Do You Have A Blog Commenting Strategy?

Wow. This is the second post I read entirely on your blog with the other one about your traffic stats. All I can say is wow. You really share a lot of great REAL-LIFE experience. I like the way you write. As far as I can say, commenting on other blogs can bring traffic. Yes. Unfortunately, I haven’t tested it as thoroughly as you yet. But you gave me the envy here right now. This is just a new strategy I must implement. I commented regularly on JohnChow a while ago and those comments continue to bring me visitors today although I stopped commenting there since at least 2 months ago. And I posted not more than 20 comments in total. That’s my experience. With this huge complete post of yours, I think my commenting activity is going to increase again. Thanks for the roadmap. I liked the comments you left on BlogaDollar. :o)

@Blogadollar, yep it really does work. It might not be the most time effective strategy for an already popular blog, for us newbies it’s definitely a good way to get your name out and bring in the first few readers.

I’ve had no luck with John Chow’s blog but I may have another go and see what happens in the next 2 week period.

I used a similar strategy when I started my blog a few months ago and while effective it is time consuming. I am still struggling to find time to update my blog!

On a side note. I read your report for last month and you are doing exceptionally well, but if you want to start making money you need to take steps in that direction too.

Think about recommend products you really like. Join their affiliate program and link to them using the referral links.

Keep up the great work.

Wow, great post! (sorry…)

Seriously, excellent article for folks who can’t see blog commenting as an organized process that can offer excellent returns.

Good grief… what a great list. Some of those items have been on my list for a while and I just didn’t get to them for one reason or another, like the TC and DF plugin.

I am going to go grab that now and have it up there today (you can change my feed to TC if you want :)

I do try to organize my feeds in a way that is a little easier to comment, but I hadn’t thought about using a TC or DF, such a great idea.

I usually mark my filters/tag/folders whatever with a notation of a, b, c, i.e. seo, seo-a, seo-b, where the main (non lettered) filter is the dumping ground for new feeds. As I read through them over time I put them into a priority folder. That way if I have no time, I go read the “a’s” then the “b’s” etc.

Thanks again for such a great post, Scott

do you use a different landing page for that kind of traffic? I’ll sometimes shoot at http://myurl.com instead of www, just to have something else to read about in analytics.

also, have you ever got into trouble with “the law” for showing/adding your url into a comment?

Very comprehensive, thanks for opening up many new lines of thought, Caroline.

My own ’strategy’ for blog commenting has been pretty much ‘hit and miss’, with a vague purpose of getting the blogger’s attention (and interest)

Will sit down and chart out a more formal approach for use starting right now!

All success
Dr.Mani

@Hamlet, yes I have come to all of those conclusions too. Still, at these very early stages of the blog I still think the commenting strategy is effective because people simply don’t know about me yet.

@Todd, hehe, thank you :)

@Chipseo, I’ve tried organising my feeds in so many different ways. Generally I have them in folders according to subject like blogging, social media, seo etc but I like to annotate them as I simply have too many to keep up with them all.

@Dr Mani, yes mine was the same at the beginning but I could just feel hours slipping away from me without any kind of organisation and I hate that feeling :)

I’ve always been a big fan of commenting on blogs to drive traffic to my site. Back in June when I first started blogging, my comments were of fantastic quality and I soon built myself a reputation among a select few bloggers and their readers. I was constantly getting “Great comment!” replies from other readers and visitors were flooding in to my site.

Even though my comments were noticed and given praise by other readers, they were noticed a lot more by the blog authors. This soon allowed me to build relationships with several bloggers which in turn resulted in guest blogging opportunities and many more opportunities that generally find their way to you when you have healthy relationships.

These days, certainly in the “blogging on blogging” niche, establishing a good reputation is the first port of call for a rookie. Commenting is the perfect way to establish that reputation.

Having read your post, Caroline, I’m beginning to think I am subscribed to too many blogs and I should start ranking them in a bid to determine which ones are still worth reading/commenting on.

Right now, I have 69 blogs in my RSS feed list. Obviously not all of them are updated daily, but generally when I wake up there will be 15-20 new articles to read and maybe another 15 during the day. That’s a lot of posts to read and fill with good, constructive comments!

Now, I pose a question to you that I would imagine is on the lips of everybody who has read your post. Which blogs are you currently subscribed to, and how do they currently stand in your rankings? Hopefully you won’t mind sharing that information. It would certainly be quite interesting to see. :)

commenting strategy works fine for me. It doesn’t only create or make your traffic increase but it also creates new friendship towards others.

You’ve caught my attention, Caroline. :)

twitter.com/drmani just Twittered a link to this post.

While I agree that one of the best ways to drive traffic, quotes, and links to your site, you should post comments at other blogs for one primary reason: to add to the conversation, sharing relevant insights and sincere opinions.

Are you on Twitter? We’re promoting links to our blogs, as well as other valuable content, in 140 char bursts.

:^)

http://twitter.com/vaspers

Thanks for publishing this Caroline. I have featured a tip from this post in today’s Daily Marketing Ace tip. Hopefully, it’ll bring you even more traffic :-)

Do you have trackback enabled? I pinged this post, but don’t see the excerpt.

