Every once in a while, you put your heart and soul into a blog post that you just can’t wait to publish. Once it’s finally done and you promote the post across social media, you wait for the comments to come in. Sometimes, even when the post is some of your best work, there’s a shortage of people willing to comment. It happens to everyone, but why?

Before you start questioning the quality of your content, take a look at the comment widget your blog or site uses. If it doesn’t have a great user flow, that may be enough to chase readers away from wanting to engage with your content. I’ll admit, I’m guilty of this too. No matter how badly I’ve wanted to give input, I can’t bring myself to go through a tedious process. It’s all about user experience.

Taking a quick look around the blogosphere, I came across a few different comment widgets that big name bloggers use. Some of these widgets seem to continuously outperform others. Here are a few examples:

Ad Age

In order to participate in the conversation, Ad Age requires its readers to type in the jumbled code via reCAPTCHA and then on top of that log in to or register for an account. That may be enough to scare people away from commenting on an article.

Business Insider

Business Insider has a pretty good set up. Readers can choose between logging in with Facebook, Twitter, or by filling out an average comment form. Having that choice goes a long way.

TechCrunch

TechCrunch goes with the Facebook comments widget approach. The argument can be made that not every one has Facebook, but certain sites like TechCrunch, will probably have a socially active audience. Another plus: community managers have the opportunity to post as the brand page they manage.

The Next Web

The Next Web uses livefyre for its comments which also allows its readers to post under either Facebook or Twitter accounts. For people who don’t want to use their personal social accounts, there is also the option to comment as a guest or simply follow the conversation without ever saying a word.