This post is simply about developing a comment strategy that will grow your traffic, boost your number of subscribers and also get you better rankings on Google. Yep, that’s right. All of that can be done by leaving some cleverly crafted comments. Here is how to do it.
NOTE – This post is entirely white hat and Google friendly. I never buy backlinks or use paid comment services and don’t encourage my readers to do it either. Relevant and useful comments that add value are the only thing I will advocate.
Some advice about sexy comments
Before I get into the actual strategy elements of this post I want to talk about the comments that you leave on people’s blogs and websites. They need to be sexy. And I do not mean sexy like dance around a pole or wear some nice lingerie sexy, I mean they need to be interesting, involved and personal. Please do not waste time leaving comments on people’s blogs saying things like “hey, nice post” or “this is a really good article”. Read the article (or a part of it) and leave a comment that is either adding something to the discussion, criticizing (nicely) the ideas of the post or saying something else that someone will find useful.
Why do all this? Here’s why:
- It helps you get your comment approved
Unless a comment adds some value to the blog post and to my reader’s experience I don’t even publish it. If your comment gets approved it means you said something that I thought was pretty cool. If you just add a banal compliment then chances are a lot of blogs won’t publish and you will waste time. - You are branding your business
Remember this post I wrote about choosing a domain name? In it I talked about branding and how everything that you do affects the way people perceive your blog. If you leave good comments people will be more likely to click through to your site and the blog owner will be more likely to link to you or reply which, in some cases, gets you a lot of traffic. Oh, and make sure you are signed up to Gravatar.com to get the little icon or photo.
Before you add a comment ask yourself whether it is sexy and whether it is a comment that you think other people will find interesting. If you don’t do this then all the other stuff I am about to talk about will amount to next to nothing.
How to grow your traffic, subscribers and Google rankings with comments
photo credit: Boston Wolverine
Now I am going to get into the potato of the post (most people say meat but I’m trying to go vego). I was initially going to break down the strategies into three areas of traffic, subscribers and rankings but, to be honest, they are all so intertwined and interrelated it wouldn’t work. What I have come up with is a complete strategy that you can use to grow all three things at once.
1. Understand the importance of anchor text
The very first thing you need to know is the important of anchor text. This is the text that people click on to use your link. For example, if I want to link to this post the words “this post” is the anchor text. What words you use is very important. Here’s why:
- Search engines and anchor text
A lot of SEO experts will tell you that the anchor text of backlinks is very important. For example, if your blog is about cat collars and you want to rank on Google for the term “cat collars” you will find that links with anchor text about cat collars are more valuable than links like the “this post” one that I used above. Now, remember that all comments are backlinks so you should use an anchor text that it relevant for the keywords that you want to rank for. But more about that later. - Branding and anchor text
Sometimes SEO isn’t the issue. Sometimes you want to interact with a community of experts or you might want the owner of the blog to pay attention to your comments. For example, if I wanted Brian Clark from Copyblogger to notice me in his comment areas I wouldn’t use keyword targeted anchor text, I would use Blog Tyrant. Why? Because he is seeing the name of my blog over and over again and, hopefully, sooner or later he will visit it or pay attention.
If you are trying to get better Google rankings you want to use relevant keywords to the searches that people are going to make. If you are trying to brand your blog or raise awareness you want to use the name of your blog or your own personal name so people start to see you around the place.
2. Understand the importance of the link you leave
The next thing that is really important is to look at the link you are leaving. Most people just enter the root domain name for their website when they comment. If I look through the thousands of comments that I get on my blogs I find that close to 100% of them are just http://somewebsite.com. But, if you were clever, you might start using something different.
Let’s say you visited my post on selling a blog and wanted to leave a comment about a post that you had written on a similar matter. Let’s say you had done a post called How to Prepare Your Blog for a Sale. Instead of just putting your root domain why not link directly to the post (so your link would be http://somewebsite.com/how-to-prepare-your-blog-for-a-sale/)? If you are leaving the comment for SEO purposes then you might also want to match the anchor text with the post and put something like preparing for a blog sale.
That post I wrote on selling a blog has had literally tens of thousands of visitors this month. The comments that are left on that post would get some traffic so it is important that you send people to a relevant post, something that they are interested in. This is like targeted advertising. If you just send them to your homepage there is a good chance they won’t find anything relevant.
