Why You’re Doing Blog Commenting All Wrong
March 15th, 2012 | 
Author: 
Blog commenting is one of the most controversial marketing practices available. Some bloggers think it works great, while others think it is a waste of time. Blog commenting isn’t the best marketing tool, but it can provide real value to your Internet marketing strategy, but you need to make sure that you implement it properly.
Maybe you’ve tried blog commenting before. If you didn’t get the traffic of SEO benefits you were looking for, you need to reassess what you’re doing. A number of blog commenting practices are either a waste of time. Others may actually be damaging your business.
These are practices I advise staying away from.
Auto-Submitting Comments
This is a tool that blackhat SEOs use in their marketing. As a blog owner, I find it the biggest pain in the butt to deal with. Here is a sample comment that came to my site recently that I just had to laugh at:
“A unique debate will probably be worth remark. I do believe that you should compose more about this subject matter, may possibly not certainly be a taboo subject however typically individuals are too few to communicate in about this sort of subjects. To the next. Regards”
Clearly, this commenter didn’t even read my post. Blog comment spam like this is going to be deleted on my site. I expect other marketers will do the same. What value is that going to do for you? The only time the comment won’t be deleted will be if the blogger doesn’t bother monitoring the site at all. In time, other blackhat marketers will do the same and the site will lose its trust ranking. All outgoing links will likely become meaningless anyways.
Focusing Purely on SEO
Blog commenting shouldn’t just be about building your SEO rankings. Frankly, although blog commenting is a fast way to build backlinks, it’s probably not the best way to improve your SEO. Blog commenting is more worth your while when you do it for both backlinks and traffic.
It is certainly possible to build backlinks on any number of websites to improve your SEO rankings. However, the benefits you get from commenting on a post unrelated to your own niche are likely minimal. You should focus on building links from comments that are going to drive relevant traffic and linkjuice.
Many marketers complain that you won’t receive a large amount of traffic from blog commenting. Overall, I tend to agree. However, what traffic you do receive can be highly likely to convert.
I left a single, thorough comment on one blog post on Young Pre Pro. That comment brought visitors to my site that started engaging with me. One of them offered me a freelance project, two offered services I needed and two asked to guest post on my site. Other blog comments have brought me subscribers.
The Right Process for Blog Commenting
I have found the best comments come from the best conversions come from providing thoughtful comments on relevant blogs with at least moderate traffic.
- Thoughtful comments. Show that you have taken the time to really read the post. Brainstorm something that you can offer to the readers. The more value you bring to the discussion, the more likely they are to come check out your site.
- Relevant blogs. There is nothing more annoying than reading a great software review article and then find all kinds of links to weight loss products. Do those marketers really think anyone is going to click on their links? Try to comment on blogs as related to your niche as possible. If you have an entrepreneurship site, you can comment on blog posts regarding careers, business, MBA programs and marketing. You probably won’t get as much traffic from a site on quilting. The SEO links will probably be much better as well.
- Reasonable traffic. The majority of blogs get fewer than 10 visitors a week. Do you really want to waste time commenting on them? Focus on sites that actually have an active reader base. There are a variety of ways you can gauge the amount of traffic a site is getting. You could get a rough idea using analytic tools such as Compete or Alexa. However, my preferred method is to measure the number of comments a site is actually receiving. Sites with at least 5 comments on each most articles likely have a strong readership base that may see your comment.
Kalen Smith is the Founder of Online Rookies and Engineer-a-Business. He holds degrees in mechanical engineering and an MBA. However, his true passion has always been IT and Internet marketing. You can find him on Twitter at Engineerbiz.
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You’re right Kalen, never use any auto commenting software or leaving “nice post” comment, it doesn’t help at all and Akismet may list you as spammer and you won’t be able to leave comment anymore.
Anyway, what I do and what I think is right will be reading a blog post, then leave a genuine comment, only write when you have something to share or comment, otherwise just skip it and jump to another article.
Doing blog commenting the wrong way could lead your blog to failure very quickly.
Well said Kalen!
Thank you Lee. Yes you should definitely focus on branding yourself with your comments, not building SEO links. Spamming will put an end to both those strategies if you are flagged for spam or the comment is deleted. That really serves no purpose. Create a thoughtful discussion and work on relationships first and SEO after.
I appreciate you stopping by!
Kalen
You’re right Kalen, we can actually branding ourselves from blog commenting, therefore we shall do it right, build a healthy community and relationship between bloggers. Spamming comment doesn’t help either branding or SEO at all, no point doing these.
Not a problem Kalen, I’ll be more often here, leave a comment or two. Will appreciate if you got time to drop by my blog and leave comment as well (no force).
Keep in touch Kalen!
Comment spam is so prevalent in SEO, and I doubt that will change, the true spammers will never stop, but for the real humans that are looking to promote their legit sites your guide is dead on solid advice.
It’s too bad that newbies get sucked in with all the untrue SEO hype and wind up doing more harm than good for their sites.