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.

This is brilliant. I routinely consult with clients on blogging strategy, including commenting strategy, and those goes way deeper than I had even done.

Drop me an email — let’s talk.

Hi Caroline,

Is there a simple way to find popular blogs in a particular niche or on a particular topic?

This seems a big part of the strategy and I’m not sure how to do it.

All ideas from you or others most welcome.

@Evan, a great place to start is a technorati search.

Wow, that’s a long line of comments. :) I guess I didn’t find this article on time for being one of the “early commenter”. However, it was very valuable and I am glad I read it.

I am pretty new in blogging, so I am learning as I am going. I knew that commenting was a good strategy for traffic generation but hadn’t yet implemented it myself massively. I would say that almost not at all.

However, I took a lot of notes from your article. It is awesome and my first task after I am done with everything else I have on my list is to find 10-20 different blogs in my niche and try them out, following your very well put together instructions.

It will require some organizational skills. But I can manage this.

I know it is hard for new blogs to get attention fast, but I think it is definitely achievable and that’s where I am going.

Thanks for writing such great article.

First time I’ve heard of an organised strategy to blog commenting – it seems as if the role of commenting has finally been brought to the front. Reminds me of the army of commentators service.

Another great article on blogging for a newbie like me. Newbie as in less than a week. I already have a vague understanding of the importance of commenting and you just clarified some things for me, although I still don’t have any idea about Top Commentator and Do-Follow plugins, e.g. what they do and should I even bother with it and why.

More reading assignments for me, I guess.

Thanks for helping us new bloggers! More power!

Hmm, I should start up on the TC plugins thing, but my bookmarks are already overflowing, I do have a list of Do-Follow blogs that I regularly read up on. Perhaps its time for me to dig out a full blown RSS reader to start indexing all this :D

Caroline, I decided to follow your lead and add a Do Follow “Top Commentator” section to my website. I really appreciate your blog. You have opened my eyes to a whole new universe. Have a great day.

Omg. With the amount of comments you’re getting here, this is definitely working ;)

I am sitting at my desk with a notepad, I am about to recreate your system for my self. Very good info and sweet of you to provide it. Thank you Carolin!

Sorry, I meant: *Caroline. I also meant to ask you, out of your 20 hit list, what are your top 5? :)

I guess at 149th comment I havn’t got in early and whilst I may be in Australia I don’t think my blog will get into your list – just not enough traffic or quality articles. I am working on quality and this post has certainly given me some ideas to increase traffic.

I think time is always the biggest enemy. Finding the time to visit 15-20 other blogs each day and read and leave comments whilst trying to keep your own site fresh and content rich is rather difficult.

Your comment about links is rather interesting although I notice you use a lot of intext links to other sites. I like the idea of context linking to other sites within a post. I would have thought that article to article linking would be a good plus to rankings.

Thanks for providing some brain food – I now need to re-read it all and then let it sink in.

thanks
les
the radical blogger

Caroline
This is a fantastic article. You really spell out a great strategy. I haven’t focused on leaving comments on other blogs because I was focusing so much time on writing content – but it’s starting to feel a bit lonely in the blogosphere. Even though what you outline is “calculated”, it is really a sysematic way to meet people and make connections – the internet is crowded and it can be hard to get noticed. I feel motivated now to leave comments, even on “old” posts – like this one!!

Liz

I really underestimated how powerful a commenting strategy like this can be. After reading Yaro’s article and your post in full, I am definitely going to spend more time with commenting. Thanks for the post.

Thank you for the unbelievable insight… you just earned yourself another subscriber! I’m looking forward to following your expertise- you are obviously putting in a lot of effort!

I think i’m learning about blogging the hard way. But I have learnt alot. And I think the best way to comment, is to imagine i’m talking to someone who is sitting across the table from me.

how’s the weather Caroline?

a great place to start

Found your blog via search engine – great article. To add to the discussion, I look for blogs that not only meet the above criteria, but that do a lot of pinging. Blogs whos posts are referenced byseveral others will duel out a multiplied number of incoming links to commentors, i.e, getting backlinks from comment pages you havent commented on, but that reference a post you DID comment on.

Great article Caroline. As I created my blogging strategy for 2008, this is one area that I realized I needed to pay attention to, so I have actually set goals for not just posting, but for commenting as well. It gets a little challenging when you have multiple blogs in different niches, but that is why planning (for me) is so important.

Wishing you a great 2008!

Anthony

Hello Caroline

Happy New Year to you!

I came to your article via a link on the Blog Mastermind course run by Yaro Starak which I have just started. This is nicely written article and very understandable. Hey, I am last in the door but this is where we all start.

Liz
http://www.festivalpreviews.com

Caroline OK I have a question – more of an etiquette Q than a strategy Q BUT I love Seth Godin’s blog — I have printed out posts now overlapping all over my walls — no its not A shrine & don’t call CSI:Special Victims Unit.. but thing is I really digg his stuff and for me it inspires me to append his thoughts with my own context — so I often blog about his posts — so natch I trackback – I could easily do this 3,4,5 times a week –is that too much ? is there such a thing as a “trackback restraining order”? haha kidding but what do you think about that one and BTW this is comment 124 I think — so I’ll be watching to see if you read this one! by the way Super post, really!

@Michael, no trackbacks are fine – see when you leave a trackback its because you have linked to one of Seth’s posts and everybody likes links in! So I would say that’s no problem.

I’m an avid track-backer to Seth as well. Since he doesn’t enable comments, it’s a way to have a conversation.

I only track back for posts I consider “replies” in some ways to his, and I try to be doubly mindful of my headers and the first sentence, to give the trackback the most possible click appeal.

I also gained a link from him by writing about his new book while he was promoting it. If you can come up with a good post (I took quite a lot of time with mine, and it’s actually a post I often use as a writing sample), it can work. :)

Sonia, Caroline — Thanks! Thought of one ore dumb question on trackbacks — can you trackback to a blog that does not have a trackback URL? How do I trackback or link to a blog or website in that case — some what happens if I use the main Blog URL as a trackback address? can you use a permalink as a trackback? I guess putting a link in the post

Wow – I have to say I find this a bit creepy. There is a man in this comment thread that wants to outsource his commenting. I always thought the point of comments was to say hi or add your opinion.

If the point becomes to garner traffic then you could create some kind of traffic pyramid scheme, when you’re all rushing round each others sites spending hours boosting each others traffic with strategic comments until you all realise the utter pointlessness and have nevous breakdowns.

I have actually seen outsourced comments. And I do find them disturbing. Someone I know even sent a reply back to the “author” about the relevance of the comment and the sales pitch it included. The author said he had some new people working for him on SEO leaving comments but that he would make a point of “familiarizing himself” with this particular blog…he didn’t even seem to think it was odd to admit he wasn’t leaving the comments himself or that they were being left on blogs he didn’t even bother to read!

I was wondering if the creepy comment was pointed at me? Hope not I read all the blogs I comment on and –my concern as that maybe commenting to often might seem weird — I value the virtual relationships I have developed — they are of course with real people and they are as alive, engaging and valuable as many I have in real life — now that’s not creepy

Caroline, excellent advice! I have always known about the advantages in leaving comments but rarely follow through. I read several hundred posts a day but never take the time to jump into the conversation. Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I am definitely subscribing to your blog. :)

@Mjohnson, gosh yes outsourcing comments would indeed be very weird. The whole point of commenting is to, well, comment on what you just read! Really, it’s not a huge traffic generator, it’s something that is good for fairly small blogs and once you get to the stage where you can afford to outsource your work then commenting is probably no longer worth the effort as a marketing tool.

@caroline
@Mjohnson

The outsourced comments I’ve seen included an embedded link back to the site in the comment – so they were really trying to include a link and an ad. The outsourcers handwrote the comments under the supposed author’s name to get it past the spam censors. The first time the blogger contacted the “author” and he said he’d have his team be more careful. The second time she posted the comment to a forum and asked for advice. I said to delete it or at least delete the embedded linkback but several people were okay keeping it and thought it wasn’t a big deal.

I’m joining this conversation late, but it looks like it’s still going strong. Caroline, I’m impressed and inspired. Your churn out tons of in-depth, helpful content continually!

Last month blogging left my “really need to get to this list” and became a top priority. This month I’ve been making sure to comment on other blogs every single day. It’s time-consuming, but I think the plan you laid out here will help. I like the idea of identifying and sorting blogs in my feed reader by their value to me, as well as recycling the list frequently to keep things fresh.

Thanks for the tips.

I created a hit list on my Blog Bridge RSS reader. And I will add back my nofollow icon I had removed because I thought no one noticed.

I posted your steps at heartofwisdom.com/Blogginghelp.

John Chow isn’t a US based blogger, he’s a Canadian based blogger. He blogs from the city that I and many other bloggers live in, Vancouver, BC.

Other than that, very interesting detailed post.

What percentage of your blog marketing time is spent on commenting on other blogs vs other blog marketing methods?

@Pete, oh yes I always forget JC is Canadian! I used to spend easily 2 hours a day reading / commenting on blogs but I couldn’t maintain that pace. Nowadays I would say that I spend perhaps an average of an hour a day but tend to do it in batches.

Interesting post, you are sure one very determined woman! I do think it sound not clinical but a bit cynical. So if you come by my blog and comment I know it’s just because you want to get hits back? I comment one time at all new blogs I find so that the blogger will know that I exist, that I was there and maybe find their way to my blog and hopefully subscribe. That’s my strategy. I will consider the top rank-plug in too though! And read on in your blog, I promise!

Thank you for your post. It gives me more idea on blog commenting. Keep up the good work!

jeandiaz’s last blog post..The End??????

Here I am, at the bottom of the heap, but not sad since I now know you’ll read this comment, Caroline. The Stamford, CT-based human services nonprofit where I work is trying to step up our efforts to become better known (we’re starting a blog next month, too)–our staff does great work with very vulnerable kids, and we want to raise more money to help the hundreds of kids we can’t reach. I’m trying to comment on Web sites and blogs with articles and posts that have been helpful. Your insights have helped me rethink and retool my approach to maximize my time and efforts. Thanks very much!

Garland / http://www.domuskids.org

I found your site thanks to Maki over at Dosh Dosh and have to say that so far I’m finding it really useful. I need to get more regular with my commenting strategy as it’s a bit sporadic at the minute – it was really helpful to read how you go about it

Morning,

I think it’s all about time management as well. As a mom of 4, parent to 15 parakeets, wife, entrepreneur, etc.,….finding the time to add useful thought-provoking comments is at times more challenging than discovering who *really* left those crayon marks on the walls.

In the past, I’ve downloaded World Time (a alert manager app) that would bleep me every hour or so with reminders for daily tasks. I think I’ll revisit that shortly; it helped me discipline what non-existent time I had.

Enjoy,

Barbara

Barbara Ling’s last blog post..Hidden treasures – easily monetize your niche blog via eBay

Great informative post, since i started blogging a few weeks ago this is the kind of information I’ve been looking for to help a struggling blogger get on his way up the food chain..

Now i just have to implement my own commenting strategy.

Read it when it first came out but needed a refresher today – Caroline – did you switch from Do follow to no follow? Can you explain why? Maybe it’s just late and I’m confused :)

@Cyndee, nope, I’ve always been no-follow. I already have around 100 comments a day (mostly spam) to moderate, I really don’t need any more.

Hi Caroline,

There are several plugins you can use to help decrease comment spam – I myself use:

http://www.bad-behavior.ioerror.us/
http://blog.taragana.com/index.php/archive/word-press-1-5-plugin-referer-bouncer/
http://recaptcha.net/plugins/wordpress/
http://ben.subparcitizens.net/recapture/ (login spam)
http://sw-guide.de/wordpress/plugins/simple-trackback-validation/

Hope you find these useful!!

Best wishes,

Barbara

Barbara Ling’s last blog post..12 ways to utterly crush spambots on your blog

Caroline. I am amazed that this thread continues – way to keep it going (I am subscribed to the thread). Your lasr comment said that you have to moderate nearly 100 comments per day, mostly spam. I strongly recommend Spam Karma 2. I used to have the same problem, and now I don’t. I know it sounds like a commercial, but I am nothing but good to say about this plugin (and have no connections with them). Here is a link to get it:
http://unknowngenius.com/blog/wordpress/spam-karma/

Cheers!

Anthony a.k.a. Old School’s last blog post..The Stumble Upon Commandments

this is very helpful… i’ve always just commented on topics i’m interested in kind of had a strategy in my head but never really organized my thoughts. this pulls everything together nicely.

@Barbera & Anthony, perhaps ‘moderate’ was the wrong word to use! I have the Akismet plugin so when I say I moderate my spam I mean I spend 5 seconds flicking through it to check for misreported spam comments before hitting “delete all” :)

I’m posting this because even though there is a length conversation already, I’ve noticed that you still comment consistantly on the feedback.

I rarely subscribe to a blog, but this particular post really caught my attention. (I tend to find them through my neighbourhoods on BlogCatalog, my favourites, or by responding to people who visit my site)

It’s something I’m going to try – reflecting on my comment strategy. Just a quick question about your Jan 22, 2008 comment. I’d like to tone my blogsphere commenting to an hour a day – how many blogs and comments do you find you get through in that period?

Thanks for sharing your philosophy

WebDiggin’s last blog post..Get $100-$250 to do a Sponsored Post

@WebDiggin, I went through a period where I was really behind but I am caught up now. To be honest I find that as long as I read them consistently daily and dont get behind I can cover a lot of blogs in an hour – around 20. I too don’t want to spend more than about an hour.

Ah. It took a little while to find this post again. (Apparently I can’t read and missed it in your popular posts. I couldn’t easily find your search field in your sidebar… that reminds me. I should probably put mine back.)

Have you ever thought about publishing the blogs on your short list with the TC and DF enabled of blogs that you follow? I’m thinking about starting to be more systematic in my approach to the time I spend socializing in the blogosphere and that kind of list would help a lot. (Having said that, I’ll probably just start one of my own as well.)

A list like that might attract attention of blogs that don’t make the A-list even though they have the right plugins. I suppose that might get annoying. But, it also might attract other A-list players that would be good to have.

WebDiggin’s last blog post..Tired of Getting Rejected by PayPerPost

@WebDiggin, people always ask me who is on my list but I would never publish it because it is always changing. There are a few blogs that I always read like ProBlogger and Yaro Starak but most of my readers know that anyway.

Hi Caroline,

Well your strategy for commenting is really great. I have a similar strategy. However, as I’m also doing executive coaching over quite a few strange hours of the day it can be problematic keeping up with who you’re commenting against!

Still your post has given me the prod I needed to make sure I get it done.

Thanks

Jim

Jim’s last blog post..Selling For Dummies – By Tom Hopkins & Ben Kench

Hello, Caroline, I’m a brazilian blogger and I’m new in all this blogging stuff.. I want to thank you for all your teaching and patience on writing this article. I want to do as you teached and I pretend to learn more things in your site! Kisses!

Reili Sampaio’s last blog post..Go, Speed Racer!!!

You break down the subject of blog commenting so well…and he was I thinking that it was just an opportunity to get something off my chest :)

Crap! I didn’t learn my lesson from this post because I’m commenting even though I’m way late on the list! Mama said I’d never amount to anything.

This was a good post and it gave me some ideas. I’m not sure I’ve really found the other blogs in the world that are talking about the issues I write about yet.

That said, here’s a question I have for you and other meta-bloggers: at what point did you start getting lots of comments on your own site? That is, how many daily visitors were you getting when you started to think you had a good number of people leaving comments. I have very few. I seem to have lost my “Top Commentor” (that’s probably because we broke up). A few other people do on occassion. I know most of these people personally… yet… I have over 100 subscribers out there in the anonymous ether, and growing.

I just sort of wonder: at what point does community kind of kick in? I bet there sort of is a threshold number that if top bloggers looked back they would tend to agree about it.

It’s really more a matter of curiosity. Not sure I’ll get there, but I’m curious.

@BradyDale, that’s a good question. If you have a look at my archives page and expand all months you’ll see the number of comments in brackets. I was fortunate enough that comments started to come in right from the start but if you look at November you’ll see that my own comments really picked up after I posted this very post! Was it this post or my own commenting activity on other blogs? Both I reckon…

Ok, I’m a wee late here :-) I decided to check this out, since i have recently gotten pretty heavily into commenting myself (ironic as it is that you have since stopped lol)

I do basically the same things…I keep a notepad file of blogs using DF, TC, CL & STC or RSS STC.

CL = commentluv, STC = subscribe-to-comments…this is very very important to me for 2 reasons.

It allows me to reply to my replies, and more importantly, I will NEVER remember to go back and check, this makes me feel like a one-off comment spammer and I hate that.

I’m actually thinking about unsubscribing to ALL of them (a boatload of emails) and just using my file in the morning and/or at night.

Dennis Edells last blog post..You CANNOT Link Away From An eBay Auction! Or Can You?…..All Legal Too

@Dennis, yeah if I was still doing it I would certainly have added CL for CommentLuv into the mix. This is a great strategy in the beginning but after a while the RoI is not so good and your time is better spent on other activities.

I guess you could say I’m in the beginning so it’s doing OK. I’m rising (albeit slowly) in subscribers, commenter’s, and overall visitors/readership and so forth. Not to mention at least 1 JV so far for something I needed help with desperately…a direct result of getting noticed for commenting.

