Would you like to get more comments and build email list? If you even hesitated in answering this question then I guess you are a complete newcomer to the internet marketing and blogging world.
But for the majority of people reading this, you have been wanting to get more comments and build your email list for as long as you’ve been a blogger and internet marketer trying to make money online.
I won’t link to any of my previous posts now but I invite you to get my free list building ebook. You can find the category with links to my posts on email list building in the sidebar to the right.
Recently a nifty tool has made it’s appearance which may revolutionize the way commenting is done and viewed. It will at least encourage it while helping you to build your email list.
What Is the Highlighter for WordPress?
This handy internet marketing and blogging tool is actually a WordPress plugin.
The best part about it is that it’s absolutely free, gratis, costing absolutely nada.
So relax completely. This is one tool that you can get and try without having to worry about the cost.
I may not be the first person writing about it but I have tried it out when commenting on some of the relatively few blogs that have installed it (about 1500 downloads) so far.
I have also installed it on this blog. To make sure it’s still here look at the left top edge of this page You should see as tag with “Highlighter” written on it.
If you are on the home page it won’t show. You must be viewing a single blog post in order to see it.
This is very important because after I installed it I couldn’t see it. So do click on the headline of any post if you are on the home page that shows more than one post and you’ll see the tag.
It’s still a “Beta version” and some minor bugs are being worked out. The tool is called after what is also does – it highlights – the Highlighter for WordPress.
If you highlight a portion of the text in this post, you can then comment on it right away.
You can also point to an already highlighted portion of the text like this one (again, make sure you have clicked on the headline of this post first in case you are on the home page) and read the comments of previous visitors and respond to their comment or just add your own.
Using this tool on this blog or any blog that has it installed is the best way to see how it works and to determine if you’d like to try it on your own blog.
It’s very important to know that you can highlight only a limited portion of text.
It makes sense because otherwise the whole page would be soon highlighted and yellow.
So what is the limit of the length of text you can highlight?
You can only highlight about 100 letters and spaces or about one and a half lines of text.
This fact is not mentioned anywhere as far as I know but this is what my readers and I have discovered.
I must admit that I was a bit skeptical when I first found out about the release of the Highlighter for Word Press.
Advantages and Possible Drawbacks of Highlighter Plugin
One of the concerns I had was the disadvantage that most plugins bring which is slowing down of the blog and increasing the time it loads.
I have found in comments on for example John Chow’s blog that those who installed the plugin, including John Chow himself, have not experienced any such problem.
I have been visiting John’s blog for a while now and while it does take a long time to load on occasion, it had been doing that way before he installed the Highlighter.
One of the commenters pointed out that this plugin loads after everything else on the blog has loaded and thus it has no bearing on the loading of the blog pages whatsoever.
The second concern I had was that the blog visitors would be distracted by the highlighted text after a lot of people would comment using the highlighting.
For the most part this is addressed by their ability to turn the highlighting off and reading the posts undisturbed by it if they so wish.
To turn off the highlighted text areas anyone can just click on the tab to the left upper edge of the page and check the box inside of the form that appears.
The third concern I had was about how the email list was being built with this plugin.
I always want to be sure that I only use double opt in when growing my email list.
This concern is also addressed. I have gone through the opt in process and it indeed is a double opt in. People have to confirm their subscription.
And if they don’t want to subscribe in the first place they can certainly choose that option too.
So everything is aboveboard and I think that after trying the Highlighter you’ll be pleased with it.
But the only way to make sure is for you is to give it a try
You can download the Highlighter plugin for WordPress anytime by clicking on the link and watch a video about it on that page too. Update July 22, 2018: The Highlighter plugin is no longer available. It was OK while it lasted but it didn’t get that massively popular in the end.
Since it’s still in the Beta version stages it’s possible that some problems will need to be ironed out.
I know of some that have already been solved and there is one thing that I hope will be changed. The “like” button covers the gravatar of the commenters.
This was not the case with the earlier versions and I know that the “like” button seems to have changed locations twice already.
There’s one more thing that I hope will be changed too but it’s a minor flaw that doesn’t affect functionality, so I won’t mention it now.
I hope that this was a helpful information for you. This is not a lip service post that you can find anywhere. Besides John Chow I have not actually seen a blog that posted about this topic that has the plugin installed and working and where you can test it by using it.
What to do now?
Comment in the comment forms below about what you think about the post, about the plug in and if you are going to install it on your blog.
Tweet and bookmark the post to share it with others.