Doug

I started to notice your comments in a number of blogs. Your name started to appear on the radar very often. So that’s the reason why I’m here - for the first time.

What you have just written is simply great stuff, very comprehensive post. The reasons you gave for making comments make sense. I can see you have a workable strategy to get readers to visit.

There are lessons to be learned here. Moreover, I like blogs with an easy flow in the writing style. Cheers!

I’ve got a question for you, hopefully I am not being too nosy. What app do you use to measure and track what blogs are linking to you? My webhost provides Awstats and Webalizer stats, but it seems that you are probably using something entirely different.

I just have a pet peeve about comments and wonder what you particular oppinion is about the format of how you can leave a comment?

I come across many blogs that I would “like to” comment on but you have to login or register to make a comment. I find it very impeding to make a comment, or even receive one if you have to register with the site to make a comment?

This may work for the a-list of blogs where you might make a comment every other day or something, but how many of those can you do or keep track of, so if you are a blog with less than, say, 10,000 feed readers, why do you do this???? Scott

(TC up and running, thanks again).

@Anna Vester, it looks like Caroline is using Google Analytics (http://www.analytics.google.com) which is what I use as well. I find it to be WAY more accurate than Awstats or Webalizer in tracking ‘true uniques’

@chipseo Amen brother! What’s the point of having a blog if you don’t allow comments or make it hard to comment. I think these marketers are missing a big opportunity.

Caroline (or chipseo) can you point me to the TC plugin you are using?

wow this is a great post! I comment and I do look for users who use the top commenter plugin because its a PR beneficiary

but I just toggle along stumble or google blogsearch until I find something that interest me - I usually do not concentrate on comment marketing

Is it just me, or does this strategy seem a little too “calculating”?

I agree with commenting on blogs to get noticed in the blogging community, but I do it in a more natural way. I find the blogs I’m interested in, and when I see a post I feel like commenting on, I do so. I don’t worry about whether that particular blog is sending me lots of traffic or not, or whether they have a “top commenter” list.

In my own way, I have made some good friends by commenting.

I just don’t think I could do this the way you do it. It would feel too unnatural. Don’t you worry that now all the blogs you have commented on will see this post and feel like they have been “used”? Don’t take this wrong, because I admire your honesty! This is just my opinion. :)

Pat, the reason why people disable the ‘no follow’ tag, use the top commeters plugin, etc. is because they want to provide an incentive for commenting. So, on the contrary, blogs that read this post will be happy that they have provided an incentive for Caroline to participate in their discussion.

IMHO, “calculating” is a good thing when the purpose of your online activity is to build a business. Really, no activity should be undertaken (in a business sense) unless it fits into a strategy. Otherwise, it’s easy to spin your wheels for hours on end without really getting any results.

Great guide. I didn’t know these techniques, but I have used some of them to get on Shoemoney dot com’s top commentator list, currently I am the first one. I did exactly what you said about going back to older blog posts. It took a while, but one day I saw my name up there and I decided I wanted it to be there for a while. So, I am always commenting on his site. I try not to be stupid and make foolish comments. And your right, its hard making comments on things that aren’t commentable. I really like the journey and steps you are taking to make your site rank high. When to you plan on putting the ads up?

Well put, Caroline. You’re really growing at a nice clip these days!

Hi.

Despite hours of attempts, I’ve never been able to post an RSS feed, a technorati tag, & similar on my blog. What’s the magic formua?

@Zacharias, no different landing page, it’s not huge traffic, just trickles here and there over the month.

And I never post links in my comments.

@Jamie, I have 65 ‘work’ related blogs in my reader, and lots of personal ones which I usually never get round to, and yes it’s too much :)

In the stats post I did a couple of days ago I listed all the blogs that had sent me traffic and in this interview below I also gave a top 10 of my favourite blogs. That covers the main ones:

http://www.stevenaitchison.co.uk/blog/2007/11/03/the-woman-who-quit-her-day-job-to-blog/

@Brian, thats good to know :-) I’m also in your Teaching Sells program too so if I hadn’t caught you attention with this then hopefully I would have through that - loving it by the way!

@Vaspers, yes indeed, I probably should have re-iterated that point in this post as I had only specifically mentioned in in my earlier post about blog commenting that I did six weeks ago. This strategy is more along the lines of where and when to comment, the quality is assumed.

@Doug, yes trackbacks are enabled but for some reason I had to fish it out of my spam filter. Thanks very much for the link!

@Markk, you have hit on something there that I didn’t really make clear in the post - it’s the repetition of the same name over and over in different places that starts to foster a familiarity. People start to think, wow I am seeing this Caroline person all over the place, who IS she? Either that of they just scream, ‘nooo if I see that picture one more time I’m gonna punch someone!!’ :)

@Anna, I use Google analytics to track traffic but I do not monitor incoming links as such - I just see them pop up in my Wordpress dashboard. However, another thing I have is a Google alert setup on my name so I know when somebody is talking about me.

@Chipseo, Oh yes I absolutely agree with you! What are they thinking? It just seems arrogant doesn’t it? I don’t bother. If I can’t comment immediately then I don’t comment at all.

