I’ve always been an advocate for active blog commenting playing an important role in the online marketing mix for a massive amount of reasons, even beyond SEO.
By taking the time to comment on blogs, even one or two comments per day can lead to extremely positive results such as reputation building, expert positioning, and the building of inbound links, even if said blogs use the no follow attribute in their comment fields (and if they do not, all the better).
Blog Comment Etiquette
Why not worry about No Follows? Because ALL humans ignore No Follow. If you participate in a blog comment discussion and link to your site, chances are readers of that blog will follow the link … building to your site’s traffic. The more popular the blog, the more traffic you can build.
But do not place a signature link in the comment body itself except for critical circumstances. Linking to your own site in the comment body is not only spammy in nature, but can also get your name, site, email and IP flagged by ’social’ blog spam software like SpamKarma, and get your comments automatically deleted from dozens of blogs which use the application.
Using blatant Anchor Text instead of a handle or name in the Name field of blog comments can have the same result, so don’t do it!
Instead, just link to your site via the URL field in blog comments, this is an open invitation to link to your site.
The Value of Comment Links
If you take the time to comment on at least 3 blogs per day, with a back link back to your website, the end result will be an extra 100 incoming links per month, or 1,200 links per year – with little effort on your own part.
Even if those links are associated with a ‘no follow’, that’s ok. Why? Because they still count as backlinks in Yahoo Site Explorer. AND other search engines like Ask.com don’t even pay attention to the No Follow attribute.
The more backlinks counted by Yahoo also results in added recognition beyond SEO and can also bring monetary value to your website.
For example, Text Link Ads uses Yahoo Backlinks as a metric in determining the price of a link advertisement from your site (perfect example for publishers).
In a similar fashion, the SEOmoz PageStrength tool also counts Yahoo Backlinks into their equation, so a simple blog commenting campaign could influence your site’s PageStrength .. which you can then use as a proof of your site’s value when negotiating ad sales.
Not to mention the reputation you build for yourself by participating in comments, lending a helping hand, or just agreeing with someone. Think of blog commenting as an extension of forum participation, without the exclusivity of a forum.
So, before you go falling for one of those spammy blog commenting services like the one ripped apart by Darren Rowse of Problogger.net today, think about more efficient options in your blog commenting campaign.
- Take advantage of your staff : Your company has a staff of experts on hand. As part of their daily ritual, you should have them comment on a minimum of 3 blog posts per day. Once in the morning, once after lunch, and once before leaving. This method splits up the commenting so they are not overwhelmed and this does not interfere with their daily routine.
- Hire an Intern : One excellent way to train an intern is to have them read, process, and report on specific blogs on a daily basis. Have your intern show they understand the discussion in the blog by commenting on that blog and make sure they link back to your site in each comment.
- Have Your Linkbuilder Comment : Pay an SEO or Link Builder to build links for you? Discuss blog commenting as part of your link building package. If they are serious professionals, they will discuss the pro’s & con’s of blog commenting in your industry
- On the Mobile : If you commute to work via train, plane or carpool then you probably find yourself reading news from you industry’s niche blogs anyway. Find a way to comment from your cell phone or mobile device. If your phone or device cannot comment on blogs, the value of your commenting is well worth the purchase of a Smart Phone.
Have an idea or something to add? Then leave a comment :)
Don’t know how that site’s comments got through the system. Deleted and marked as Spam :)
Seems like the spammers have taken this as an open opportunity to spam on this page :) May be you got to replace your spam prevention system Loren.
more more spam.
Someone is spamming you Loren!
LOL
This is just …. !
These spammers are spamming on Spam Karma!
I see a nofollow on the links!!
I’m trying to build up attention for my new blog…the commenting works…but I guess at some point I have to get some sticky traffic….hopefully people will stay! :)
-Raymond
“I see a nofollow on the links!!” The nerve of that Loren, I mean here he is letting people post all this spam on his (I just admit rather intelligent post) blog regardless of the drivel and we little commentors think we’re getting free links to the promise land. Loren how could you do this us ? How Loren How ?
Great idea, should do on a regular basis
Great post!…I try to do this myself weekly, and it does pay off. It gets your name and site out there for more people to see it.
Jaan – I think a simple mathematics would do with this calculations.
(If you take the time to comment on at least 3 blogs per day, with a back link back to your website, the end result will be an extra 100 incoming links per month, or 1,200 links per year – with little effort on your own part.)
…a month has an average of 30 days and a year of 12 months. A 3 blogs per day would have a possibility of having 3 backlinks. So multiplied by 30 days a month would come up with 90 backlinks. Basic rounding off method would suggest that we’ll make it 100 backlinks per month. Eventually in a year you will have a total of 1200 in which you have this with 12months.
Thanks for the idea Loren! :)
Loren you may actually get 100 comments by Halloween. I’m not so sure though that the types of comments you are getting is generating content of the nature that is going to help you. But hey you invited us to the party so where’s the beer ?
Thanks for all of the comments and sharing of information. I’ve been playing with the NoFollow to see how the usage of NoFollow to filter outgoing links effects this site’s Google rankings.