Authored by Vance Sova
Subscribe to Vance Sova.com by Email
Filed under: Internet Marketing Tools
Thanks for the tip and the review Vance .. I’m going to install it on my blog this week. Will let you know how it performs.
Bonnie Sainsbury´s last blog post ..How To Set Up A Blog
Vance Reply:
November 7th, 2010 at 6:54 pm
Hi Bonnie,
Thank you for commenting. I really appreciate that. I think this may even be your first comment on my blog, I could be wrong though.
It will be interesting to see how the plugin works out and how people react to it. I think that once they try it they’ll like it. It least I did.
I’m looking forward to hearing from you how it performs on your blog once you install it.
Cheers,
Vance
Hi Vance,
Not really sure how this plugin will be any different to tweetme, add to any etc….. Ok it has the option to email the post, but how effective is it capture leads.
I don’t think I will be installing this plugin until it has been used by many marketers and it gets the full works to see how useful it really is.
Craig
Vance Reply:
November 7th, 2010 at 9:37 pm
Hi Craig,
Thank you for commenting. I think it’s very different from tweetme but I understand your reluctance to install it. I don’t know if you watched the video about it or if you tried to use it on my blog.
It’s generally a good idea to start using something when it’s been fully established. I usually do that but I also have an adventurer’s spirit and that prompts me to once in a while try something completely new and not entirely proven by everybody to work.
Cheers,
Vance
Craig Sowerby Reply:
November 7th, 2010 at 10:09 pm
No I have not seen the video, I will watch it then be able to make a decision on whether to use it or not
Cheers
Craig
Vance Reply:
November 7th, 2010 at 10:22 pm
That’s a good idea. Please don’t feel like you have to use the plugin. I was reluctant to do that too. Even after watching the video. Then I decided to see how to works in practice and used it on John Chow’s blog to comment and once I used it it kind of encouraged me to look deeper into it.
Perhaps you can try using it too. Just make a test comment with it here.You may not like it which will be OK or you may like it.
I think that the wide use of the plugin will happen only if people first use it themselves on somebody else’s blog. Then they may realize it’s actually useful.
Having them use it initially is probably the biggest challenge.
Thanks for coming back to comment. I appreciate you taking the time.
I’ll visit your blog in the next few days for sure.
Vance
Hi Vance,
Thanks for the useful review. I left a highlight comment to test it out.
You may need to couple this Highlighter plug-in with only showing excerpts of your blog posts on the front page. Most often I don’t click to an individual blog post, if the entire blog post is shown on the front page.
Thanks! I’ve subscribed, btw. 🙂
Bolaji.
Bolaji O´s last blog post ..The Truth You’re Not Ready for Prime Time
Vance Reply:
November 8th, 2010 at 10:43 am
Hi Bolaji,
Thank you for trying out the highlight comment and for this comment as well. I’m glad you liked my review of the plugin. Since the Highlighter is still in Beta version it will likely get even better.
One thing that I’ll have to update inside the post and that I just learned is that you cannot highlight 2 or 3 paragraphs as you have done. If you do that the highlighted areas won’t show at all.
Even though the creators of the plug in do not specify what is the maximum number of characters I found that the limit is around one hundred letters and spaces (spaces count as characters as in twitter) which on my blog right now is less than two lines and as bit more than one and a half lines of text.
Now to your suggestion.
I’ve been considering using excerpts on my home page back and forth for a while and will probably switch to that format sooner or later.Thanks for your view on that. There are people who like the full posts and I used to be one of them. Now it really doesn’t matter that much to me.
Thanks for subscribing. You’ll still need to confirm.
Vance
Hi Vance, thanks for sharing. I don’t know about this plug-in yet. Still in beta so I’m going to wait and see how it goes.
My first reaction though is there are so many different type of plug-ins available that one can really make their blog too complicated.
Who knows? Maybe my reaction is because it is new.
Terry Conti
Terry Conti´s last blog post ..Why is a Mailing List Sooo Important
Vance Reply:
November 8th, 2010 at 4:45 pm
Hi Terry,
You’re welcome and thanks for the comment. The plugin is new and still in Beta testing so you are right about waiting to see how it goes. Your reaction is perfectly normal I think and one that I had too initially. After trying to comment with it I liked it and decided to install it. Only time will tell if it catches on or not. It certainly will be resisted as anything new.
The fact that there are so many different plugins makes it difficult to decide which ones to implement because as you say your blog can become too complicated.