3. Get relevant pal
The next thing that we need to talk about is relevance. This is closely related to the first two points. When you leave a comment on a blog you need to make sure that you are doing a few things related to relevance.
- Commenting on a relevant niche
Leaving comments on unrelated niches is largely a waste of time. You want to make sure the blogs you leave comments on are related to your own website, the more specific the better. - Commenting on relevant articles
I’ll take it one step further and say that you should also comment on relevant articles. So if you want to get make the most of the backlink you are getting in terms of both SEO and brand equity you want to leave relevant comments with relevant anchor text and backlinks on the related posts. For example, if your website is about lower abs exercises you want to find fitness websites or specifically abdominal training websites and then comment on the articles about lower abs with the related links. These are the best comment backlinks.
Now there are a lot of SEO experts out there who might flame me for saying that these are the best comment backlinks as a large number of them consider that blog posts with the highest Page Rank are the best. But in my experience it is the relevant back links that help my blogs the most.
4. Learn how to find the best blog posts to comment on
One of the hardest things about developing a good commenting strategy is finding the right blogs to comment on. Even harder than that is finding the right posts within those blogs to comment on. If you want to develop a truly killer comments strategy you need some tools and methods to help you get the right ones.
The first thing you need to do is visit sites like Digg, Delicious, Reddit and Technorati and find the best blogs in your niche. Quite often you can refine your search by topic and once you’ve done that you will be able to find some outstanding websites that publish very high quality content. Remember, the better the post you comment on the more valuable your comment will become over time. Add all of these blogs to a folder in your bookmarks called “Authority Comment Blogs” or something like that. You should also subscribe to their feed because you want to know when they publish. More about that later.
The above image is a screenshot from the tool called Market Samurai. If you haven’t got it yet I highly recommend you do. Basically it allows you to do a whole lot of research into your website niche by looking at the competition and how many back links they have, where they get those links from and so on. You can also research keywords, domain names and a whole host of other things. Seriously, get it.
There are lots of tutorials and posts on how to use Market Samuarai effectively so I am not going to re-hash it all again here. Basically what I want you to realize is that the amount of data that you can find on this tool in 5 minutes is equivalent to months of manual searching on Google. It has changed the way I do a lot of my blog research.
What you want to do is look at the keywords that you want to rank for on Google and run a search on the competition. Find out where they get their links and then go and see if any of them come from comments. A lot of the time they do. Bookmark those sites and the posts with the relevant terms. You can even find which ones have the highest page rank for all your PR junkies out there.
5. Make time to comment
Once you have used the social media sites and Market Samurai to find some amazing places to leave comments you want to set aside time for commenting. You actually need to do two things in this respect:
- Comment ASAP
The first thing you need to do is figure out when these guys post new articles. For example, Darren Rowse usually posts articles on Problogger around 11.30pm my time. If I visit the site then I know I can get a comment in as one of the first few people. This is important because it is the comments that most people see, including the owner of the blog. - Comment each week
Set aside an hour or two each week, or 20 minutes a day, to go to all of these website and blogs and leave helpful and useful comments. If you do it in a systematic way like this you will slowly start to get some excellent trickle down traffic and relevant backlinks.
One bonus about making time to comment is that you often find that you come accross some really useful articles in your travels. Sometimes I have found some real gems while I was there just to add a comment or two.
6. Remember forums
Last night when I was writing this very paragraph Glen from Viper Chill posted an article about how to rank on Google and in that article he talked about forum links. In it he said:
Some people laughed at me when I said that low-quality directory submissions and tools like Bookmarking demon still help me rank very highly in Google. However, the only reason I say that is because they really work. As proven here, spamming forums and membership sites are helping people rank in very profitable industries. I think this is a real shame because there are sites which deserve to rank above these, but the Google algorithm is still very easy to manipulate.
Now, I really don’t agree with spamming forums because I think it is unethical. Personally, I do not do anything online if I know it is going to upset or annoy someone, the same as if I was operating offline in a store or something. I think sometimes people forget that.
