Blog Commenting- Effective For SEO or a Total Waste of Time and Energy?

This is the total guide on blog commenting for SEO.

All this and more, MUCH more.

Come a newbie; leave a pro;

Let’s go!

What is Blog Commenting for SEO And Should You Do it?

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Blog commenting for SEO is leaving comments on other blogs and hoping to get direct SEO value from them.

That is blog commenting for SEO, but should you do it?

No, you should not?

Why?

Because it’s a useless waste of time and potentially harmful to your website.

However, blog commenting can be a healthy part of your overall digital marketing strategy.

And below you’ll find out exactly why.

5 Crucial Benefits of SMART Blog Commenting- You Won’t Find These Anywhere Else!

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Smart blog commenting is not leaving comments for SEO purposes or for links, but because you:

#1- Can Gain More Niche Knowledge

Before you comment on someone else’s post you have to read it first, or at least thoroughly skim it to get an idea what it’s about and so not make a fool out of yourself.

Over time this extra reading will build a bank of knowledge for you and you will start to look and act like an expert.

This is valuable in today’s age when everyone is an expert and even computers are starting to write articles.

It’s crucial to get more knowledge to stand out from that faceless crowd.

#2- Get to Practice Writing

Comments are by nature short pieces of writing.

And crafting good comments means you’ll have to really focus to get your meaning across in a space of a few dozens of words or a few short paragraphs.

That’s an excellent writing practice for you and it will translate into you writing better articles and having more success with your blog or affiliate website.

You’ll also have to focus on not making silly typos and grammar blunders as those paint a clear picture of an amateur blogger.

Grammarly helps there tremendously.

#3- Will Build Niche Relevance and Natural Link Profile

When you consistently comment on blogs about SEO and NOT on blogs about gardening or anything else, Google will over time learn to associate your brand with SEO and dissociate you with any other niche on the web.

This is building your niche relevance and will help you naturally rank higher for pretty much anything related to SEO.

It’s a small thing but its also free and comes naturally with you targeting only niche relevant sites for dropping comments.

#4- Will Get Some Referral Traffic

Referral traffic you get from blog comments will never amount to anything big, so you won’t be growing and exploding your business on it.

However, you can get trickles of highly relevant and engaged traffic flowing to your site.

I say relevant and engaged because these people are taking the time out of their busy schedule to visit and learn more about you.

They’re your future customers and brand evangelists.

#5- Building Connections With Other Bloggers and Webmasters

When you’re leaving meaningful comments in a strategic way, then you want to get the 4 benefits from the above for sure.

But the main one you’re hoping to get is number #5, which is surfacing on the radar of a powerful influencer who already has a tonne of traffic and influence.

Impress them and they might; no let me rephrase that- they WILL over time start to support you.

This will be very valuable help to kickstart your young business.

For example:

Kevin Duncan is the chief editor of SmartBlogger.com. However, a few years ago he was just a budding freelance writer, regular reader and enthusiastic commentator.

He left valuable comments, one after the other, and got noticed by Glen Long, their previous chief content editor.

So, he got invited to guest post and that turned into a stream of guest posts and finally, Jon Morrow invited him to be where he is at now.

Blog commenting worked for Kevin, so why can’t it for you?

Working Smart- Creating an Efficient Blog Commenting System

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As you can see, genuine commenting brings in a host of benefits. However, you won’t be building a business just by dropping comments on relevant blogs.

instead it needs to be a small part of your overall digital strategy, and to have success with it you must be extremely effective.

What do I mean?

It’s a simple 3-step process:

1. Find sites from your niche to comment on
2. Vet those site using specific criteria
3. Create a commenting schedule and accompanying spreadsheet

Let’s quickly break down all three steps.

#1- Let’s Find Relevant Blogs to Comment on!

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We’re going to set things up so that commenting opportunities come to you without you having to hunt for them.

In other words- we’ll use Feedly.

It’s free service where you can subscribe to your favorite blogs (read: blogs you want to target) and get updates whenever they publish something new.

So go and sign up!

Then search for blogs from your industry.

Subscribe to as many as you can.

You’ll narrow your choices later.

#2- Decide Which Blogs to Target

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Here’s the truth:

to have success with blog commenting, you must focus on blogs that are most likely to notice and appreciate your efforts to bring value to them.

This means sites that:

#3- To Spreadsheet or Not? That is the Question!

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So once you have those make sure you record them in a comment-tracking spreadsheet.

Here are the fields you spreadsheet needs to have:

Should You Try to Be the First?

If you’ve read other blog commenting guides, almost all of them suggest you try to be the first commentator so your link gets maximum traffic and exposure.

That to me is wrong advice and here’s why.

Imagine you’re writing a blog post. You’re in the zone. Ideas just flow. You can’t jot them them down how creative you’ve suddenly become, and… then Feedly pops a notification that a certain blog has just published a certain blog post.

So what do you do?