Since this particular plugin is very easy to install and set up it won’t be too much of a waste if you later decide to deactivate it. And to deactivate any plugin is a matter of one click.
Cheers,
Vance
Thanks for sharing Vance, but I’ll see how it goes with other people first, I am concerned about the uploading time, if this plugin is to heavy and time consumed, then the visitor definitely will fade off.But thanks for sharing anyway.Great job
Ari Lestariono´s last blog post ..Many People Have No Idea Of The Importance Of Getting Rid Of Debt-Learn Some About Why It Is Important
Vance Reply:
November 8th, 2010 at 7:35 pm
Hi Ari,
You are wise to wait until the plugin is proven in the field. As far as I can tell it seems to not slow down the loading of pages and the makers of it say that the plugin loads only after everything has loaded.
The plugin has some other small issues which is understandable as it is still a Beta version. I’m one of the people who have decided to use it in spite of that. This is not what I normally do.
Tanks for the comment. I’m glad you found it useful.
Vance
Hey Vance:
Thanks for sharing the plugin.
It might take a while to get readers used to using the Highlighter function.
I also see that people have the option of turning the highlighter off.
I think I will give it a try.
Have fun!
– Rick
Rick Byrd @ MarketingWithRick.com´s last blog post ..Stop Your Blog From Being Invisible
Vance Reply:
November 8th, 2010 at 8:00 pm
Hey Rick,
You are most welcome and thanks for the comment. Do give it as try but be aware that this a still a Beta version and they are ironing out any bugs as they are discovered. On the other hand it’s kind of fun to be using something that is still being perfected.
Yes, as I point out in my post people who don’t want to see the highlighted text can easily turn it off. And, yes, people will have to get used to using the highlighter to comment. Many will resist it but if enough of them try it they’ll use it again. It is a way more interactive and focused commenting.
Question for you: Have you turned comments off on your blog? I visited it earlier today and wasn’t able to comment.
Cheers,
Vance
Hi Vance, I’m very impressed with the plugin. I haven’t installed it yet but have watched the video and given it a try with your post.
I have sent 2 tweets from the content of your post (and 1 from the tweet button) it was simple. I just highlighted the text and the highlight box appeared for me to select which method i was going to use.
I have also tested the email sending feature and that is also spot on and includes the text highlighted.
I’m off to visit my mum now but upon my return I’ll be installing this and giving it a try. Like you said Vance, if i don’t like it I can deactivate it with a click of the mouse.
Thanks Vance, great tool!!
Respect and regards, Barry
Oh I just noticed that in the video it says that comments from within the post will be shown again at the bottom but i can’t see your there. Have you turned this function off?
Back in a few hours, Barry
Barry@The Newbies Guide´s last blog post ..The Simple Solution To Every Bloggers Worst Nightmare
Vance Reply:
November 9th, 2010 at 11:31 am
Hi Barry,
Thank you for the comment and for trying the plugin on my blog. It’s great that everything seems to work on the outside of the plug in.
There are still a few things that need improving on the inside.
Yes, I have turned the comments shown in a box at the bottom off because I find it’s too much of a distraction from the regular comments.
Especially now that very few people are familiar with this. A lot of people will still want to post regular comments and having two different comment boxes would be strange and confusing. You may decide to display the summary box from the Highlighter comments.
Good luck with the plugin and talk soon,
Vance
“And if you haven’t tried using the Highlighter on my blog yet to comment do that as well.”….I’ve had a go Vance. The highlighter comment box popped up. If I left a comment in that, does it get published here?
I’m not sure how the email list is gathered? Is it everyone who leaves a comment? How do we transfer these lists to Aweber?
Sorry for all the questions Vance, I’m not sure what the main advantage of highlighter is? 😳
John
John McNally´s last blog post ..A Simpsons Painting PUZZLE
Vance Reply:
November 14th, 2010 at 1:25 pm
Hi John,
Thank you for the comment. I think that if you had tried actually leaving a comment using Highlighter at least some of your questions would have been answered. But I really appreciate you asking me here.
The comments left by using Highlighter can be read right at the text that has been highlighted. There is an option that you can choose and use on your blog to have all Highlighter comments listed at the bottom of the post in a separate box. I didn’t choose to use it but you may do so.
When you write a comment using Highlighter before you click on submit have a look at the bottom of the comment form. There is a small box with text next to it saying Subscribe to updates. If you do nothing, that is how you subscribe but only after you click on as link in the confirmation email that will be sent to you. So it’s a double opt in. You can uncheck the box if you don’t want to subscribe.
