How To: Comment to the Top
This is post 2 of 5 in a series called “5 Tips to Increase your Blog Traffic“.
2. Commenting
Today we’ll be looking at how comments can increase your traffic immediately, and long term to your blog.
So you want some information from one of my personal blogs as to just how much traffic can come from posting comments to a popular blogs?
How about some screenshots of some of my recent comments and their effect from just one of my sites:
The Green represents 2005, Red 2006 and Yellow 2007.
This is only traffic from comments to one of my smaller sites. These are from January and February. Look at a few of those from 2006. One still sent me 90 visitors, one 75 visitors and the other 17 visitors! Those are from comments over 8 months ago!
If you notice the green highlighting, I’m still receiving traffic from comments in 2005 as well.
The value is pretty obvious here, so let’s talk about how to achieve results like this.
Here are three ways to make sure your comments send visitors back to you and increase traffic (as well as great links):
1. Don’t comment spam.
This means that you are commenting with a purpose, to enhance the blog. You are leaving comments that are constructive and appreciated. You are NOT leaving comments like, “Cool, good post.” Or, “I’ve never thought of that, thanks!” That is just comment spam that gets deleted. If you ask a question in your comment you’re more likely to get approved and the blog owner will probably respond as well.
2. Get there quick!
If you don’t post one of the first 3 comments, you can forget about getting much traffic. Comments are kinda like a Google search page. After the first few results, most people stop reading and find somewhere to click, or something else to do. If you are commenter #50, don’t expect any traffic to come from that.
Here is a trick for getting to a blog before other commenters do. Sign up for RSS feed notification whenever a new post comes up. Most RSS feed readers will send you a short email when you have a new post to read. Once that email hits your inbox, go to that blog immediately and start your comment.
3. Use Your Name.
I can’t tell you how often I delete good comments because the commenter used his anchor text instead of a name. Unless your website is something like, “KingOfWidgets.com” and you post your name as “Widget King” or even “King of the Widgets” you’re getting deleted. Nobody likes comment spam, see #1.
3a. Look for Direct Links.
Before you invest the time in filling out the comment form, make sure you are going to get a link. If there are 10 comments and none of them have links, the blog owner probably strips all the links. Skip that blog.
3b. Comment on Old Posts.
Many people, myself included, don’t mind reading comments on old posts. Some people don’t like it, and I understand both sides. Once you feel that you have exhausted all of the current posts, start browsing the archives. When you post a comment in an archived post it must be absolutely top notch. If it has even a hint of spam it will be deleted quicker than using your keywords.
How Do I Find Blogs to Comment On?
This is one of the hardest things. Most niches have at least 5-10 good blogs in their niche, but once you’ve posted a comment on the current posts, you’ll need to expand and find new blogs to post to. This is where Google comes in.
Here are a few search queries you’ll want to bookmark:
Search for: site:.edu inurl:blog “keywords†<– Will search for blogs only on .edu domains that have your keywords anwhere on the page.
site:.gov inurl:blog “keywords†<–Same as above with .gov domains.
inurl:blog “responses to” “keywords” <–Will search for any site with “blog” in the url and “responses to” and your keywords on the page. The “responses to” is a good way to find blogs that have comments open.
inurl:blog “keywords” -”comments closed” <–This is like the one above but eliminates all sites that say “comments closed” on the page.
Now let’s use Google’s Blog Search. The Blog Search is great for finding current blogs and posting comments. We won’t use any of the “responses to” or “comments closed” modifiers because 90% of blogs allow comments.
From the Blog Search page (BlogSearch.Google.com) type your keywords with quotation marks around them. Example: “Buy Blue Widgets“.
Now get out there and start commenting to the top!
5 Tips to Increasing Blog Traffic » Brandon Hopkins said
March 8 2007 @ 3:19 pm
[...] 2. How To: Comment to the Top [...]
Michael Dillon said
March 22 2007 @ 6:22 am
What about replies to a comment you have posted. Should you post again or is that overkill?
James said
March 23 2007 @ 9:07 am
Cool, good post. I never thought of that. Thanks.
Okay, seriously, in response to the previous commenter, it seems that one should try to remain part of the conversation if there is one. Wouldn’t that increase interest further. Assuming what you’re saying is interesting.
Get 1 Link and Go! Drive By Linking. » Brandon Hopkins said
March 24 2007 @ 7:53 am
[...] a blog you like, leave a comment, find another blog you [...]
Good SEO Information For Canadians Eh! said
March 24 2007 @ 10:55 pm
>>>I can’t tell you how often I delete good comments because the commenter used his anchor text instead of a name.
