Steven Schwartzman launches WordPress Magnet, a $40 WordPress plugin designed to hopefully increase the number of comments posted in your blog. The reasoning behind this is more comments in your site will attract even more traffic. It turns into some kind of viral marketing tactic, because as more people leave a comment in your site, a whole lot more visitors will join in on the fun.

But does this really work? Or is WordPress Magnet just another scam aimed at selling you the dream of higher web traffic?

Consider the following...

1. WordPress Magnet is a plugin that rewards people for leaving a comment in your blog.

Some folks may call this an ethical bribe of sorts. If your visitor leaves one comment, the plugin will automatically let them know how they can get their gift (i.e., free download of a special report). If your visitor leaves another comment, they then get Gift #2, and so on until as many as 5 gifts.

While the WordPress Magnet plugin can handle this for you automatically, please ask yourself if you want your blog filled with comments made by people who were mainly just after the comment rewards, gifts or incentives.

(The last time I offered some kind of reward for people who leave comments, I ended up deleting a lot of "just for the sake of leaving a comment" comments. What a waste of time!)

2. Are you willing to pay $40 for a WordPress plugin?

That's the initial price. If you don't want to plunk down any dollars, then try the Comment Relish WordPress plugin (by Justin Shattuck), which is designed "to send an e-mail message to users who comment on your website who have never commented before."

That email can contain the link to the downloadable report or gift that you want to send to your blog's First-Time commenters.

That's right -- there's no 5-Gifts-for-5-Comments feature, but at least you can test this whole concept of Incentivized or Reward Commenting for free before you invest your money in a non-free plugin.

3. Is Steven Schwartzman using his own plugin?

I found cached copies of some pages of Steven's blog where the comment area has this line: "Post a comment and receive a special prize!"

When I read the current (not cached) copy, I no longer see that line. It makes me wonder, though, why it looks like his WordPress Magnet plugin is not seen on his blog.

Afterall, a blog that gets less than 5 comments per post, which later experiences 10+ comments per post after installing the plugin will make a compelling and convincing case study, right?

My recommendation: Try the Comment Relish plugin first for free. If you do experience a boost in your blog comments, and if that results in more web traffic that leads to sales (or the attainment of your site's objectives), then try the $40 WordPress Magnet plugin.

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Manuel Viloria is your multimedia internet publishing coach who helps you make $100 per day online. Whether it's through blogging, podcasting, article marketing, videoblogging, email listbuilding, or even through Web 2.0 or social network marketing, you can increase your website visitors today. For more information, please visit Make Money Online | ManuelViloria.com.

First Posted: June 15, 2008 | Filed in: Web Traffic

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