The plugin is integrated with AWeber or any other major autoresponder. You just set it up once and it works.
The main advantage of Highlighter is that people can comment right inside the text of the post on a particular idea. The comments are thus more focused and people can interact and exchange ideas right when they have them instead of waiting till they get to the bottom of the post.
I like this feature and have commented on a blog using both the Highlighter on a specific idea and the regular comments form for an overall comment.
I hope I answered your questions sat least partially. if you leave a comment using Highlighter at least once you’ll get a better feel for it.
Vance
Barry@The Newbies Guide Reply:
November 15th, 2010 at 3:36 am
Hi Vance,
I’ve just popped back to ask your advice regarding the list building aspect of the plugin.
Would you advise a creating a new list or use our existing blog lists?
Thankls, Barry
Barry@The Newbies Guide´s last blog post ..Working With FileZilla by Jeffrey Morgan
Vance Reply:
November 15th, 2010 at 11:04 am
Hi Barry,
You can do it either way. I didn’t create a new list for this because I’m still testing the plugin and I chose a list that I use for leads from my blog. You will know that the subscriber came from the Highlighter plugin because the tracking box in AWeber will be blank since it won’t come through any of the squeeze forms created through AWeber.
On the other hand if you want to be sending different emails to people who subscribe to your list through Highlighter than you send to people on your existing list which you’d choose to also use for those who come through Highlighter then you’ll want to create a separate list. People who already are on your list that you’d chose to use for the plugin as well won’t be added by AWeber again because they are already on that list.
I hope this helps.
Vance
John McNally Reply:
November 19th, 2010 at 1:58 am
This sounds like a really good idea Vance. I can see the text you have highlighted, and the comment box and replies at the end. 8)
However, I have tried highlighting another sentence and I couldn’t do it. The comment box popped up, but the sentence wouldn’t highlight?
This may be me being thick, but I’ve had a couple of goes and can’t work it out?
John
John McNally´s last blog post ..LAZY MILLIONAIRE’S SECRET REVEALED- Grow Your Own Money Tree – LIMITED Number of MAGIC ACORNS Available – PLANT Your Own CASH ORCHARD NOW!
Vance Reply:
November 19th, 2010 at 10:01 am
Hey John,
Thank you for coming back and letting me know of your difficulty. Since the box shows up it means that you aren’t trying to highlight the text while on a home page. So I think there is no problem at all except that you may be thinking that the text will highlight right away.
The way it works is that you select the portion of text you want (it is limited and I edited the post just now to explain to what length) and then comment inside the Highlighter comment box.
The highlighted text will only appear after the comment has been approved.
Have another go at it and I’m sure it will work like a charm.
Cheers,
Vance
John McNally Reply:
November 24th, 2010 at 4:03 am
Thanks Vance, That’s what it was alright, I thought the text would highlight immediately.
John
John McNally´s last blog post ..FREE eBay Tools CHECKLIST
Vance Reply:
November 24th, 2010 at 11:25 am
You’re welcome John,
It would be nice if it would light up right away but on the other hand you want to approve the comments first. There may be an option for approving comments automatically but I haven’t seen anyone using it yet.
Vance
Hi Vance,
I just popped back to say that this plugin was easy to install and set up. I have taken your advice and have set it up using my existing blog list.
I did start to wonder if i had done it incorrectly as it didn’t show on my home page, i came over here and thought we both had an issue until i remembered you saying that it will only show within the posts.
Thanks Vance,
catch up soon
Barry
Barry@The Newbies Guide´s last blog post ..If You’re in to eBay You Need To Check Out The New Goofbay
Vance Reply:
November 16th, 2010 at 11:13 am
Hi Barry,
Thanks for letting me know you installed Highlighter. I hope that it will work out for you. I like it and I think that most of the bugs have been fixed.
I’m glad that you came back and remembered that I wrote that it doesn’t show up on the home page. It shows only within posts and when you think about it it’s good because most blogs show more than one post there and even if they didn’t the posts on that page keep changing.
This way each comment with the plugin is attached to and identifiable with each post and its URL.
Talks soon,
Vance
I am still procrastinating whether or not I should use this plugin
Dan Lew´s last blog post ..How To Use Aweber – Bulk Email Marketing Software
Vance Reply:
November 23rd, 2010 at 9:55 am
Hi Dan,
I would probably be procrastinating too if I had not tried using the plugin and submitting a few comments with it on another blog. When I used it I realized I liked it. By now all of the bugs that came up have been fixed so there’s no reason not to try the Highlighter plugin now.
