How Not To Leave Comments on Blogs… And Then How To Leave Comments on Blogs
“A lot of businesses do it therefore it must work.” –This is a logical fallacy.
Comments on blogs are a great way to get involved in your industry, especially if you know how to comment the right way, which we’ll go over.
What exactly are comments good for though? This is where it can get fuzzy for a lot of businesses.
Chances are that close to the majority of comments at least are somewhat spammy and/or written for the sole purpose of building backlinks.
A quality comment that will have a positive effect has to follow a number of rules that we are going to go over. It’s easy in theory once you know the rules, but how many of those comments does it take? How do you find the right blogs and other sites to comment on?
If your main goal is talking to that particular group of potential customers, or creating relationships with other industry insiders, then comments are very efficient. If your only goal is backlinks then you may want to reprioritize because doing it the right way often enough to make a difference, can sometimes be more trouble than simply starting your own blog, creating a landing page, or doing something else original for your business.
Here are some things not to do when leaving comments:
1. Don’t just say “Yeah! I agree!” actually add something to what was said in the blog.
2. Avoid language promoting yourself. If you promote yourself it will be seen as spammy no matter how relevant and great the comment is.
3. Don’t use a business name or a keyword or phrase as part of your name, this can be seen as spam according to Matt Cutts, Google’s head of search spam.
4. Never make keywords a hyperlink. Also according to Cutts, this will be seen as spam as well. Just make your link a normal link.
5. Don’t make comments the majority of your backlinks. If a large portion of your backlinks come from comments it raises flags for Google.
Types of comments that do more harm than good:
Almost makes sense:
Name: Best Marketing Number 1!
On the internet you can market and there are many courses of study in this arena. When you choose the right form of direction then you know that your efforts have led to nirvana for a business on this website. As authorities in this blog we feel it does much wellness to monitor your transactions in all endeavors.
Usually computer generated, usually for the purpose of ruining someone else’s optimization by linking to competitors. “Bots” can post thousands of these a day.
The comment mash:
Name: Mary Elizabeth Smith
Great post. I think that the direction of the Asian market is going to depend on energy and population more than the rising middle class however. I think it’s a smart investment and thanks for the info! I’m still a bit too concerned with volatility so I’m waiting this one out.
Either a program or a human copies and pastes segments of other legitimate comments together. Sometimes there are hints in the comment, but sometimes you’d have to actually read all of the comments to recognize something like this.
Kiss up:
Name: Emanual Mohammed
Such a wonderful post! You’ve made my day! I’m excited to link this to all of my friends, many of which like you have an interest!
Shakespeare never got praise like that, so chances are if some random blogger does, it’s spam.
Why bother hiding it? spam:
Name: Best Prices Dot Com
I’m so glad that I found your website! I’ve been looking for something exactly like this!
Cheap Viagra, Best price on flowers for mom, Bootleg DVDs, beauty products here
Not every comment made for the purpose of a backlink (as opposed to the purpose of adding something legitimate to a conversation) is a complete useless waist of brain cells and life however.
Here are some good ideas for leaving quality comments:
1. Use your real name. Do not post as a business or use one of your keywords or phrases as your name. This has the added benefit of forcing you to be more serious about your comment. You have a lot more pressure to comment the right way when it’s your actual name people will see.
2. Seriously, be relevant. That cannot be stressed enough.
3. Say something that hasn’t been said. If someone else said it or it is something already in the blog, then don’t say it because why would you? Someone else already did.
4. Just do a normal link. It can be a hyperlink but don’t try to sneak it in by making your name a link (unless the blog does that for you) or making a keyword a link. There’s nothing to be gained by this in comments and it could be flagged as spam.
5. Take a few moments to proof read your comment.
6. If at all possible make it interesting or fun.
Pretty simple right? Basically just be altruistic in your intentions and your methods and make sure comments are not a large chunk of your backlinks, and you should be fine.
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