That being said, you can use this information to your advantage by creating another bookmarks area for forums. Over time you need to build up a list of forums where you can interact as an expert and add links in a really beneficial way. For example, you could write a thread about some helpful topic and use a link to your website so people can find more information. This also works on the traffic front because the forum members will visit your site and subscribe to your RSS if you are offering relevant information.
One little trick of the trade is to remember to add a link in your forum profile. A lot of these forums pass page rank in this area so those links can be worth quite a lot to your blog if you manage to find the right places.
Conclusion
Commenting on other blogs and websites is a fantastic way to grow your traffic, subscribers and Google rankings if you do it in a clever and methodical way. Don’t spam, keep it relevant and add something useful and you will find that your online profile grows as your position on the search engines does.
Does anyone have any other helpful commenting strategies? Have you ever had something nice happen from leaving a comment on a blog? Leave a comment on this one, you never know what might happen.
You make some very valid points here. While I agree commenting on sites related to your niche is practical and a ‘methodical’ approach to gaining quality back links and higher google rankings I personally don’t mind commenting on blogs outside my niche; if I’m learning something new or find an article on software engineering interesting, for example, I will leave a comment. Sometimes it’s not always about the ‘end result.’ I like your advice about leaving a url link related to the post you are commenting on. I never knew this and it does make sense. Thank you for bringing this to my attention. Also the tip on commenting first is so true and something I try to do because it does have it’s rewards.
Thanks for sharing this incredibly useful and insightful post.
Michael
Hey Mike.
Yeah, for sure, commenting on unrelated niches is not a bad thing, just not as relevant as posting in close niches.
Thanks for stopping by again.
It’s not bad, but you should spend your time posting relevant and useful comments, instead of spamming every blog you can find 🙂
Personally, I like to comment only on blogs that I identify myself with i.e. blogs that always provide some useful information which can either be a new learning or provides with a newer perspective.
Say for example I have a tech blog, I can find numerous other blogs in the niche which have huge number of visitors. But I do not like to go and comment on each of them unless either I feel that the content really moved me OR I have something fruitful to add to it.
For me, just going about and trying to comment on high PR blogs which have any relevant posts to your blog’s area is also kind of unethical. I can always make the comment valuable enough to get approved and have my desired anchor text but I do not want to do that unless I believe in what I am saying/doing.
I just feel that you should comment only on a limited set of blogs that you believe in. This way whatever you post/comment would always be informative and have some value. In the longer run, it will also help to build a long term relationship/collaboration with the blog authors. You can of course also use the desired anchor text to make it beneficial for your good self.
There are various dofollow comment blogs also which provide you with the follow backlinks that can help your Google PR and a large number of blogger do use them. However, I feel this is not the right thing to do as part of your long term blog strategy.
Having said all that, in this mad race to increase website traffic and high Google PR – probably ethics do not carry much weight.End of the day -everything is fair in love and blogging!!
Hi Shivam.
I think ethics are important no matter what and I agree with you about just commenting for the sake of commenting being a little shady.
Do you reckon its okay though if you are making useful comments?
Yes, I am fine if the comments made are useful. However, as I said earlier – I would rather restrict myself to a limited set of blogs rather then posting comments on a huge number of blogs in my niche.
What if it could help your blog by doing more?
You have to really evaluate a few things here
a) Do you believe in commenting on all those extra blogs and does it align with your ethics and principles?
b) Do you have enough bandwidth in your hand to do this wrt using the same time to creating quality content for your blog (which is indeed your primary goal)?
c) Is the %age extra mileage that you will get by commenting on additional blogs significant to you?
My personal opinion on how ideally I would like to see this is as follows. If one is starting a new blog, first make sure that you create enough content even before publishing the blog. This content is the one that would buffer you in scenarios where marketing your blog ( eg by commenting ) would consume majority of you bandwidth. Keep a balance between content and marketing till you create a decent enough visibility ( which will be important if you are a newbie ). Subsequent to this, you anyways would be in a good position to answer the above 3 questions and take your own call.
I’m the first commenter! Great strategy, huh?
My biggest problem is finding time to visit all my favorite blogs……..
Of course, since I help others with their blogs (mom blog & business)with my Blogging Biz Mom site, I read a lot of blogs every week.
I also like to encourage newbie’s by commenting.
