Creating more conversations through blog posts is the holy grail of blogging. Bloggers are constantly trying to find more ways to get their readers to interact with them. And while much of this depends on the quality of your writing, there are some technical things that you can do with Wordpress to help you along the way. Here are 13 plugins for Wordpress to help you get more comments.

1. Twitter Avatar

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/twitter-avatar/
Allows a User to enter their Twitter username when posting a comment on your blog and a link to their Twitter page will appear next to their comment. This plugin will also replace the avatar on the comment with their picture on Twitter, both on the front-end and the Admin of the Blog.

2. Twitoaster – Twitter Conversations

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/twitoaster/
Automatically retrieve Twitter Replies to your Blog’s Posts. These Twitter Replies are handled like Posts Comments, using WP built-in comment system. This way you can leverage the conversations on Twitter on your blog.

3. Facebook CommentsTNG

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/facebook-commentstng/
Facebook CommentsTNG will pull your comments from imported Facebook Notes back into your blog. Additional features include: Pulling accurate comment time from original Facebook comment, Being able to pull comments from Facebook’s under different languages. Setup your blog’s rss feed to be imported as notes in your Facebook account. Then whenever your friends comment on one of your articles within Facebook those comments will also appear on your blog.

4. Thank Me Later

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/thank-me-later/
Thank Me Later (TML) will automatically send an e-mail to those who leave a comment at your blog. Use this plugin to say ‘Thanks’ to your visitors, and prompt them to further engage with your blog. This will keep your best commentators coming back.

5. Ozh’ Absolute Comments

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/ozh-absolute-comments/
A comment manager plugin that lets you instantly reply to comments, either from the original Manage Comments administration page, or from the email notification, without the hassle of visiting the post first. Replying to comments within your blog is critical to keeping the conversation going. This plugin will help you do that faster.

6. WP oySidewiki

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-oysidewiki/
Automatically get all Google Sidewiki comments for each post or page URL and display them as regular comments for your post. As Google Sidewiki gets bigger, this will become an even more important plugin.

7. 140follow

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/140follow/
140follow removes NOFOLLOW from author link if the comment has more than XXX characters. The character count can be adjusted at the admin pannel. So basically, if someone leaves a comment at your desired length, the NOFOLLOW attribute will be added to their link. An incentive for people to leave longer, more insightful comments.

8. CommentTwitter

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/commentwitter/
Commentwitter is a WordPress plugin that gives commenters the option of Tweeting their comment with a link to your post. This is nice for those big Twitter users who like to post on Twitter often. They can kill two birds with one stone when you have this plugin activated.

9. CommentLuv

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/commentluv/
This plugin will visit the site of the comment author while they type their comment and retrieve a selection of their last blog posts, tweets or digg submissions which they can choose one from to include at the bottom of their comment when they click submit. Show your commentators some love!

10. Comment Notifier

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/comment-notifier/
Comment Notifier lets a blog reader subscribe to comments of a specific post when he or she leaves their own comment. This is critical for keeping the conversation going. Giving people the chance to respond to comments made in reply to their own.

11. wp-AuthorComment

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-authorcomment/
From the authors of wp-Typography comes wp-AuthorComment, allowing you to uniquely style post author’s comments. This way you as the author have your comments stand out, visually displaying your presence in the conversation.

12. BackType Connect

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/backtype-connect/
The BackType Connect Wordpress plugin finds conversations related to your content and allows you to display the associated comments inline with your own. Existing conversations about your content taking place across the web can now be displayed right on your blog for your visitors to read and respond to. It works on top of your existing Wordpress comments, both threaded and non-threaded.

13. Top Commentators Widget

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/top-commentators-widget/
The Top Commentators Widget is a sidebar widget that shows the top commentators in your WP site. This gives your readers a certain feeling of ownership within your blog. They feel that they are being recognized for their large contributions to the site. Very important!