Looking for another great off-page SEO strategy? You can increase traffic to your website with blog commenting.
It also helps to improve your visibility and establish your brand. Although blog commenting can be a powerful tool for you, there are a few best practices that you should know about.
Don’t waste time doing this the wrong way when you leave comments on other blogs and make sure you have a comment policy in place for your own website.
So what exactly is blog commenting? It’s when you write your viewpoint on a particular article or blog post. The comment, if approved by the website owner, then appears below the article.
Most of the time, you can include your name and a link to your website.
How to Do Blog Commenting
I put together these blog commenting tips for two reasons:
- Blog commenting best practices can help build your brand.
- The ridiculous, spammy comments are driving me crazy.
Here are five blog commenting tips that you should put into action for success:
- Comment on other people’s blogs. You should build this into your daily routine and make it part of your blog marketing strategy. Every day, find 2 good blogs and comment on one article from each. Don’t leave an uninteresting one either! Here’s an example of a useless one: “I agree! Great article.” Really? After someone put lots of time and energy into a writing a great blog post, that’s all you have to say? Blog commenting is about writing something that adds value to the article. What is your opinion? If you agree with the author, what is the reason why? If you disagree, why? Do you have something more to add? You see, when you write something that is thought out, it shows that you really read the blog post and you know what you are talking about. That’s where you start branding yourself as an expert. Think about how you want others to view you through your blog commenting.
- Do not approve ridiculous spammy comments on your blog. First of all, do not allow people to post a comment without moderation from you. Here is one that you definitely do not want to approve. It showed up on my blog the other day. Obviously this person did not even take the time to read my article or provide an opinion. He is a spammer and will never get approved on my website. Make sure people are using blog commenting etiquette and leaving something worthwhile.
- Ask for comments. At the end of your blog post, ask people to leave a comment! There are several ways to do this. For instance, if I provided 3 tips about something, I might ask: “Leave a comment and tell us your favorite tips for XYZ.” Or, “How did you resolve XYZ problem?” You can add something as simple as “What do you think?”
- Backlinks. When you leave comments, you are also increasing the inbound links to yours! I could write an entire book on this one. But the simple tips is that comments ask for your name and URL and those are the blog commenting backlinks!
- Reply to comments. In our business, it’s all about building relationships. If you do not respond to blog commenting, it shows that you are ignoring the people that stopped by your website! Instead, pay attention and show the community that you care about and notice what they say too. This is also how you start building relationships and getting your business known. I’ve met some amazing people through my blog and have the opportunity to work on projects with them.
Thanks for these useful tips. This is some fantastic information on the importance of blog commenting.
I totally agree with the spammy comments part of your post. I cannot tell you how many times I’ve heard “good job” “Thanks for the post” It does take time to read someone’s blog and then comment intelligently on it. And at this point can I say thank you spell check. However I still don’t agree with moderation, it takes too much time. But to each their own.
I am agree on your discussion. Really spamming is the most problem for a blogger. Although moderation enable system gives us few facilities. But I want to follow up this tips. It’s really will be helpful for all blogger and commenter.
I think the biggest problem, is these automated blog commenting programs. My site gets hit with dozens of these everyday…it’s become full time job just sorting thru these. Good article.
I agree with you! So many junk comments to go through – Akismet helps catch most of them. Thanks for your comment!
Lisa,
I think replying to other comments is very important. This lets people know that you care and that you are active with your blog. I also like your idea about putting a thoughtful, relevant comment. Great post here.
Chuck
Hi Chuck! Appreciate you contributing here! Hope to see more of you. Heading over to your blog now to check it out!
Lisa
Thank you for this great article.. Its very useful for me and useful for other people who are new in this field.
Very nice and amazing tips about commenting and i learned a lot by reading this article. Thanks for posting 🙂
Hi, great post. I am new to blogging.
I am so with you on the spam comments, drives me a little crazy sometimes. Great article. Its true, it doesnt take much, but its important to respond to all blog commenters.