Can Blog Commenting Really Generate Traffic?

The answer to this is a resounding yes! STOP… before you rush away and start leaving comments on as many blogs as you can I would like to say that there is a RIGHT way and a WRONG way to do it. The right way will earn you a nice bit of traffic while the wrong way will make you look like a spammer. Are you ready to learn the right way?

Adding Value

This may seem obvious but you’d be surprised how many times you will come across the following:

“Great post”

and

“Thanks for the information”

and so on.

Although it is nice to show your appreciation for a ‘great article’ it is better to try and write something to it that extends upon the post.

Do you agree with the post?

Do you disagree with the post?

Have you had a similar experience that worked for you?

Have you had a similar experience that didn’t work for you?

Is the post about something you would try?

The benefits to adding a comment that moves beyond the typical ‘great post’, is that it allows you to share your expertise. This is the important part to blog commenting, sharing informative tips and experiences that extend upon the blog post will show you to be an authority in that area and encourage people (those that would like to find out more about you) to click through to your website.

Looking at the image above you will be see that my name (in blue) is hyperlinked to this website. You see, if people like your comment or are just curious about who you are they will click on your name and visit your link.

Wise Hyperlinking

When Hyperlinking out from a blog I recommend you use your name. This is because you want the readers to know who you are and if they want to find out more, they will click on the link. You’ll often see names that look like this:

Derby SEO Company

or

Website Submission Software

Personally I think this looks spammy and I only recommend hyperlinking like this when the blog you are leaving the comment on has KeywordLuv installed.

If you contribute value to a blog over-and-over again through regular commenting the blog author will be much more accepting of linking out to one of your external posts. Let’s say I was commenting on this blog post my comment could look like this:

‘I agree with you that blog commenting is a great way of generating traffic and establishing yourself as an authority within your niche, especially when you are focusing on finding related blogs in your target market. I recently wrote an article about The Fundamentals of Traffic Generation that I think covers the core of getting more visitors to our websites and I believe it resonates with the message of adding value.’

Regards,

Karl

The blog owner may decide to see ‘how relevant’ that article actually is and link to it as ‘further reading’ for his / her blog readers.

Be sure to not just write blog comments that have the sole intention of getting you a deep link back to your website, this will be the fastest way of having your links removed before your comment is published or, worse, having your comment marked as spam.

Multi-Author Blogs and Guest Bloggers

When you start finding blogs that you like in your niche you may notice that some are run by a group of authors while other blogs have guess bloggers that write the occassional post. Please be sure to credit the blog post author and not the blog owner when leaving a comment, this makes it look like you haven’t really read the post. It only takes a second to double check.

If you own a blog yourself, make it easier for your readers to engage with you by having your name as the author and not ‘admin’; you’d be surprised how many blogs I come across where it is like that.

Wordpress Plugins That Reward Users for Commenting

The great think about Wordpress is the many plugins that a site owner can use to increase the user experience. When you start incorporating blog commenting into your traffic generation strategy you’ll want to focus on blogs that will give you additional rewards.

The first plugin to note is the Top Commentators plugin that rewards the top commentators with a sidebar link back to their website. You can view this in action on the sidebar of this blog.

I highly recommend the  CommentLuv Wordpress Plugin as a cool way of dropping your links on peoples blogs underneath you comments.

To find blogs in your niche in general you can perform a google search as illustrated below:

your keyword “blog”

Now, to stand out from the crowd.

Gravatar

When you start visiting blogs on a regular basis you will see that many commentators will have a pic accompanying their comment. Gravatar allows you to register with their website and upload a photo. Now when you leave a comment, using the same email you registered with, your pic will appear next to your comment for the world to see.

This is a great way to add a touch of personalisation and help you stand out from the crowd. This site uses Gravatar so if you wish to leave a comment and show the world your beautiful face then feel free.

Making It Real Easy

Okay, you’ve probably started to think that this is really hard work. Well, you can make it very easy by using iGoogle as your dedicated homepage (control panel in my case). Now, for every blog you visit and like simply grab the RSS feed and add it to your Google Reader and then add your Google Reader to your iGoogle homepage so you’ll now when a new blog post is live (I’ll create more detailed post in the near future walking you through the steps of how to create an iGoogle homepae and make it a killer resource).

One of the reasons you’ll want to know when a new blog post goes live is so you’ll be able to head straight over to the blog and be the first to comment. If the post is on a high-traffic blog you will receive a decent number of visitors to your blog.

Final Thoughts

Blog commenting is a great way of spreading your links across the web but your success of finding targeted visitors will greatly improve when you focus on finding blogs that are related to your niche and when you provide value to other blog readers.

This is also a great way of gaining additional exposure from blog owners who may invite you to become a quest blogger on their blogs.

Please never spam anyone and leave intelligent links for all to enjoy.

To your success,

Karl Foxley

P.s. For more information about makeing money from blogging then take a look at Atomic Blogging.

photo credit: bradleygee