Though I can kind of understand it for those mega-blogs with a ton of writers and squillions of subscribers who would probably get inundated with spam otherwise. But i don’t comment on those sort of blogs anyway :)

@Doug, here is the TC plugin I use:
http://www.pfadvice.com/wordpress-plugins/show-top-commentators/

@Lantrepreneur, I do that too! I go to Sphinn, start seeing posts on there, then I stumble them and oh, just check what somebody has sent me and… there is just so much stuff!

@Pat, I was wondering if somebody would think that. I really hope that the blogs that I comment on don’t feel somehow ‘gamed’ by it.

The fact is, that I simply have so many blogs that I like, that needed a way to organise my time around it and this works for me. I can now comment regularly on nearly 40 blogs and that’s a lot.

What happened before is that I would get so behind with the blogs that I would have a ton of unread posts that were old and therefore it didn’t seem worth commenting. I was hardly able to comment on anything until I developed a strategy around it.

At the end of the day, I hope that my comments are insightful, useful, interesting etc. I do take my time to leave meaningful comments and as I’ve mentioned a few times I’ll always comment when I feel like it and if I can’t think of anything to say - I just don’t.

@Serge, now Shoemoney is an example of the kind of blog where on post after post I literally have nothing to say. His posts have a lot of rubbish in the comments and I just don’t even visit anymore :/

I need to fiddle with my theme a bit to made my sidebar a bit bigger then I’ll stick on some ads or banners. Hopefully some time this week.

@Abby F, I’m not sure what you mean by ‘post’ in that context. I looked over your blog and it seems fine - you have lots of incoming comments. Can you elaborate a bit. It may be best to contact me privately through the contact form at the top.

Excellent article. I’ve found in my experience that commenting on smaller blogs was just as effective, if not more, than commenting on more popular blogs. My comments on large blogs didn’t draw that much traffic, but with smaller blogs I often would find the other blogger visiting my site and getting involved.

Wow, stellar job! I found my way here through the Blog Rush widget at Dazzlin Donnas…you ladies are putting the men to shame this week for solid content.

I wonder if I can outsource my blog commenting? Maybe hire an elancer for $4 to add real value to blogs I read? No junk of course…just leverage. Thoughts on this type of outsourcing?

This article has definitely opened my eyes to the possibilities available in driving traffic to a website by commenting on blogs. I had read in the past the value, but I didn’t really believe the time to read and comment on more than a couple a day would really provide much benefit.

I am still not sure I will have the time, but I appreciate the advice and the way you track the blogs. Do you just use Excel or something else to keep track of all the information?

I really need to lay out my own commenting strategy. Thus far, commenting for me has been sporadic. But, I only like to leave comments when I feel I have something useful to add or just want to give appreciation to the post author.

This is a great list of advice, and I will definitely use it as a foundation when developing my own strategy.

Caroline, this is a great strategy and an often overlooked part of blogging. I have been guilty of not commenting a lot, thinking only of the time it takes, however the benefits outweigh the time factor.

Do you have an estimate of the approximate time you spend each day or week on this experiment? Also, are you tracking how many visitors are repeat visitors?

Thanks.

Wow! Great blog! Haha!

No seriously. There have been quite a few blogs advocating this and that, talking about pretty much the same strategies. This post, however, is the first roadmap (as an earlier commenter correctly coined) of a ‘how-to’, steps in actually executing these talked about strategies.

To date, I would consider this to be the most valuable resource / post on the art of blogging. Sorry guys!

Kudos, Caroline!

I would thus be keen to learn how you are going to the next step: “Monetising” your blog and start paying the bills!

Thanks for sharing! Truly enjoy your posts.

Hi Caroline

I’m totally new to blogging and am currently fumbling around in the dark looking for the light switch! You mentioned ‘do-follow’ and ‘no-follow’ in your post. Would you mind helping me out with a quick definition of these terms?

Big thanks and good luck with what is obviously a successful blog on the brink of great things.

@Steven, Yes there is a sweet spot isn’t there - on a small blog you can stand out by being one of just a few comments and you can quickly form a relationship with the blogger. The large blogs can send more traffic but you tend to get lost in the sea of other comments.

@David, You found me through BlogRush? Wow. Well maybe I should just keep that widget around then!

Outsourcing blog commenting… my gut reaction would be a big fat NOOOOOOO. Comments should personal, they should show that you care about the content, show that you have read the blog and are enjoying it, continueing the conversation etc. Seriously, if you outsource that, isn’t that just totally fake?

Btw, I love the tagline of your blog - I’ve subscribed without even reading anything else, can’t wait to read it :)

@Kexster, Yes it is time consuming, but you could do something similar on a smaller scale - say pick just 5 blogs to comment on. I just track it in my Feed Reader which is an offline reader called Feed Demon. I organise the feeds into folders and tag the feeds as I describe in the article.

@Justin, well yes this strategy lays on top of the foundation of having something to input to a post. But I find that as I have been blogging for a while now, I’ve learned a lot, I’ve developed a lot of opinions so I have much more to say than I did a month ago. It really is one of those things that you can get better at with practice.

@Helene, Now that I have refined it, I spend approximately one hour a day and that allows me to focus well on my ‘hit list’ of 20 blogs plus leave a few comments here and there on around another 20.

I haven’t really looked at that in my stats - I should do.

