Getting the Most out of Your Comments
This isn’t about your blog, and how you can get the most out of the comments you receive. This is about getting the most out of the comments you give to other bloggers.
When ever you leave a comment on another site, you get to fill in a name, email and URL most of the time. The URL, linked usually to the name you gave can produce some nice SEO effects (depending on the blog) and some traffic.
The thing is, users don’t randomly click the names to go to your site. They might come here, to my site for instance, read some stuff, hopefully be interested and then follow that interest to others also interested, through the comments.
To greatly improve the odds of getting a click, there are couple things you can do.
- Join in the conversation. Maybe the writer asked a question or led into something. Continue, with a good length insightful comment.
- Ask questions. If the reader asked a question, answer i. Ask some of your own while you’re there too.
- Rebut. If you disagree with something, make your voice heard. Found a big (even medium sized) mistake? Tell them all about it.
- Know something. If you can elaborate on something said in the post, or correct it, that’s great.
- Insider? If you were involved in something and have an interesting insight, share it with the author.
If you take a look at my top commentators, you’ll notice “L3ggy” ranks first with 22. Not to call him out or anything, but a quick analysis of his responses:
- 22 comments in 7 days. That’s more than 3 per day. I don’t write that many posts, or close to it.
- Most of them are a couple lines only.
- About half of them include a link to his site.
- He might ‘forget’ something and post again right after.
That’s not to say I don’t appreciate his participation, because I do, but when his new site launches next weekend (I think) he could get a lot more traffic out of this site alone by following some of these guidelines.
Also, if you’ve written something that relates to the article or is greatly similar, link to it. If it’s in context, no one will think of it as spam. Be careful with links in posts though, as two or more will likely land you in the Akismet queue.
Blog comments are supposed to be about discussion and interaction, not only with the reader and the author, but the readers and themselves. Shamelessly plugging your site over and over my be beneficial, but starting/joining a discussion will send much more your way.
This is not to mention that you can use your comments on other blogs to gain subscribers and readers. If you leave a well written, insightful comment, you’ve just made an awesome first impression to a new visitor. Think of each comment you leave and how some random person would think of you after reading just that. After all personal blogs are all about branding, and if you leave a spammy, plugging comment, the impression isn’t that great.
So make your comments good, and make a point. It’ll benefit you so much more that just a link. After all, if you comment anyway you’ll get a link without NoFollow and a chance at Top Commentators, but there is much opportunity in terms of growth in readership to be had.
Leave a comment
cherries
July 8th, 2007 at 12:59 AM
I talk to my commenters
you know.
L3ggy
July 8th, 2007 at 5:42 AM
Ok ok do well spam, and yes quite a few them have links. But i don’t do it to spam. I really like this blog, it’s the only one i have kept reading. CSS Beauty (not really a blog but ish) I used to check every once in a while but no content is coming in, so i got bored. I am still a subscriber for the once a week odd one but they need more staff. CSS Remix on the other hand gets 15 sites in every week in bursts which i enjoy looking at the there more clever than CSS Beauty because in there RSS feed it shows a small image (bigger than displayed on the site) whilst in CSS Beauty its just the link to the page with that site on the post. So with CSS Remix i can flick through them without having to load the page but annoyingly i have to click the links in CSS Beauty. Thats just a comparison. So i visit this blog more than any other because of good posts, good comentators (no spam, flaming), nice stream of posts and the way the RSS is layed out. It’s a nice combination which is working well.
Keep up the good work Connor ;).
LucidHouse Studio
July 8th, 2007 at 5:51 AM
Well that’s true. Especially when you scroll a long list of comments, your eyes get used to the little ones, so only comments with a particular formatted text or links or even typographic markers can get out of the box.
Razor
July 8th, 2007 at 1:10 PM
lol. now leggy has condensed his 3 a day into one xD
nice post connor
Andy
July 8th, 2007 at 1:46 PM
More like 5 I think Razor?
Connor wrote that he had 22, now it’s 27 - lol.
L3ggy
July 8th, 2007 at 2:26 PM
Lol come on guys that was a good post (3 long ones). I didn’t try to spam i was putting up some good stuff. I don’t see you with anything that big.
Russell Wagner
July 8th, 2007 at 11:23 PM
Hello Connor, I agree with this post 100%. I come across many bloggers who think that posting short messages like “Great job keep up the work” will get their site viewed more. When I look at comments I appreciate the ones who actually took the time to actually write a good reply. Also I think most people just post nice and short comments to get on the top commentators. Nice post, well put.
Razor
July 9th, 2007 at 2:50 AM
lol leggy, in the last friday round up, u accounted for half the comments xD
Fitness Guy
July 11th, 2007 at 9:21 AM
While it’s true that a alot of people just leave comments for the SEO value (at least start out that way), if you even remotely read the article and the comments you usually can’t help but leave relative posts.
feaniaLed
December 17th, 2007 at 1:06 PM
I’d prefer reading in my native language, because my knowledge of your languange is no so well. But it was interesting! Look for some my links:
Login »