments