If you’re a new user to WordPress, then you’re probably perfectly content with the comment features you have with your blog and may have not even realized that you can do more with your blog by adding a comment plugin. With different WordPress comment plugins, did you know that you can allow people to show an avatar with their comment or even vote on comment?

Try these 5 WordPress comment plugins to enhance your blog.

DoFollow

This plugin lets users leave links that are then picked up by search engines. In fact, many people specifically search out “Do Follow” blogs. If you’re having trouble getting the conversation started, DoFollow will do the trick. One word of warning though, before adding this one, make sure you have good spam plugins installed and filters in place.

And, if you’re looking for a few good backlinks, you’ll appreciate DoFollow sites when you comment on other blogs and notice your links are then being picked up by search engines as well.

CommentLuv

The CommentLuv plugin for WordPress encourages other bloggers to leave comments on your site by including a link to their last post or tweet. The plugin fetches the feed found at your commenters site URL. Then, when they submit their comment the last blog post link gets added onto the end of their comment for all to see. The CommentLuv website offers tools for enabling this feature on a variety of blogs, not just WordPress.

Gravatar

Gravatars don’t require a plugin, but they’re too fun to ignore. You can turn them on or off from the admin area in WordPress (Settings > Discussion). Almost every well-known blog or website offers the ability to have a thumbnail show up beside their comment. When users are signed in, their Gravatar automatically appears beside their comment like so:

wp comment plugin

Get Recent Comments

Get Recent Comments is a plugin that makes your blog more social by displaying recent comments the sidebar. Simply choose where you want it in your sidebar and set your options and it will display recent comments based on your settings. You can control how the comments are displayed: number of comments, the length of the comment excerpt, order comments by post ID or by date, separate out the trackbacks or ignore comments to certain categories. The plugin even offers support for gravatars.

Echo

Compatible with various blogging platforms, Echo is a commenting system that turns your blog into real-time stream of diggs, tweets, comments and more. Using the Echo for WordPress plugin you can share your content, then watch the live reaction. Echo adds the ability for users to use and large handful of different social media tools to share your posts and you can also enable voting so that users can rate your posts. Existing comments from WordPress are imported into Echo and both Echo and the WordPress native commenting system remain synchronized.