Blog commenting is part of the marketing toolbox for many business bloggers. It’s a great way to generate traffic and build your brand.
Just to clarify, I’m talking about leaving blog comments on other blogs with a link back to your site. You’re looking for blog comment forms like this:
However, if this tactic is done ineffectively, you can wind up with less than 5 visitors per comment.
Increase Your Traffic
Here are 5 ways to improve on this marketing tactic and receive more traffic.
1. Comment on high traffic blogs.
I think the most common blog commenting mistake is to comment on low traffic blogs. You can launch a huge commenting campaign, but if you’re targeting low traffic blogs, you won’t get a lot of traffic.
Many internet readers don’t read the whole post. This means a big percentage of the post’s visitors won’t even see your comment. To combat this, comment on high traffic blogs. The more traffic a blog receives, the more people will see your comment and the more people will visit your site.
This leaves us with the question: how do you estimate the traffic a blog receives?
I like using these three sites.
Compete and Quantcast give traffic estimates. Alexa doesn’t give specific traffic numbers but it does give traffic rankings. Also, Alexa seems to have more sites in its database than Compete and Quantcast.
Also, if a blog averages over 10 comments a post, it probably gets a lot of traffic.
2. Comment early.
Some high traffic blogs get over 20 comments a post. This can be a problem if you’re one of the later commenters. The later your comment is, the less likely an internet visitor will see it and visit your site. I try to leave one of the first 5 comments.
Luckily, many high traffic blogs have predictable publishing schedules. Look at the time stamps of their posts and see if there is a regular pattern for when they publish.
Also, you can try software like Comment Sniper (found via Internet Marketing Sucks) that notifies you whenever a new post is published on a blog.
3. Comment with high quality.
High quality comments get noticed and often lead the reader to visit your site. Leave useful information, not the short “Great post, I agree” type of comments.
I advise on writing longer comments – something over 3 sentences. Longer comments allow you to add more value. Yes, you can leave a high quality comment in 2-3 sentences, but that takes writing skill that most of us don’t have. So, write as many sentences, even paragraphs, as you need to make your point(s).
You can reuse your longer comments as blog posts. For example, I recently wrote an 800 word comment that I’m sure will get some traffic. I slightly rewrote that comment and made a blog post out of it too. This saved me blogging time and allowed me to kill two birds with one stone.
Writing a high quality comment can mean several things. You can provide your expert opinion by delving deeper into the post topic. You can share your personal experience. You can ask a question to get other people to comment or to get the blogger to clarify a point.
The basic principle is to set yourself apart from the other comments. Many comments are not high quality, so you have a great opportunity to get noticed by leaving high quality comments.
4. Comment on current posts.
The current posts will usually have more traffic than the older posts. This is because the home page of a blog has the most current posts and the home page is one of the highest trafficked pages.
Even if an older post receives a lot of traffic, it probably already has many comments. This means you can’t be an early commenter. However, you can leave an early comment on a current post if you act quickly.
5. Comment a lot on the same blogs.
Finally, a key to getting traffic from blog comments is to comment many times on the same blogs. This is a long-term branding move. As people consistently see your high quality comments, they’ll become interested in you. They’ll click over to your site and probably read a couple posts.
These visitors are what I call “pre-qualified” visitors. They’ve seen your comments and they’ve liked what they’ve seen, so they are predisposed to think highly of your blog before they even visit. They have pre-qualified themselves as a great visitor. These visitors oftentimes subscribe to your RSS feed and/or mailing list.
There is power in repetition. I don’t usually click on the comment link. However, if I keep seeing the same person comment, I get interested in them and check out their blog.
Over to You
Have you tried blog commenting? If you have, how has it worked out for you?
What other suggestions do you have for increasing traffic from blog comments?
