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Most seasoned bloggers have their own secret weapons to drive traffic to their blogs. But one that every blogger should have is the art of commenting.
Another tip to help make your commenting work for you is to join and register your blog domain with CommentLuv. CommentLuv is a service that when a website’s comment system has the CommentLuv plugin installed a commenter can leave a link to one of his or her posts. This will give you an extra link back to your site! Once you complete the registration you can go out to any site that uses the commentluv plugin and start using commentluv.
If you are using CommentLuv for commenting then you should also install the plugin on your site as well. By adding this plugin, you are giving an incentive for others to comment on your site. You can download CommentLuv from their website, wordpress.org or you can use the install plugins feature through WordPress Admin Panel.
Another way to get comments is to be a DoFollow Blog and advertise that you are. DoFollow means that you’re changing the NoFollow Lint tag to Dofollow telling the search engine to follow the link. Extreme John has an excellent article about Dofollow with some resources to help you understand and find blogs that are Dofollow.
When commenting on sites, look for sites that are Dofollow. DoFollow sites are sites that share the link juice and will help your page rank scores go up. Either way if you have you can comment on site that is either Dofollow are NoFollow, you can still help you. Only you get better results from DoFollow links.
In my opinion, commenting on Nofollow sites will not hurt you. You will still get some link juice but you will not be sharing any from the site commenting. If you spend time commenting on high traffic popular sites such Mashable, this can bring you traffic depending on well and how often you comment. Just remember to comment in your niche. If you comment out of niche, it will not help you raise your ranking, bring you returning readers, and your bounce rate might go up.
When commenting think about different ways you can be helpful. Simple comments like “great job”, “good post”, and “I like your site and I will check back again” is not a good commenting strategy, most sites, including mine will considered that type of comment as spam and it will be removed. Lately I have been seeing are lot of these types of comments that are truly spam comments, so a administrator, might get your comment confused with a true comment. If you want to tell the author of the post that they did a great job. You can tell them that, but add some information about why you like it so much. Generally three sentences can accomplish this and most authors will appreciate these types of comments.
So your a new blogger and you want to start commenting. To get started commenting, Guatam over at Blog Godown wrote a great article on the Art of Commenting, in this article, he talks about how to get noticed when commenting. He says there are five steps to commenting and those are using your actual name, add value, be ordinal, ask questions, and be opinionated. When commenting I always try and follow these basic rules.
Once you have your strategies down and are ready to start commenting, you need to comment as much as you can daily. The more the better. I have mentioned in previous posts that the ideal number (in a perfect world) would be to post around fifty comments a day. For me, this will never work. I comment on average, about ten to fifteen a day. Guatam advises that when commenting, that it is better to comment on as many different comments a day. He says five comments on different high traffic sites such as Problogger would be better than multiple comments on five or six medium traffic sites totaling around twenty comments.
What do you do when commenting?
About James
If I see a good blog that is nofollow and doesn't have comluv, I'll still visit and even comment if needs be. If it's a busy blog, you may just get some good traffic from it all the same. I still give preference to dofollow blogs, just because I dislike nofollow.
My recent post I’m Not Posting Today
I agree with you. I will comment on a Dofollow log over a Nofollow any day. I do comment on several nofollows and get some traffic from them. In order to get the higher traffic numbers I have to post a lot though.
My recent post Google Buzz Makes Another Change
I have a very similar commenting strategy. The only thing that I don't take into consideration is if the blog is dofollow or not. I like receiving meaningful comments on my blog so I try to extend that same courtesy to others.
On a side note, do you know why commentluv is behind right now by about 4 days?
My recent post Favourite Links Friday
I do the same. Its a way to give back to the blogging community.
My recent post Weekly Link Love for February 14th 2010
great job, good post. I like your site and I will check back again.
Ha, I’m suprised I was able to do that first. Thanks for the post. I’m going to check out that DoFollow page.
One thing that I think is good for comments is to have a mobile version of your site if possible. This might not be the first thing you think of but at the rate that mobile web browsing is growing, I think a lot of comments are going to start to come from there. The simpler and quicker it is to leave a comment for a mobile viewer the more inclined they will be to actually do it.
For example I’m on my iPhone right now and it took me 26 minutes to type this.
Robert, thanks for stopping by. Funny you should mention iPhone and mobile version. I have been thinking about that as I was reading your post. I noticed on my traffic stats that sever mobile users were viewing my site. I am planning on setting up a mobile version for my site. I will be researching it over the next few days and see what I need to do to add feature. But as of right now, I have no way testing it.
Was the load time in general slow as well?
My recent post How to Add a Facebook Fan Page Box To WordPress
I do quite a bit of commenting, and I would have to say that even being the first commentator on the likes of ProBlogger does not necessarily have the same impact as some of the smaller bloggers. One of my biggest traffic referrers is actually a medium sized blog that I comment on.
My recent post The Aweber Code….And Why You Need To Promote It!
I agree, blog commenting can be a wonderful way to engage and meet people. Leaving your first impression via words can work wonders, that's how I came to meet some talented bloggers who are now blogger buddies of mine. DoFollow can be a boost for commenting, I've never been happier since my shift to DoFollow along with self-hosting. 🙂
Great article, especially you are stressing the importance of commenting. Love Gautam's post too. Voted & will RT.
@wchingya
Social/Blogging Tracker
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I'll still comment on a blog even if it's a Do Follow or non-Do Follow blog. In fact, thanks to you, only today I now know what does a Do Follow blog really mean.
I don't see a point to differentiate between the type of blogs above when it comes to commenting. If the article intrigues me, I'll say something.
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I agree with you about Comment Luv @ Element321. Ever since I installed Intense debate on my blog, I got great comments and appreciation. I believe comment Luv is an essential part of commenting – whether you are using WordPress or Blogger.
My recent post What is Commenting ? – All about Commenting
I agree with you about Comment Luv @ Element321. Ever since I installed Intense debate on my blog, I got great comments and appreciation. I believe comment Luv is an essential part of commenting – whether you are using WordPress or Blogger . Added your post to my "Around the Blogosphere in 7 days" post, i.e Link Love post. 😀
My recent post What is Commenting ? – All about Commenting
commentluv is really great i already install the wordpress commentluv plugins. Thanks for your very informative content about using commentluv and how it helps to a weblog
I’ve put this on delicious, tagged it “blogging.” Your first few points are right on the mark – dofollow, comluv are huge. And you’re exactly right about not being too snotty about nofollow blogs. If they’re high traffic or in your niche, you should absolutely be commenting there.