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Reader engagement is a term you’ll hear experienced bloggers use a lot.  So what is it and why should you even care about it?  The fact is that website visitors tend to be a fickle bunch and can often leave your site as quickly as they arrived.  Not good for monetizing your content and building your regular traffic.

The key to being a top free website builder and blogger is to hook your readers in, get them passionate about your blog, make them want to come back time and again and tell all their friends how amazing your site is.  That’s reader engagement, and it’s one of the most important strategies for long-term blogging and monetization success.

So how do you engage your readers?  One of the simplest first steps is to install one of these free plug ins that will help do the job for you!  All 10 are available to download from our resources and plug ins page. 

Free Website Builder Plug Ins To Engage Your Readers:  The Top Ten

1. WP-Email:  if readers are excited about your content they’ll want to share it with their friends, so make it easy for them to do this.  Email is still one of the most popular ways of sharing content and this plug in makes it so simple for your readers to do.  If they’re sharing your posts with their friends, this will also help to bring in new traffic to your site. 
2. WordPress Thread Comment:  any top website builder searching for free plug ins will tell you this is an essential piece of software for reader engagement.  It allows comments to be displayed as a thread, which creates a conversation on your blog that visitors can join in with.  If you don’t thread your comments, your readers are far less likely to want to leave comments and feel part of your blogging community.
3. WP Follow Me: this plug in makes it easy for your readers to follow you on Twitter, displaying a neat little tab on every page of your website, which says “Follow Me.”  Once they click they can instantly follow you on Twitter, where they can leave feedback, start new conversations and interact with you on their favorite social media network.  This is great for allowing them to connect with your blog and directly speak to you, the author.
4. WP Post Ratings:  let your readers tell you which posts are their favorites, so you can keep providing them with the content they love.  Allowing your readers to get involved in your site and feel a sense of ownership is vital for engagement.  This plug in creates a voting system for readers to vote on their favorite posts.
5. Top Commentators Widget:  one of the best ways to encourage your readers to keep coming back and adding more comments is to give your top commentators a thumbs up.  This widget displays the names of the people who make the most comments on your sidebar, which not only rewards their loyalty but encourages new commentators to join in to see if they can make it to your top commentator sidebar.
6. Better Comments Manager:  if you want your readers to feel engaged with your blog, it’s important you actually take the time to respond to their comments and join in the conversation yourself.  This useful plug in allows you to respond immediately to comments direct from your WordPress dashboard, as well as editing comments for Spam and any offensive unwanted remarks.
7. Subscribe to Comments:  if people leave a comment on your blog, you know they’re showing the first signs of engagement.  By installing this plug in, they’ll be able to subscribe to your site and receive email notification when someone replies to their comment.  This is great for bringing them back to your site, time and again, encouraging people to keep joining the conversation. 
8. Community Submitted News: one of the easiest ways of boosting reader engagement is to give them a sense of ownership of your site.  That way you’ll build up a community who feels like they have a place to chat, discuss their favorite topic and meet likeminded people.  This plug in allows your readers to submit articles to your site, which you can approve before posting.  This is great for getting your visitors involved, as well as brining regular, fresh content to your site that your readers can enjoy.
9. I Love Social Bookmarking: there are so many social bookmarking plug ins out there that can help your readers feel part of your website by sharing your content with their social networking friends.  Yet the really great thing about this plug in is the simplicity.  It uses a clutter-free dropdown menu of all the major social bookmarking sites so that your readers can choose their favorites, without having a huge list at the end of every post.
10. Intense Debate Comments:  this plug in combines a number of different tools and features to give your readers’ engagement a huge boost.  First of all it threads all comments into a conversation style, but it also allows your readers to reply to comments by email, vote on their favorite comments and integrate with Twitter.  This makes it so easy for them to get involved in your website and feel part of your growing blogging community. 

WordPress is the top free website builder for bloggers and ideal for creating a loyal fan base of readers who are engaged with your content and continually visiting your site to check out your latest content.  If you’d like more tips on how to boost reader engagement, this article has some priceless top tips on How to Write First Class Content to Engage and Grow Your Readership.