It has no negative effects at all as far as I can tell. You can even suggest to your readers what you want them to comment on by highlighting a portion of a text and leaving a comment yourself first.
Thanks for commenting and try the highlighter comment on my blog too. Chances are you’ll get to like it.
Cheers,
Vance
Vance – I liked your review of this plug in and the fact that you gave such great examples of how to use it in the very same post. I love wordpress plugins and this seems like one of the more useful ones. Thanks for sharing, I will give it a try on one of my blogs and see how it works out for me. Thanks again.
John´s last blog post ..Fast Mole Removal Methods
Vance Reply:
November 29th, 2010 at 5:46 pm
Hi John,
No problem, glad to be of help. Have you tried making a comment with the Highlighter plugin yet? If I were you I’d try that before installing it. I did exactly that myself. You will probably like it in which case installing it will be more exciting for you.
Vance
Hi,
first of all, how is a comment plugin (however handy it might be) in any way related to building a list?
Second of all, I’d strongly recommend to use the academic style of writing in any informative article (such as this one) – a.k.a. use only nouns “we” and “you”. Whenever you use the word “I”, you’re suggesting a disturbing personal point of view which may not be desired…
Ondrej Dyrka@Internet Marketing Tools´s last blog post ..Business Model No2 – 5 Steps Towards Affiliate Marketing
Vance Reply:
November 29th, 2010 at 11:10 am
Hi Ondrej,
Welcome to my blog and thanks for the comment.
To your first question: If you indeed read my post then it should have answered what you are asking me. If you have not found the answer, please read the post again. Alternately you can write here how it’s not answering it. Then I’ll help you to find it and add more explanation, perhaps.
Secondly, I hear your strong recommendation and I don’t agree with it. This is my personal blog and I write from my own experience. I don’t scrape my content from others nor do I consult with scholars. My readers are interested in my opinion and not in being lectured to.
Using academic style would be pretentious and preachy.
Furthermore this particular post has to be written the way it is because I’m writing about a new tool. Academia style would be dishonest to say the least.
Vance
Hi Vance I have another question for you.
How and where did you edit the highlighter so as not to show the highlighter comments lower in the blog post? I’ve been over to the settings page and can’t find where to tell highlighter not to display them.
Like you said 2 sets of comments will make things confusing.
Many thanks, Barry
Barry@The Newbies Guide´s last blog post ..Newbies We May Be Dummies We Are Not!
Vance Reply:
November 29th, 2010 at 11:33 am
Hi Barry,
I’m glad you are working on this and asking questions I can answer.
Log in to WordPress and click on the highlighter plug in that you have installed. Right close to the top of the page that appears, under the heading Highlighter you’ll see 3 tabs: General, Appearance and Advanced.
Click on the Appearance tab.
Scroll down the page and find the heading Highlight Box.
Uncheck the little check box in front of Display Highlight Box.
That’s all you have to do.
I hope this helps. Please let me know if you have any other questions and how it works for you.
You’re welcome,
Vance
Barry@The Newbies Guide Reply:
November 29th, 2010 at 1:38 pm
Thanks Vance, worked a treat.
Catch up soon mate,
Barry
Barry@The Newbies Guide´s last blog post ..Newbies We May Be Dummies We Are Not!
Vance Reply:
November 29th, 2010 at 1:47 pm
That’s great Barry,
will talk soon by word of blog,
Vance
Well, I tried to use Highlighter to leave a comment, but trying to access the pop-up box just led to script errors.
Vance Reply:
November 29th, 2010 at 11:45 am
Hi Rick,
Can you please describe what you did exactly? How were you trying to access the pop up box? Were you adding as comment to an already highlighted text or did you highlight a text that has not been highlighted yet?
In either case the box normally pops up by itself. If you can tell me what you were doing step by step I’m sure I can figure out what went wrong.
Thanks for commenting,
Vance
One of my friends told me about this but i didn’t install it, after reading your blog i guess i should install the plug-ins. Thanks you opened my eyes.
Vance Reply:
December 24th, 2010 at 10:08 pm
Hi Paul,
It’s up to you whether you install the Highlighter or not. It’s still a very new plugin and not many people are familiar with it. But if you like it you’ll contribute to it’s becoming more well known by installing it.
Vance
Thanks Vance! I surely love free plugins. 🙂 Also for the link and video, thank you for spoiling us. 🙂