I was just reading (saw a video?) of someone who uses two days a week just to visit blogs and leave comments. The other days are for preparing posts that they schedule to be posted later.
I think I’ll have to pencil in time on the schedule for blog hopping and nothing else!
Good stuff Carolee. Let us know if you find any good strategies.
Ok, I THOUGHT I was first!
Hi Blog Tyrant,
Am i the first few to comment:) I resonate with your point of leaving targeted link in the comments box. I am one of them who always leave the blog link. Thanks for the reminder on that.
If your main purpose is to build traffic, finding the best blog in your niche to give comments is definitely a good way but i believe most bloggers give comments in the hope of build a relationship and networking.
Thanks for sharing all these awesome tips.
Thanks Lye. Sorry you didn’t quite make first!
I know that I need to find more relevant blogs to comment on than Copyblogger, DBT, & this one but I’m addicted to this stuff. This will be my assignment for the week: find another blog as entertaining as mine to leave comments at.
Another great article BT. I just hope you still find me sexy.
Ba ha ha ha. Always sexy DA.
Have to agree that forum is really helpful when looking for targeted traffic. I normally set aside time every week to post relevant threads in travel forums for What to do in London and that has resulted in a some traffic coming through.
One thing that I’ve not tried is to insert the specific url (I’m guilty of specifying my homepage as the landing page). So I guess that’s one of the reason why the bounce rate is relatively high.
Oh, I note that having relevant comments helps in an indirect way as well. Fellow commentators would actually contact you directly either for advice and suggestions. That does wonders in building up your network within a niche. 🙂
Do you find that your forum traffic is more likely to interact than other blog comments?
Hmm, that’s a good question. In fact, I noticed that the people coming from forums don’t usually interact. But they are more likely to perform specific actions, such as downloading an e-book etc (or clicking on an ad!).
For those who blog on WordPress, I’d definitely advise to comment on posts featured on Freshly pressed since they get a LOT of traffic.
I got traffic that way and one of my posts was actually featured on Freshly pressed (you can access it directly by clicking on my blog name above (see Blog Tyrant, I’m following your advice!)). The 2nd blogger to leave a comment got 20 clicks to access her blog (it probably helped that she has a sexy Gravatar). And when you’re Freshly pressed people are also compelled to visit your About page, and the first person who commented on mine got about 60 clicks to her blog.
And speaking about forums, if you have a blog on fashion, The Fashion Spot is THE place to be!
What is Freshly Pressed Ritournelle?
And who is that girl in your blog’s header? I think I’m in love!
Tyrant
Each weekday WordPress.com features 10 quality blog posts on its homepage that receives a high volume of page views. You can read more about it here:
http://en.support.wordpress.com/five-ways-to-get-featured-on-freshly-pressed/
Haha that’s good to know about the header! She’s model Dree Hemingway (the great-granddaughter of Ernest Hemingway).
Each weekday WordPress.com features 10 quality blog posts on its homepage that receives a high volume of page views. You can see a screenshot of what it looks like on my “About” page (click on my name above to have a look).
Haha that’s good to know about the header! She’s model Dree Hemingway (the great-granddaughter of writer Ernest Hemingway).
I never approve comments with anchor text as the name or with a link in the comment. I feel that I have worked hard to build my traffic and I want comments to add value to my post and create user engagement and community. Having comments by people named “cheap DVD burners” distracts from the conversation. And links in the comment feels like an endorsement of a site that I don’t necessarily want to endorse. Maybe I’m rude but thats how I feel.
That’s a good point. Do you appove it when they use their site name or just their real name?
I generally am ok with something like Jodi @ Food Storage Made Easy or else something like your name where you have a little nickname for yourself. I get comments from people like “The Happy Homemaker”. I don’t mind that. It’s just the ones that are specifically trying to get keyword links that bug me. Everyone has different levels of tolerance I guess.
I can relate to what you say. WordPress protects bloggers from spam so I wouldn’t have any comments by “cheap DVD burners”. But there are people who add a link to their blog after leaving a comment, when there is already a link to their blog on their name (just like here, you can go to my blog by clicking on Ritournelle). That makes you wonder if the person is here because she likes your blog or for self-promotion. That said, I do approve those comments if they are relevant to what I wrote.