@JLow, thanks very much. That’s how I wish to differentiate myself from others. I see squillions of posts that give generic advice and very often its a case of, if you already know how to do the stuff in the advice, the posts is just a reminder to do it, and if not, it doesn’t show you how.

I want to really show people *exactly* what I’m doing in a way that can be replicated by others.

@Internet Mama, sure. If you look at the HTML used in links for the comment section of most blogs (including this one), you will see rel=’nofollow’. This is an indication to the Google spiders that says, hey - don’t follow this link. ‘Dofollow’ is a term used to describe links that don’t have that tag.

When a link does not have the nofollow tag, then it counts as a ‘back link’ to the target URL and those back links help the url develop more importance with Google which can improve PageRank and search engine positioning.

Back links are an important way to develop the ‘authority’ of a site and when you leave a comment on a blog, you get the chance to put in your URL so if that blog uses a plugin that removes the nofollow tag, every comment counts a backlink. Obviously this can be very enticing for the spammers out there which is why the tag is used by default on so many blogs.

Thanks Caroline. That’s answered my question perfectly. Much appreciated. :-)

As always an informative and detailed post Caroline.

What are your thoughts on commenting on off topic blogs? I find it tremendous for bringing in a totally different breed of readers. I liken the `Make Money Online` niche to that of a small town, unless the $$ come in from elsewhere then it`s really the same buck being passed about the circle and those with the bigger market get a better grip.

Personally my blog touches 5% on MMO and the rest on travel and life in a foreign country, wordpress, technology, television etc … by straddling many topics you can increase your readership substantially. Having said all that my internet interests are still somewhat driven by making money without falling under that umbrella. Let me also point out i some people are very successful in the MMO domain however for so many others starting out it may pay to spread a little wider and tap into something they can speak about with authority.

@Neil, frankly, I don’t have time to read and comment on all the blogs within my own niche, let alone ones outside. It might be a strategy worth considering if your blog is in a very small niche but you have to be careful to keep your comments on topic to the actual post.

very informative and useful =)

sometimes people comment for the sake of commenting and the comment is only a 1 or 2 word comment.

i believe useful comments like suggestions will especially help, even with a small suggestion like ‘i think you should add some photo as it seems wordy’ etc.

i’ve learned alot from you, will come back for more~

thx for posting this post!

Computer TNT (Tips and Tricks)
- The Technical Websites for the Not-So-Technical People!

@Doug Hudiburg, thanks. I have it installed as well, but haven’t played enough with it at this point. Sounds like I will need to spend a little more time checking it out.

@Caroline, thanks. Setting up google alerts is a very clever idea.

Man Caroline! You’re hitting the bigtime with Darren link to you :) Great job!

Ah! The Caroline Middlebrook effect! Am I the first to coin that? :)

Thanks for the mention, Caroline - there is certainly a small phenomenon I have noticed in my stats. :) I feel honoured to be on your ‘hit-list’. Heh!

Your commenting strategy is extremely well thought out and planned. I do not see it as gaming of any sort at all - it is just something that you have realised you’re capable of doing and doing well. Furthermore you aim to provide quality comments, so that’s value to both the blog author -and- the readers.

It’s not for everyone tho’ - because of the time required and the thought having to go behind each comment. Still, anyone who can do this certainly will experience benefits in getting themselves noticed and traffic-wise. As mentioned, I tried it on a much smaller scale in my first month, and the benefits were there!

Well, in my opinion the whole “strategy” bit is just too mundane and tedious for me. Unless it’s a heavily trafficked blog, I don’t comment on it (except ProBlogger I guess).

Other than those type and multi-author blogs I try to leave insightful comments on every blog I read regularly, which are about 10 blogs.

Also, before commenting I tend to analyze the behavior of the blogger towards commentators. Some bloggers don’t even reply to a comment, even if it’s insightful and from a regular commentator; I don’t leave comments on such blogs.

@Mike, yeah he just linked to me again today which is real nice :)

@YC, I think it can be scaled. I spend around an hour a day and have 20 blogs that I really focus on. If I only had 15 minutes a day I would limit it to just 5.

@Ruchir, yes its always nice when the blogger actually responds to comments but I can understand it if they literally have hundreds of replies to every post like some do.

Thanks for this caroline! I’ve never had any commenting strategy before. I’m certainly adopting yours.

Cheers!

Nice Article, its a format i started to use with my new blog. I’ve been a webmaster for a longtime now, but focused mainly on social network sites and a buy / sell website marketing. Ive moved away for this and returned to blogging, and im pleased i found this article as it reinforces i’m doing something right, thanks caroline :) p.s. thanks for that top commentators pugin too :)

p.s. (sorry forgot to add this) double check then double check again the first time you post on a new blog that you entered your URL correctly, i made this mistake with some early morning blogging and ended up with a top commentators link lost in cyberspace on a high ranking blog, loser! good link gone a stray!

Thanks for this very insightful and helpful recipe. I hope I can follow it to bake a really successful blog audience. It does seem to me, however, that a lot of blog advice is kinda “inside baseball”, bloggers talking to bloggers about blogging. If, as is my case, I am blogging for the specific purpose of generating an audience of people interested in my niche, which I then can channel to my tribal art oriented web sites, blog-commenting is a little dicier. Still if I try to add something of value to a blog via my comment, do so intelligently, and encourage someone to sample my blog, perhaps they will stick around to share my very nichey interest. Is that a reasonable strategy?

