How to Add Comments to Your Static Site

At Strattic, we create a static version of your site for visitors to see, which is no longer connected to your WordPress database. Native WordPress comments require communicating with a database and therefore wouldn’t work on a static version of a WordPress site.

However, there are many comment tools that do work great with your site sites at Strattic:

1. Facebook Comments – Great if you want users to post via their Facebook accounts.

2. Commento – A fast-loading, privacy-first, commenting service with paid plans only.

3. Disqus – A long-time used commenting solution with free plans.

4. Hyvor Comments – A robust commenting service that lets you customize the colors, add reactions, and more.

Setting Up Facebook Comments

To get Facebook Comments working on your site you will first have to sign up for a Facebook developer account and get an App ID. Then we will install a WordPress plugin that takes our App ID and does all the work for us.

To set up get your Facebook App ID:

1. Go to https://developers.facebook.com/apps

2. Register for an account if you do not have one

3. Click to “Add a New App” and enter in a name based on the name of your website

4. Find the “App ID” at the top of the page for your new app

To get Facebook comments working on your site:

1. Install the Lazy Social Comments plugin

2. Add your App ID to the plugin settings

3. You can optionally change the “Load Comments” setting to display comments when you click a button or when someone scrolls to the bottom of a post. Both options will help improve page load speed.

Now your Facebook comments will work on your site when you publish to static.

Setting Up Commento

You can get setup with this comment service with the following steps:

1. Sign up for an account on the Commento website.

2. Setup your site in the Commento dashboard

3. Install the Commento WordPress Plugin. Since the plugin is on Github you will have to download it and then upload it to your site.

4. The plugin will automatically work with no configuration as long as your site is set up in Commento

5. Optionally – You can import your WordPress comments into Commento using these instructions.

Now when you publish your static site, the comments will automatically work.

Setting Up Disqus

Get set up with the Disqus commenting solution for your WordPress site.

1. Sign up for a free account on the Disqus Website

2. Setup your account on Disqus using the URL for your live static site (not your Strattic WordPress install URL)

3. Install the Disqus WordPress Plugin

4. Click on Disqus in the admin menu then on the Site Configuration Tab

5. Click on the “click to make changes link” next to the lock at the bottom of setting fields

6. Add the Shortname for your site and click save (How to find your shortname)

7. Republish your site.

8. Now when you visit posts on your static site, the Disqus comment options will appear.

Setting up Hyvor

1. Sign up for a free account on the Hyvor website.

2. When it asks for your site’s URL, use the URL for your live static site (not your Strattic WordPress install URL)

3. Install the Hyvor WordPress plugin

4. If you have existing comments, export your comments by going to your WordPress site > Tools > Export

5. From the “Choose what to export” menu choose posts.

6. Download the file

7. Open the file and do a search and replace. Search for your WP site url (e.g. https://example.site.strattic.io) and replace it with your live static url (e.g. https://www.example.com).

8. In Hyvor, go to Import comments. Select Import from WordPress and Plugin Default.

9. Republish your site to static.

10. Now when you visit posts on your static site, the Hyvor comment options will appear.

Note: If you disable Hyvor, you’ll need to export your comments from Hyvor back to WordPress. Also, if you’d like to see old comments in your WP Dashboard after you start using Hyvor, you’ll need to go directly to /wp-admin/edit-comments.php

More Comment Service Options

If you would like to browse some of the other commenting services that Strattic supports, please head over to our directory of tools for static WordPress.