WordPress catches some stuff but I get comments every day from people who try to use anchor text as their name. That was the whole point of this article was that you should TRY to do that. If all of those were just marked as spam then no one would be giving that advice. Would you approve my comment if I had put my name as “food storage”? It’s hard to have a conversation with someone like that.
If someone leaves their name and a link sort of like a signature I will typically remove the link and still approve the comment, they still get their link attached to their name so they don’t need double. My comments are for readers to get value and have conversations, not for self-promotion by other people.
I think as your blog traffic grows you get more sensitive about this issue, or it might just depend what market you are in. I am very very concerned with what will make the best user experience for my readers and my readers are not techy or into marketing AT ALL.
“If someone leaves their name and a link sort of like a signature I will typically remove the link and still approve the comment, they still get their link attached to their name so they don’t need double.”
What a great idea! Why hadn’t I thought about this before? I just went through the comments of a specific person on my blog and edited them all 😀
My blog is just a month old, but I am sensitive about this issue as well. It’s a blog on fashion and art, which might seem frivolous, but I want it to be taken seriously, because I take it seriously myself. I’m concerned generic comments like “looks amazing” and such do not reflect well on my blog; I’d rather have few comments that show the person has really read what I wrote.
I was wondering if you guys check the websites of people leaving comments on your blog before you approve them?
I also second you Ritournelle. Many times I get comments like “Great article, I really enjoyed it – bookmarked for future, Thanks for posting” and the anchor text would be something like “big muscle supplements” with a link to a URL corresponding to some muscle supplement site. If you look at this comment, it is pretty generic and I could repeat it across n number of sites without changing a single word.
I do not approve such comments as the sole purpose seems to be getting an external anchor text for backlinks. However, if the comment is relevant to the subject that I have posted providing either some useful information or making a valid point – I will still admit it even if it helps someone grow his muscles!!.
When I first started blogging I was very excited to get comments and couldn’t understand why they seemed, well, odd. Then I learned that a lot were created by automated programs. Now I never approve a comment unless I can see in some way that the commenter is, well, commenting, rather than just writing something random in order to get a link.
Shuvam said that maybe ethics don’t carry much weight – well I know how you feel, but if we all come to that conclusion they won’t. My big ‘beef’ ethically is headlines. Why do we let people get away with headline which promise the Earth and then deliver almost nothing? Do we just hate to admit that we were ever hopeful?
Oh I’m sorry you didn’t like the article Lesley.
😉
Well said Lesley. There are ample blogs which will have a killer headline and pretty ordinary content corresponding to it. However, remember that these kind of blogs are flourishing because they are getting good page ranks, google juice and great traffic.
If really a correction has to happen, these kind of blogs would have to go down on google searches, struggle for good ranking and traffic. However, as long as that is not happening – we will have to live with this rant.
Hi buddy,
Been a while since I posted a comment but I never miss your posts. Actually to add to all the vital insights you have put up here I would say two things.
1. When posting comments on blogs you should transform your mind set to the twitter mode of operation though not entirely. That is because I rarely stumble upon a link that is not relevant to what the tweet is saying most guys begin the tweet with the gist of it and put up the link. Here is the catch, since url shortening systems don’t give you a clue what the link is about you go ahead and click depending on who tweeted it but bottom-line is the association of the link to the rest of the tweet.
2.You can just lay back and watch the comments on whichever blog you frequent and observe the conversation and even though you are a little late in commenting the blogs owner will definitely read yours at moderation although not many people will click on it but if you have what I would call a eye-ball-catching comment then they will click on it somehow.
I like your tip number 4 and will start implementing it for my 2 week old blog.
Great comment Teddy. Cheers.
[…] it? How can you get more comments on your posts? I talked a little bit about that in my article on blog commenting, but here are a few extra […]
[…] it? How can you get more comments on your posts? I talked a little bit about that in my article on blog commenting, but here are a few extra […]
[…] it? How can you get more comments on your posts? I talked a little bit about that in my article on blog commenting, but here are a few extra […]
Thank you for this excellent blog post. I always try to make some time for commenting, but I had no idea it could generate such great link backs to your blog. I think this is a great idea and I’ll definitely try to invest more time into commenting.