Wow, you are really organized! I´ve used more of a hit and miss method of blog commenting, commenting on posts that interest me . . . then commenting again if I notice that I get traffic from them.

Some of the bigger blogs are better than others. For example, I find that ProBlogger is a really great blog for getting traffic. Just a simple comment can bring in as many as 15-30 new visitors!

Thanks for laying everything out like this. It´s a good idea to have everything organized. As I have several blogs that I run, a system is going to have to be put into place at some point and this article should help me get started.

I like how you respond to your comment posters, with the @ method.

Posting comments to enrich the content and contribute to the conversation at other blogs is a very powerful way to attract new readers for your blog.

@Tribal, yup that sounds like a perfect strategy. At the end of the day you’ll get nothing out of commenting if you’re not adding valuable comments to the conversation. The idea is to make somebody interested in what you have say so that they click on you.

@Genesis, yes I am very organised, perhaps too much sometimes :)

@Vaspers, I just type @ :D

Can you be too organized? I wasn´t aware of that. :D I´m so far from being overorganized, it´s not even funny!

Very interesting post. I was very reluctant to comment because as you said, there probably is no chance that anyone will read this as its the 50 somethingingth response. I am new to blogging and found your post to be useful - hadn’t thought of developing a ‘comments’ strategy before. But to be honest, I haven’t got time to be that serious about my online presence and I generally just stick to blogs that interest me.

Let’s not forget the #1 reason for commenting on a blog.. open discussion! It’s not all about getting backlinks surely!? :)

@Pijoo I don’t think Caroline missed that point, do you? Funny that you should make your post about “open discussion” and not really add anything to the conversation. Ooops. Is that a backlink tied to your comment? If you only want open discussion and not to promote your business at the same time, why link to your site?

Actually, I think you have it backwards. If you get enough backlinks, you will have enough money to be able to spend as much time as you want on open discussion. :-)

Hello, I’m Mark and I’ve subscribed to your blog and I read it regularly. You have some of the best content that can be found in the blogosphere, Caroline! I enjoy your articles a lot and I am learning a great deal from them. I find the level of detail involved in your blog commenting strategy amazing and refreshing, as well as educational. Your blog is growing steadily and rapidly and I look forward to reading more excellent articles from your first-rate blog in the future! I’d like to take this opportunity to thank you for sharing your experience and expertise with all of us. Please keep up all your exemplary work on this fine blog! Have an excellent day!
-Mark

Interesting approach to commenting. It wasn’t until recently that i realised the power of leaving well thought out comments that add to discussions. The power lies in the fact that people get to see your name more often and this builds relationships and your brand!

I do not as yet have a strategy, i have a list of my favourite blogs which i visit daily and if i feel i can add to the discussion then i leave a comment, i dont look at commenting in a calculated way, for me it is a natural process but i can certainly see the benefits of having a systematic approach.

As a first time visitor i am very impressed with the quality of the posts!

Like Grace, I subscribe, read, and comment on blogs that I subscribe to without a real “strategy”.

I blog about being a parent / father. When the posts from other parenting blogs either don’t leave an opening for comments, or that I don’t have anything valuable to add, I don’t try it.

But as mentioned here or elsewhere, the ones that I do comment, I have build basic friendships with the bloggers already..

I think Caroline’s strategy on commenting for traffic is a brilliant one. However, I just want to drop a gentle reminder that there is value in commenting apart from the sole purpose of generating traffic.

Read this article I have written about “Commenting is not only about Traffic” at my blog http://www.ivytan-onine.com.

@Sarah, well I’ll read the 50th comment :)

@Pijoo, absolutely! But with 80 million blogs in existence, this strategy is about establishing just where to place your efforts and how to get the most out of them, rather than the ‘how’ of what to say.

@Mark, thank you very much! :D

@Grace, yeah I didn’t start commenting until recently either. I used to just lurk and it never occured to me to comment. But that’s all changed now. It’s fun being an extended part of the conversation.

Caroline, I saw a reference to this post on ProBlogger’s site, so I came to take a look.

Fabulous article and blog! I particularly like the point that you make about attracting the attention of the blogger through your comments so that the blogger will check out your own site.

Your technique reminds me of some of the ideas from Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point, particularly about the key roles in spreading a trend or making something known to a large audience of people.

Caroline, your methods are obviously working for you…I’ve seen your name posted on 3 very popular blogs in just the last 2 days, and I’m sure there are many others out there. Good job!

I didn’t have a commenting strategy as detailed as this so I’m going to use your outline now, keeping the detailed stats, and see what results I get, thanks!

BTW, I found your site through Problogger, you’re obviously doing a great job, WTG on the recommendation!! :)

Thanks for the super informative post. The only question I think I have left, is how do you feel about trackbacks? Mainly Trackbacks vs Comments, what do you find to be more successful in drawing new readers?

Thank you - this is the most useful post I’ve come accross on posting with a coherent strategy . I’m going to get onto it ASAP - as soon as I stop procrastinating over the article I’m writing!