Do you drop everything and run to leave the first comment. Or do you ignore it and keep keep writing?

Of course, it’s the latter.

Remember, blog commenting, even if you become the best in the world at it, is always going to be a very small part of your overall marketing effort.

It’s not worth it to stop witting a blog post, which is a high return activity, to drop a comment which is low return investment of your time and energy.

How to Write to Stand Out- The Anatomy of an Excellent Blog Comment

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Take a look and take note of this image.

And then continue reading.

First things first, great comment doesn’t need to be a lengthy comment.

You don’t need to write a novel to stand out.

You need to be human, genuine and contribute value through your experience with the topic at hand.

Can you do that?

Yes?

Great!

Here are the 4 parts of the wining comment.

#1- Greetings and personalization

This is nothing more than mentioning their name at the start of your comment.

#2- Praising the author or blog post

Do one or the other, but do give praise when it’s well deserved.

Always think that real people are giving it their all to succeed and boosting their moral costs you nothing, yet is a nice gesture.

And it helps open new doors for you.

#3- Offering value (the most important part)

Here you get a chance to shine and contribute to the post and increase it’s value.

This ain’t rocket science- just be natural and share your experience with the topic and you’ll do great.

#4- Finish with a parting promise

Promise to somehow amplify their post on the web. Every author loves that.

And that’s that.

Simple, right?

And now look at this image and see how all four parts create a wining comment for me, and recognition from Matthew Woodward.

9 Common Commenting Mistakes You Must Avoid at All Cost- These Can Ruin Your Perfect Commenting Strategy

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#1- Not Leaving a Link Back to Your Site

Whenever you drop a comment on a blog, make sure you leave your site’s URL in the website field.

It’s a normal and expected, and you should do it if you want to make blog commenting part of your digital marketing strategy.

 

#2- Using a Keyword Instead of Your Name

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Whenever you use a keyword instead of your real name, you send out these messages:

• a) I haven’t got a clue about this SEO thingy and I think this will help me rank- SEO is EASY!
• b) I’m only commenting because I want to help myself. I don’t CARE about the webmaster who wrote the post.
• c) I hope to steal traffic from the post I commented on. My keyword-rich anchor will attract peeps like flame attracts the moths
• d) I’m a spammer (Note: if a blogger uses CleanTalk, your comment won’t even reach their spam inbox)

Here I left me a good comment on my AccuRanker Review, just to show you how spammy it looks like.

An excellent comment, wasted 🙁

#3- Not using Gravatar

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Gravatar is a service that let’s you have an image of you next to your comment.

It’s a way to personalize your comment and show there’s a real human behind the keyboard.

And yes, an image of you and not of your brand. Even if you’re leaving comments to promote your brand.

Why not brand?

Because brands are faceless entities, while people (usually) have faces.

And even an ugly mug is better than pretty logo of an unknown company.

#4- Using a Fake Email Address

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Now why would you do that?

Only the blog’s webmaster can see your email address and you want them to see it because it’s a way to reach you after you’ve impressed them with your awesome comment.

And you never know when it will happen.

For example, I’m a freelance writer for hire and my first gig ever came after I left a comment on a blog and the webmaster was thoroughly impressed.

So, he followed the website link I left in the comment field, came to visit my site, found my hire me page and hired me

And here’s the comment that did it, in case you’re curious.

#5- You’re Repeating What Someone Else Said

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Besides reading  the blog post, I also encourage you to skim the comment section before writing a single word.

It’s because you don’t want to make a mistake of repeating what someone else said before you. Even though you didn’t do it on purpose, it’s still an embarrassing mistake, especially if it looks like you copied a previous comment.

#6- Spamming People

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To spam is to make life miserable to a webmaster. Do it and they will hate you with gusto.

So:

• Don’t drop irrelevant links;
• Don’t leave gibberish;
• Don’t comment in a foreign language.

Don’t everything else that’s bad.

Use common sense.

#7- Commenting on Non-Relevant Blogs

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Don’t comment on irrelevant blogs and if you do, don’t leave your site’s address.

Why?

Because it will confuse Google as to where your site belong (that relevance thingy); and because any traffic you get from that link will be worthless to you as people will see they don’t understand a thing and’ll leave in droves.

This can even cause SEO problems because of a unnaturally high bounce rate. If people are leaving your site in a hurry, there must be something seriously wrong with it, right?

Blog Commenting FAQ- All Questions Answered (Finally!)

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a) Does Blog Commenting Still Work or Not?

It doesn’t work for SEO if that’s what you mean.

It does work to build up your brand and to help you create a flourishing online business.

b) Is EDU Blog Commenting Still Effective for SEO?

No, it’s not

Why?

Because that technique is old and spammers have long gotten a hold of it.

Now, comment sections of pretty much all EDU sites that allow discussion and are lax on moderation are like landmines for visitors.

Wherever you click you’re taken to a terrible website trying to sell you something you don’t want.  

