In this post, I’ll be covering how to deal with negative blog comments.

Some bloggers seem to be gripped in fear and even decide to not have comments on their blog because they don’t want to run the risk of receiving negative comments.

If this sounds like you, I’d really love to help you change the way you think about comments and that’s because blog comments are actually really great for SEO, social proof and lead and traffic generation.  So It might actually be a really good thing for your blog and business if you allow them on your blog.

So here’s the scenario.  You’ve published a post. You are really pleased about it (and so you should be, it’s blummin’ epic!)

You’ve taken the plunge to allow comments on your blog.  You head out for the day. Do some shopping, have lunch with a friend, get home, have a nice bubble bath, but your PJs on, settle down for the night, check your WordPress dashboard and low and behold you’ve got your first REAL comment.

(Not counting your family members!)

Hoorah! You think!..  

…You’ve made it.

But when you check out the comment, your heart sinks, you can’t quite believe that someone would be so horrible. You slam shut your laptop and cry hysterically.

Noooooooo!

Yes you’ve guessed it, some fellow human being, who you have never heard of, has scrawled abuse all over your finest masterpiece and you’re not sure what to do next?

How to deal with negative blog comments.

Now I’ve been blogging for almost 8 or 9 years (I can’t actually remember) and I have never had a comment that was really nasty.  I mean sure I’ve had people disagree with my points of view but I quite like a healthy debate.  It actually helps to show your expertise and credibility in your niche.  I’m not telling you that because I’m special, but just to show that it might not actually happen as much as we fear.

But perhaps I have been super lucky because there are nasty horrible people that like to make it their mission to troll and make other bloggers lives miserable.

So if it does happen to you.  Let’s have a think about what we can do.  Yaro Starak over at Entrepreneurs Journey says you can do 4 things when dealing with negative comments on your blog.

1. Delete
2. Censor (edit parts)
3. Respond in Anger GRRRR
4. Respond in Kind 🙂

I would like to add:

5. that you could also choose to Ignore.

Depending on how offensive the comment is, you might just want to delete the comment.  That’s absolutely fine.  It’s your blog and you can do what you jolly well like.  You might hear sometimes that you shouldn’t delete negative remarks on social media.  My general rule of thumb, is that if the comment is not in relation to a service or product you provide and it’s causing icky feelings.  Then just delete it.

Sometimes you might want to leave the comment up there but just sensor some of the words.  For example, if you wanted to tone down the language (or expletives!)  If you use WordPress you can easily do this in your dashboard.  I sometimes do this if a commentator is having a really bad spelling day lol!

You could get really cross and blow steam out of your ears and then reply to the comment!  But If you are seeing red, my general advise would be to step away from the screen!  Go relax, chill out and then if 24 hours later you still need to explode, go ahead an knock yourself out.  But really think about whether this is doing your reputation and professionalism any favours!

Or you could be uber nice. Take the upper hand, show them how calm you are. Kindly agree to disagree with said idiot, tell them eloquently why they are a giant buffoon and move on.

The beautiful thing about having a growing blog with traffic and a community is that you will normally see your regular commentators stick up for you. It always makes me smile when that happens.

Finally you could just ignore it.  Reply to all you other comments, refuse to give the naysayer any of your beautiful energy.

If you are worried about comments appearing when you least expect it, make sure you set your blog to only allow moderated comments.  I use Commentluv, not only because it’s cool and looks great, but because it has a good spam filter too to stop those undesirable spammers.

Don’t be disheartened by someone who has absolutely no idea about you, your life and what you’ve achieved.

At the end of the day you can’t reason with unreasonable people!

Do you feel a bit scared about allowing people to comment on your blog?  Have you experienced negative comments on your blog?  What did you do, how did it make you feel.  Please share your experiences with us below and please share with other bloggers if you think it will help them to deal with negative comments.