I can say you are really determined to maximise the effect of your actions. I’m also using blog commenting on purpose, but mine is different: I want to acquire links, so I fixed a target of completely new blogs to comment on every week. Many times I watch to see if the have the do-follow enabled, but if I like an article and feel like having something to say, I would comment regardless the do-follow. I target mostly new blogs, with very few comments, and I choose them by searching for certain topics in google blogsearch (the topic depends very much on what my last post is about, as that will be the first thing they will see when they’ll visit my blog).

Caroline Middlebrook, as a fellow Thirty Day Challenger I am impressed! Your “Blog Commenting Strategy Report” is an excellent well written comprehensive detailed proven blog traffic strategy report that works.

While everyone else online wants the money upfront for premium information like this you seem to be doing it the web 2.0 way… it is a little different. Before you ever charged for a report or a product of your own… you are over delivering invaluable information on your blog for your readers.

Laying out complete step-by-step details of what you did, why you did it… your thought process, showing stat images and your blog traffic results. Anyone can copy… replicate everything you did and showed if they are willingly to put forth the investment of time, effort and apply the strategy.

I realize the value of your shared free blog strategy traffic report. I feel bad that I have read it and I am devouring your free “Blogging Commenting Strategies & Techniques”. I didn’t pay a single cent…

I have one piece of advice to offer add a tip box to your blog. There are people… like myself who would be willing to show our appreciation.

@Heelcandy, excellent question! I don’t think trackbacks get noticed by readers very much so I don’t use it as any kind of strategy. I do link to other blogs quite a lot but simply because I like what they have written and feel that my readers can benefit.

My posts here have an in-built trackback mechanism so if anyone links to me it comes through the comments as a trackback which is nice because it shows my readers that other people are talking about the subject and they can go follow that conversation if they choose to.

Overall though, I definitely think that comments attract the readers more than trackbacks.

@Lissie, yes absolutely do your procrastination first! :p

@Simonne, if you want links, you will probably do far better learning to write linkable content, than using comments. Still, that works too but it requires constant, direct effort from you. If your content is linkable, other people link to you without your further involvement.

@InternetMarketingGuidance, actually I have no intention of creating some report to sell - at least not on this blog. This blog is here to report my progress on other Internet Marketing ventures and share any insights along the way.

I could put some donation box on, but I believe in karma so all is good :) I’ll stick some ads on when I get some technical issues with my theme sorted out - then you can click on those :p

Thank you, thank you, thank you ! The truth is I had no idea where to even start. Now armed and dangerous I shall venture forth…

I’ve now been commenting on blogs for around 6 months, and I’ve found it to be a great way to archieve some good organic rankings when combined with a few other building techniques. One of my strategies when I’m looking for sheer link count, and I’m not caring if there no follow links is to search for a related term on Google to the type of posts I’m looking for. An example of this would be “PHP Development blogspot.com comment”, I’ve only quoted it so people could see which my search string is. Although all blogspots are nofollow they pass some weight, and it will cost you competitors more if the SEO bases their rate on competition for your keyword.

Wow! This is truly overwhelming! I am new to blogging and am really enjoying the posting aspect of it, but all these strategies that people have blow my mind…I really don’t know how they manage to get anything else done…they must be square eyed and in desperate need of sleep! I just do not have a marketing brain, and am not sure I want to focus too much on the business side of things, rather than just posting because I love it! But the tips are certainly mind-opening. Because I am so new to all of this, I am so far struggling to find blogs I want to comment on…particularly those with lots of readers. I guess this is just trial and error and lots of Googling?

Really excellent post. Some of the things you mention I am doing already but I certainly learned a few new ones that I will try and implement. Time is always the problem. Doing all this, what I consider maintenance, and then having time to post to three blogs is hard because life has a habit of getting in the way. I can’t believe sometimes that most of the day is gone when I get up from the computer. One thing I haven’t fully grasped and is something you mentioned, is SU. For example how does one tell if your site or post has been stumbled by anyone? That site can be difficult to figure out.

@windyridge Dr. Mani made a nice post today about SU on his new blog:
http://www.niche2.com/IIAblog/17-power-tips-for-stumbleupon-beginners/

so i’m 82nd in the list. i guess that means you and google are the only things that are gonna see my comment. here goes:

i think blogs are a way to connect, not just to get people to read your stuff. i’m happy with my 10 odd subscribers, because i feel i have a personal connection with most of them. of course, i also do not make any sort of money from my blog, so maybe that’s why i’m not particularly concerned with my low readership. the only thing that i really want is for more of my friends to read my blog, so that they stay in touch even if i’m too busy to be in personal contact. i don’t think systematic commenting would help at all in that respect, but i may be wrong.

your approach is methodical (which is nice), but imho, too clinical. it’s like choosing your friends based on who is most likely to get famous in the next 5 years.

personally, i just wing it. i also comment on any post i may have something to comment on, regardless of what effect it may have. it’s just like me making friends with whoever comes across as nice and/or interesting.

What do you do about the nincompoops who try to game your blog with “comments” that are nothing more than a quote taken at random from your article and a link back to their (probably) slimy site?

I certainly wouldn’t follow such a link. Too risky. Probably something illegal going on there.