I think the content of your comment is important, not just where you comment. You have to truly have something original or interesting to say. Otherwise, there’s no point!
Agreed Akhila!
Wow! this was a great post! Thank you!
Thanks Ivan.
This was a kick-@##! article.
I really loved the idea of figuring out when my favorite bloggers post articles so I can be the first on the comment train. I just found your wonderful blog, so this one doesn’t count:)
Yeah it works well but sometimes it can be annoying if the same person gets first place a lot!
Thank you for this. I knew commenting on other blogs was key to getting more traffic, but this post really proved it for me. I’m going to share this information with the teachers I’m working with.
After reading your other posts, I’ll be making a lot of changes to my site. Great information!
Thanks again,
Sam
Thanks Sam. Hope they help.
Hey Tyrant,
This is so much GREAT information for a newbie like me. I just started my blog and am having a few problems. I’m still working hard on my content. I tried to find the info on the editor for the theme to change the comment area. My theme is: WP Renegade II but can’t find it to change to something more appealing. Below is a copy of what I found under the comment section of my theme. I also need a good logo.
I put in a comment myself to see what it looked like and it put it under the post but it ALSO shows up on the right side under comments! This needs to go but where do I change it?
Help! Thanks for any input you can give me. My best to you!
/* comments */
.commentlist { padding:0px; margin:0px; overflow:hidden; }
.commentlist ul { margin:0px; padding:0px; list-style:none; list-style-image:none; }
.commentlist li { margin:0px 0px 0px 0px; padding:0px; list-style:none; overflow:hidden; }
.children .comment { padding-left:20px; }
.comment-box { overflow:hidden; background-color:#ECEEF2; margin:10px 0px 0px 0px; }
/* comment corners */
.cw-top { overflow:hidden; background-color:#ECEEF2; }
.cw-top .tl { float:left; width:10px; height:10px; background:url(‘images/cw-tl.png’) left top no-repeat; }
.cw-top .tr { float:right; width:10px; height:10px; background:url(‘images/cw-tr.png’) left top no-repeat; }
.cw-bottom { overflow:hidden; background-color:#ECEEF2; }
.cw-bottom .bl { float:left; width:10px; height:10px; background:url(‘images/cw-bl.png’) left top no-repeat; }
.cw-bottom .br { float:right; width:10px; height:10px; background:url(‘images/cw-br.png’) left top no-repeat; }
.comment-text { overflow:hidden; padding:0px 10px 0px 10px; }
.avatar { float:left; margin:0px 10px 0px 0px; }
.comment-author cite, .comment-author cite a { font-weight:bold; font-style:normal; }
.comment-meta a { font-size:8pt; color:#999999; }
.comment-reply { font-size:8pt; float:right; }
.comment-reply a { background-color:#ECEEF2; padding:3px 7px 3px 7px; color:#333333; margin-left:5px; }
.comment-reply a:hover { background-color:#DCDFE7; }
.trackbacklist { padding:0px 0px 0px 20px; overflow:hidden; }
.trackbacklist .comment-author cite, .trackbacklist .comment-author cite a { font-weight:normal; }
#respond input, #respond textarea { background-color:#F8F8F8; padding:4px; border:solid 1px #CCCCCC; }
#respond input { background-color:#F8F8F8; }
#respond input:hover, #respond textarea:hover { border:solid 1px #AEAEAE; }
#respond #comment { width:98%; max-width:98%; }
#respond #submit { background-color:#E3E4E6; }
#respond #submit:hover { background-color:#D7D8DB; }
Hi Bev.
I’m not sure I understand the problem…?
I was attempting to follow your instructons to change the comment link itself to a more appealing wording like “comment here handsome” like you suggested but can’t find where in the code to change it. That’s why I sent along the actual code from my theme editor so you could see it and tell me where to change it. Sorry for any confusion. Guess it’s a reflection of my own! Thanks for your help.
Please disregard my posts. I was given the wrong blog to reply to by a ‘friend?’ so sorry for ALL the confusion. But thanks for all your suggestions.
Hey Bev. I think maybe your friend was referring to a post I did on Problogger? If so you want to change the comments text in the Main Index Template file, not the Stylesheet.
Thanks for your post. I have bookmarked your page.