You don’t want your site’s url to keep that kind of company, right?

c) Are CommentLuv Backlinks Good for Rankings?

No they are not. For a plethora of reasons.

Here are some of them.

#1- They’re incredibly spammy

Take a look at this image.

its commentluv link and it’s chock full with keywords, because it’s the title of the post turned into anchor text.

The problem here is not that one comment but dozens more that you need to get to feel an impact in the SERPS.

But, by getting more of these you run the risk of keyword over-optimization which means Google Penguin will eat your site like real penguins eat fish.

In a flash and with no remorse.

#2- They’re Ineffective

All pages that allow comments are divided into two sections:

• Content;
• user-generated content.

And they’re clearly divided in the source code of the page by a little UGC tag.

If you don’t believe me, see for yourself.

Go to my Wealthy Affiliate Review, which has a lot of comments. Right-click and “inspect source” then hit CTRL+F and type “ugc”.

I bet you’ll find a lot of these and it’s WordPress automatically labeling comments (and their links) as user-generated content- which means those are worthless for SEO.

#3- Followed Blog Comments Expose You as a Link Builder

While these comments alone won’t get you into trouble; having them in quantity in your link profile might trigger a manual review on your site.

And then, who knows what else some human reviewer will find.

#4- Cost Per Opportunity Ration is Just Too High to be Worthwhile

To get any advantage from this link building strategy, you’d need to generate a master list of several dozens Commentluv enabled blogs. Then you’d need to leave at least five, but often many more comments to be granted a “do-follow” status.

We’re talking hundreds of comments here for very unclear and murky benefits.

Plus It’ll take a lot of time!

Time that’s better spent on:

• Building content for your site
• Getting quality links with email outreach
• Genuine, value-packed commenting on other blogs (more on that later).

Also, this is a spammy tactic;

And other webmasters are not stupid. They know why you comment.

You wish to benefit yourself and couldn’t care for their blog and their success. So you’ll be burning bridges left right and center.

d) Can I Get Significant Traffic Through Blog Comments Links?

Significant- no.
But meaningful- yes.

All it takes is for the webmaster of that blog to visit your site, like a piece of content and link to you, and suddenly you got a real SEO boost.

For example:

A while back I left a comment on Cognitve SEO’s blog:

And Adrian Cojocariu, the chief writer there, liked it so much that he referenced my comment, (and linked to me) from one of his next articles.

And I got a very powerful backlink that helped my then young blog gain some steam.

e) What is Ghost Blog Commenting?

Just like there’ ghostwriting, where a freelance writer creates content in the name of a high profile blogger; so there is ghost blog commenting.

It’s when a blogger hires another blogger to leave comments in their name.

That is a smart approach because you still get the benefits of good blog comments while your hands are free to pull more important levers for your business’s growth.

f) What Are Some Common Footprints I Can use to Find Sites To Comment on at Scale?

I’m against this because it shows you haven’t grasped the gist of healthy blog commenting which is building relationships with fellow bloggers.

But since I aim this to be an ultimate blog commenting guide here are the footprints you can use.

g) Is it Worth it to Purchase a Blog Commenting Package on Fiver? It’s Only $5, How Can it Hurt?

It’s not the money you should be worrying about. It’s your credibility as a blogger and a brand.

When you purchase a package that promises thousand of comments, do you really think that a living and breathing person is going and manually adding those comments?

Well no, of course not.

Instead, these people employ automated scripts, tools and software that look for any un-moderated commenting sections to drop your site’s link on.

And you can guess what kind of niche relevancy you’ll get with these, can’t you?

h) HELP! Spammers Are Attacking My Blog? Why?

You probably haven’t configured Akismet correctly.

It’s a free plugins that comes with your WordPress installation.

Configure Akismet and spammers will vanish as if removed by magic.

i) How Can I Disable Comment in My WordPress Site?

Sometime, disabling comments is the best optiion and here are two simple ways to do it.

#1- Disabling comments on a websites level

In your WordPress dashboard go Settings/Discussion and uncheck the box that says “allow people to submit comments on new posts”

#2- Disabling comments on a post-per-post basis

Scroll to the top of the post and find the “Screen Options” link. Click it and simply uncheck the “Discussion” box.

 (Conclusion) Blog Commenting For Better SEO and More Traffic- Effective and Worth it for You? Or Not?

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At the start of this post I promised you a total guide on blog commenting.

And tell me- have I delivered on my promise or what?

I mean, you learned:

You also mastered the art of great blog commenting that impresses everyone.

And finally, now you will never make mistakes that have you cringe days after you’ve made them.

You came into this post a noob, or at least an inexperienced commentator eager to learn; and you go out a ninja.

Now you have all knowledge you need to succeed.

But all knowledge in the world won’t help you one iota if you don’t apply it.

So go out and start applying what you learned, and my blog post about commenting is perfect for you to drop a comment on.

Oh, how meta!

😀