I’m surprised that in your reviews, you don’t just delete them.

@Oneunder, superb! Go Go Go! :)

@Vancouver, I simply haven’t needed to do that is there are just so many blogs in my niche. But that could certainly be useful for smaller niches.

@Divinyl, I developed this strategy simply *because* it was taking so much time. By being more organised about it I can read and comment a lot more in less time.

@Windyridge, you’ve just given me an idea for a blog post about StumbleUpon. Stay tuned! I’ll show you exactly how to see if you’ve been stumbled, and more importantly - when to do when you have.

@Kris, well as I said, if I like a blog I’m going to read it no matter what, and if I don’t like a blog I’m not going to read it regardless of how much traffic potential there is. This strategy is really for me to figure out what to do with all of those blogs in between.

@Al Kalar, It hasn’t happened yet. Well there’s been perhaps one or two and I’ll let people get away with it once or twice but if people make a habit of dropping links etc I’d simply delete the comment. But so far, I have never had to delete a non-spam comment from the site.

Btw, reviews? What reviews?

Hi Caroline,

I went to your blog from mybloglog because I recognised your name from teachingsells (which should be called selling teaching - but it’s marketing I need help with so that’s mostly OK).

Seeing as I’m about comment #86 I guess this won’t help me get readers to my site.

I’ve been looking for an article like this for weeks now. The advice to comment on lots of blogs made sense to me in one way. But then the little I had done didn’t seem to do anything.

One big problem was there were lots of sites I didn’t find much on, and to leave a worthwhile comment meant reading the blog which took time. So I couldn’t really see myself following the idea of comment on 100 blogs a day kind of thing.

So this article came as a relief and a breath of fresh air. Giving me a realistic strategy to pursue.

So a very big thankyou from me.

Wishing you grace and peace,
Evan

@Evan, Hi Evan, yes I have seen you all over Teaching Sells *wave*. And yes there is no point forcing yourself to comment on blogs that are low quality. Not all niches have many blogs around but if yours is wellbeing an health there must be a lot of quality ones out there - that’s a huge area. Find the good ones, pick a select few and start there.

Great post… no seriously, very useful and thought provoking. But I have to say, blimey, this sounds like hard work. How many hours a day do you put into simply commenting on other people’s blogs?
I’m sure getting organised is a good idea. But I’m not convinced I’ll ever get round to it.

Simon, it really is hard work to post relevant, enriching comments, ie free user generated content, to other people’s blogs.

This is where most bloggers, especially CEO bloggers, fail.

They sit around, wondering why nobody visits their blog, links to it, or quotes it. But they have to participate in the blogosphere, and it takes a HUGE amount of time.

It’s not ROI in terms of cash that is a hurdle, since most blog platforms and widgets and even design templates, are free.

It’s the ROT, Return on Time, that is the costly factor.

This post has generated tons of comments. I’m jealous. Heh.

:^)

Will re-Twitter a link here, too! I think my 530 Twitter Followers need to see this debate and enlightenment!

http://twitter.com/vaspers

@Simon, in October I spent a shocking 54 hours reading blogs. Seriously, waaaaay too much. Part of the reason I developed this strategy was so I could refine the process and not be so all over the place. I hope to cut it down to no more than one hour a day.

@Vaspers, yeah can’t just sit around and wait for people to come to go - you have to go out and reach them.

I Dosh Dosh a lot… i got to here from there. And it seems this commenting thing is the way to go. I just spend 30 hours a week plus just on content and I don’t know if I have the time for this… and even if I did I am not sure where my target audience really is. I mostly do photography, but there is a lot more stuff on there that I love that doesn’t get anny attention. I don’t realy have a niche and I don’t know who I should be working with. Thanks for the info.

@Igor, that is some pretty powerful photography you have on your blog. I don’t know how you would interact in that kind of niche because what you create is visual rather than filled with words. The only thing I can suggest is to find other blogs that have a similar style to your own.

Never did I think someone would go this in depth about anything so– common?

It’s definitely got my gears turning though! Thanks!

As you know, the use of business blogs in the UK compared to the US and elsewhere is relatively low. In the Britblog.com directory, believe it or not, I am the *only* business blog registered in my region, which is also my target market area. I have yet to see any other local business - even major household names - which keep blogs. Would creating a blog commenting strategy simply be an academic exercise for me?

@Scot, oh yes that’s me! I can take what somebody else would say in three words, and make a 500 word blog post about it!

@Heather, I have no idea! The only way to find out is to test it. My gut instinct tells me it wouldn’t work as well but who knows?

I still have not found a solution for the problem I encounter of maintaining an interest in commenting. The conversations are so passive it is far to easy to forget to do it for 2 or 3 days. I am a super-technical person, in front of computers often, but I can’t find the discipline to set aside time to do it.