So, sometimes you’ll see NoFollow being used, and sometimes you won’t. I foresee in the near future however a permanent decision, leaning towards not using NoFollow for all comment links :)
I read your post, it’s really good at least it can give some hints to others that how useful blog these days are and how one can utilize their valuable views to benefit their business online.
I am a newbie and I want to learn many things regarding seo. Aside from that i don’t really understand those terms use by some seo experts. What does nofollow means?
Ronlad, nofollow tells the search engines NOT to follow the link it just found while crawling a particular page. For example if you right click on this page, click view source, find eurotechelite, the next command is a nofollow. However if I click on your name, it is a live link and I go to your site, just as you would go to my site if you just so happen to click on my name.
Ah i see. So meaning this site will not follow with the url. It will just open to another tab I guess.hmmmnnn… Thank you Oneunder. I’ll be clicking your link now to go to thegolfballfactory.com…:)
Its ironic that many bloggers talk about this but then they actually use no follow.
The MediaCrew.com is a Full service online advertising agenecy specializing in customer retention and performance based marketing.
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i am wating for ur reply
Really nice post,,,,, got idea of making good comments on blog which increase link,,,,, I think is Spam
good job
This is a great post which explains the true value of commenting & link building
Regards, Resonate
SEO, SEM, Web Standards Consultant
-http://cbarker.ws/
Very good article, thanks a lot!
Great article!
Also good suggestion on not worrying about the tag. We tend to forget that there is a world beyond Google!
(And this is my 1st of 3 for today!)
Mark
Backlinks are very important for increasing your PageRank and link popularity. However, please be considerate and don’t spam other people’s comment box just for the sake of backlinks. Thank you
Really nice post,,,,, got idea of making good comments on blog which increase link,,,,, I think is Spam
The no keyword in username field suggestion, I didn’t create it as anchor text. I live in Hawaii and do SEO and I hought it was both memorable and descriptive. Also… People love Hawaii & SEO, so I hoped that those positive feelings would transfer to me by association, then link that signature to an MFA website… You might have your comment deleted regardless of the quality, The problem is bloggers need to write something compelling for me to leave a comment
I ended up at this blog searching for a way to find out if blog commenting is still important. I am glad I am sold to it now!
I am going to:
1. Find list of do follow blogs and comment on them regularly – valid comments which make sense and add value.
2. Comment on relevant blogs (even if they do have no-follow)
There is a product out there called comment hut. I am wondering whether it is worth the $100 to buy it. Any opinions?
Loren- I have been watching this list of sometimes meaningless comments grow since July and have reviewed them today. Now I have some idea as why your commentors were commenting, but I’m not really sure of what benefit all this was to Search Engine Journal. Perhaps you could do a blog entry “Why I allowed so many spammy entries in my quest to collect 100 comments .” Thanks
Thanks for this article. Great tips, especially about 3 comments a day. That really works in all aspects of SEO too, to do small amounts on a daily basis, because it does build up over time.
Funny how I never thought about blog commenting as a valid source of links considering the no follow attribute, but despite the no follow, I must admit blog comments do produce click through traffic from a very targeted group of piers (a PR 7 or 8 link never hurt anybody) to boot.
I really enjoyed the suggestion to find relevant on topic blogs to leave intelligent comments three times a day, as a valid source of page strength, link popularity bone fide link building.
In fact link diversity is really the name of the game after all.
Great post…
This is definitely important and something that we all should do more, so long as our comments are genuine. I think if you take the time to read the blog post you are commenting on, and make a legit comment about that post, you help yourself by getting a link, and everyone else as well.
Well i got the link to this site from one of my friends blog,and it was a really nice experience to read the entire post.Very helpful for new bloggers like me.
Cheers
Great advice on link building. I like the idea of having staff members block out time for posting comments on blogs, the links would add up quickly.
You made a believer out of me…now let’s see if it works…3 comments a day shouldn’t be too hard…I’ll let you know how it turns out.
I’ve been trying this strategy for the last week for a newer site I launched a few months ago and just saw our site move from 300 to 100 for our main keyword in Yahoo. Really surprised at how well it works! I’ve been mainly commenting on blogs that appear on digg’s first page which may be helping as well.
Great post!…I try to do this myself weekly, and it does pay off. It gets your name and site out there for more people to see it
I’m another weekly person here. Find also the better the comment the more help it is to your rep
Great post!…I try to do this myself weekly, and it does pay off. It gets your name and site out there for more people to see it
Great advice on link building. I like the idea of having staff members block out time for posting comments on blogs, the links would add up quickly.
Blog commenting is indeed a good way to build inbound links and reputation over a period of time. 3 blogs comments which adds value will only takes you less than 30 mins of reading and writing. Why not?
Link building by comments is great but unfortunately as you can tell from here as well spam comments can be annoying
Yeah, pretty annoying. This thread has become a spam magnet. Time to disallow comments :)
Good to hear it Loren i like reading comments but same as you proberly not working my way down the mass of spam with no relevence whatso ever.