Who cares you are putting them in a no follow any way. You have to give a bit to get a bit. If you are not to nofollow the commit links at least let them post where the link will take them to.
I always use my handle bobmutch but I couldn’t resist putting some thing interested in your nofollowed link.
Inflammable Hamster said
March 25 2007 @ 12:52 pm
Hey, thanks for the tips! I could always use more web traffic; I think I got down to 2 new hits/day for a while there. As soon as I’m done this comment, I’m off to go comment on blogs everywhere! And possibly put up a post on why I am smarter than a daschund, as soon as I gather some evidence to support my theory.
morganusvitus said
April 5 2007 @ 12:01 pm
The site looks great ! Thanks for all your help ( past, present and future !)
Brandon said
April 13 2007 @ 1:21 pm
bobmutch, I had to approve your comment for the sheer cleverness!
Matt Ellsworth said
May 6 2007 @ 6:45 pm
This works great - just more people need to realize it. I have encouraged people i know to comment on a blog we run - and wouldn’t you know it - two days later - one of their comments was showing up on the front page of google for the keyword phrases.
118 Blogging Related Bookmarks Knowledge Base said
June 17 2007 @ 11:54 am
[...] How To: Comment to the Top » Make Money Online with Brandon Hopkins [...]
Enea said
June 28 2007 @ 12:02 pm
Interesting. I will start to comment more often. Thanks for advices. Good luck!
Malcolm Lambe said
October 6 2007 @ 11:16 pm
Not bad advice. I use this command - site: .edu inurl: blog “comment”-”you must be logged in”-”posting closed”-”comment closed”-”keyword”
BUT there’s no use commenting if the site has a rel=”nofollow” in its code - meaning the page Rank juice won’t be passed on. You can laboriously open “View Source” on the site you’re looking at and check to see if other commenters URLs are flagged “no follow” OR you can download a Firefox application - “SEO for Firefox” - that will instantly highlight any “no follow” links. It also tells you a bunch of relevant information like “age of site”, “Page Rank”, “number of links”, “number of .edu links”, “number of .gov” links” etc. Marvellous tool. Useful when you’re trying to get to the top of Google for a keyword - lets you know what your opposition is like.
The important thing is to leave INTELLIGENT comments - and this sometimes take a bit of work. You might have to do some research so it looks like you have half-a-clue what you’re talking about. But if you can pick up a backlink or even better a “anchor link” (a link using your keywords) from a Highe Page Rank site (5 and above) then its worth the work. I just applied this and got a backlink (and reciprocal comments) from a P.R. 6 .gov blog site (College professor). And you can imagine the calibre of his backlinks, Visit my blog and you’ll see what I’m up to, à bientôt, Malkie, Paris.
Ash said
December 21 2007 @ 4:24 am
Once again some super tips in finding great blog sites to link from. I suppose the themes of the blogs you comment on is very important too. Excellent work!
Jan Weingarten said
December 26 2007 @ 3:04 pm
I’m just getting started with my blog, and with commenting. I notice that some of the names show up as links (e.g., Enea) and some don’t (Brandon). I’m not sure how mine will show up until I submit this, but can you tell me what controls it? Thanks!
Jan
Jan Weingarten said
December 26 2007 @ 3:06 pm
Oh, duh - I guess that answered my question. If you don’t enter anything in the website list box, you don’t get a link. Never mind.
Tee said
February 28 2008 @ 7:48 pm
Wow, the google blog search for commenting tip is just awesome. Glad I stumbled on this site!
Like Malcolm (above), I modified it a bit, and went with:
inurl:blog “responses to” “keyword” -”comments closed”
I also got the SEO tool to highlight nofollow links (which are all over this page!). However, is there a way to search inside the page code from within Google that anyone knows of? Like a -code:nofollow type of command?
I’ll be playing around with this for a while… if nothing else, it will give me a lot of other sites to learn from and link to! Thanks for the great tips.
PS3 said
March 14 2008 @ 2:40 pm
Comments on old posts demostrate that people are genuinely interested in your content and want more. Popular posts will always get picked on too.
paulette said
March 21 2008 @ 11:08 pm
Sometimes its really hard to find blogs to comment to especially one that fits one’s interest. Sometimes its a blessing and disguise of encountering blogs with topics not familiar to you because you learn new things from it and making one person to come out of his own shell.
Gary said
April 19 2008 @ 3:16 pm
The search google tipes are great, I have never saw those searches before
thanks.
PS3 said
May 4 2008 @ 4:36 pm
Surely a regular contributor making good, relevant comments under an pseudonym (like me) must be better than someone using their real name but posting the standard “great post” one-liner?