Caroline, I just finished reading an older post of yours that I heard about through ChrisG — it was your guide to Twitter (fabulous). I’m new to blogging, so after reading it, I signed up for Twitter and decided to follow you. After spending much too much time there, right after hours of commenting, I thought…wow, I wonder if there is a good strategy for commenting as well as the Twitter Guidlines from Caroline. Then I saw your Twitter note about 99 comments on this post of the very subject and thought I’d head over and add #100…only to find you already got it (yay!) Anyway, it’s becoming apparent to me now that I’ve got to put a commenting strategy in place or I’ll be spinning my blog wheels and spending unproductive hours, leaving me feel anything but a sense of entrepreneurial wellness, which is what I blog about. So thanks for this post because it may help bring my sanity and own sense of wellness back. Whew. anyway, thanks! :-)

It was a superb meaty article.

I’d recommend you keep them coming. Just that
you should make them smaller and if possible
write a 3-part article since giving too much info
at once it strikes info-overload :(

This also helps you build anticipation and curiosity
with your blog postings…

Cheers,
Codrut Turcanu.

Despite the fact that you have said you are a perpetual planner, I applaud you for your ability to create such a comprehensive strategy and carry it through.

I think the visitor numbers speak for themselves. And what I like most is that every comment that I have seen you write on other blogs has been valuable and useful - so you have stuck to your beliefs too.

Well done. Traffic very well deserved.

@Edward, if it’s a chore for you, don’t do it because your comments may come across as a little ’stiff’. There are plenty of ways to get traffic and attention from bloggers, this is just one of them.

@Erica, yes indeed its that feeling of doing a lot and not getting anywhere that made me create a strategy around it.

@1-2-3, when I get started, I can’t stop! Sorry for the overload :)

@Nancy, thank you :)

This is a fantastic post, one of the best I have seen in a long, LONG time. I’m definitely going to follow some of your advice and create a strategy for blogs I need to continuously comment on. Thanks for the inspiration! :)

Well, good to know that whenever your name shows up in the comment section of a blog it´s only selfpromotion for your own blabla moneymaker blog…
pseudo-communication as cheap advertising is your trade mark ???

@MS, I don’t think that’s a fair statement. Caroline isn’t condoning spam. She’s simply using blog comments as a way to network with other bloggers who have similar interests while at the same time spreading word about her own blog.

True, some bad apples have been known to spam blogs with useless comments and links. But I’ve seen Caroline’s comments on quite a few blogs I read regularly and she always makes a point of adding something substantial to the discussion. Blog owners appreciate these types of comments.

Unless you are commenting crap which can be a variation of spamming, if you give a good comment, can it be call spam?

CM, obviously I’m comment 79 so I missed the boat on early commenting but I just wanted to give you props for this post. Your process is fantastic and being the process-oriented gal that I am, I LOVE IT! Keep it up, sister!

@M.S., free actually. I don’t pay for any advertising.

@kljs, well of course - comment spam is very common. But if you provide a well thought out comment then that is not spam. It *all* comments were spam, there would be no point in having comments at all would there?

@RUS, you’re about number #113 actually :D

Your comment strategy seems a lot more involved than mine. Since I use stumbleupon - I normally just stumble and when I find a post I find interesting - I leave a comment before giving a thumbs up.

When I go through my feed reader I will find posts and go to leave comments there as well. But I love your idea of marking blogs which use the DF (like we do) and the TC (which didn’t work for us… not sure why..)

Hi Caroline,

Wow, what an article. I’m a newbie trying to figure this all out and this article is fantastic. Thanks for the organized way you approach commenting. It allows me and I would imagine a lot of folks a great strategy for commenting on blogs.

Thanks,
Chris

Hi Caroline,

I was just turned on to your site by a fellow blogger who is big into commenting strategy. You have done a great job of designing a commenting strategy. Totaly impressive. Stuff that I would have never thought of. The way you rate the blogs based on hits from that blog is cool . Think I’ll subscribe and read your blog a lot more.

Thanks
Karl

Hi Caroline. Very interesting article.

I have to say that I targeted DoFollow blogs when I first started out and it’s worked nicely for me. After a few weeks of leaving comments, I decided to make my blog dofollow as well. Any particular reason you haven’t made your blog dofollow? Just curious…

I see you do have a Top Commentators plugin (I don’t yet, but it’s on my todo list) and I see Josh Spaulding’s name there - it was he who led me here…

@Stephen, Well I do get a fair amount of spam - the real spam that is, you know porn / viagra stuff. I know there are lots of programs out there that crawl the Internet for do-follow blogs for comment spamming so it probably would increase.

Plus I simply haven’t felt the need to use it - The TC plugin is nice, I get a lot of comments and I try to link out to other bloggers quite a lot so I don’t think adding DF would achieve very much.

Caroline, fair enough. I respect anyone’s decision to use DoFollow or not.

Personally I haven’t had any real problems with spam (probably average one a day) because of the anti spam plugins I use - particularly the Math Comment Spam Protection plugin which stops the bots dead). If you don’t like captcha style plugins, there’s also TanTanNoodle Simple Spam Filter which helps catch comments with words like porn / viagra before they get to Askimet.

DoFollow has been great for me, as it helped attract readers to my blog when I was starting out. After 5 months it’s PR4 (if PR means anything anymore), although my plugins have helped that too.

Having said all that, you’ve got more traffic, subscribers and comments than I do, so you’re obviously done alright without it! I guess that’s because you’ve got great content. :)

This is an interesting article. Funny, though, because I never knew reading blogs had to be such hard work! d=

interesting post.