Besides, the first thing I like to do each day is check email. However, most days it takes at least an hour to download the email lol…so there’s time not spent twiddling thumbs as they say :-)

Dennis Edells last blog post..You CANNOT Link Away From An eBay Auction! Or Can You?…..All Legal Too

Hi Caroline

Perhaps see – ‘COMMENT KAHUNA’ for an excellent blog commenting tool and strategy ….. this truly is a time-saver for blog commenting – and you can create value comments too, not just auto-generated ones. Certainly great for ‘name-branding’ too .. see below …
—-

The original point of this comment was (and is), to point you to an excellent piece of software to help with blog commenting and branding yourself/getting ‘out there’ strategies – but I ended up writing a lot first!

… so I have kept my rather convoluted comment here because I spent so much time writing, and am a tad ill, but really wanted to say ‘hi’ and perhaps attract your attention too! :) – so I hope you don’t mind (you can of course moderate this!)

—–
- for those of you who want to skip my ‘rambles’ – just scroll down, to find the URL for the software and demo video -
—-
Anyway … the ‘rambles’…

Well, I discovered your blog yesterday – and it is now my ‘MODEL BLOG’ – Subscribed in all possible ways :-)

I have spent virtually all day reading your posts, learning, and yes, reading ALL the comments – so don’t worry commentors, if you’re not up there at the top!

I am learning much from your blog (and from the comments – thank you all). Your style of writing and transparency, honesty is refreshing to say the least – the real ‘you’. I feel put to shame about my own blog in its current state. But this will improve, as I aim to become a full-time blogger soon, as well as instigating revenue-generating projects – once I get wordpress on my own domain up and running – hope this is not too hard – eek!

I actually started my blog (and blog commenting strategy), as an ‘experiment’ in 2006, not really knowing what a blog actually was.

I did this, after falling into a relapse from serious illness, and having to go on leave from work (I have now lost my day job as a result of my health)

- my condition is incurable and potentially terminal (I’m still young[ish] at 38), and I am fighting to both stay alive and work towards new and exciting goals!! Keeping strong and positive! :)

So, the online world is my new world – my oyster, especially when finding sites like yours as inspiration! :-)

But as a result of illness, my postings and commenting were very infrequent on my own ’selfhelp’ blog! (and many were quite personal) – due to frequent hospital bouts and surgery (perhaps I was writing for ‘myself’ at the time, as I didn’t have any readers, and didn’t know much about the blogosphere at the time). So, I fell into the trap of some of the ‘most hated’ type of blog posts’ – eg apologising for not posting! eek!

I digress….
So, again, finding sites like yours is such an inspiration for me – thank you Caroline (or is it Carolyn?!)

I have so many new goals – too many in fact. And there are so many fantastic blogs out there, that I want to put them all in my readers (I do actually – Google at the moment and my webdashboards – netvibes/iGoogle) and also set them as my home page. I just have your’s now – as home page – great huh!

And I want to comment on all these great blogs and podcasts (I absolutely LOVE podcasts – so can you bring some more please Caroline??)

– but time… our greatest and most limited commodity! Having spent nearly 2 years house-bound alone – well, one also tends to lose one’s self-discipline, even for the smallest of things in life. So I am trying to get my life back and struggle back to writing (I know I can do it, because I have done it before) – and you are a model in this too :-)

For some reason, your blog stood out amongst the very best. I should know to some degree, I hope(!)- I am a writer, a PhD, previous research officer consultant lecturer and tutorer/grader of theses, ghost-writer, and student coach, yadayada (from ‘aussie down under’) … so I know that I have the skills. I know that I can regain the discipline and treat this as my full-time job from home – blogging and commenting/interacting, and other projects.

And I know when I see quality, such as yours Caroline :)

I know that my own blog is, well, certainly not up to my own standards – yet, that is!. And it certainly doesn’t compare to yours. Although, its not a ‘comparison’ ‘game’ really.

Its about providing value to particular audiences, and these audiences differ in what they want to both read, and comment on. Even if I can help just one person, this gives me great joy – but to be honest, the more the merrier! :-)

So – my blog was an ‘accident’… but its starting to improve, and as I note in my blog, I have big plans ahead, with more organised, structured and frequent postings (another ‘fluff-type post you hate! oops! hee hee)….

This is alongside the development of a more systematic blog commenting approach (btw – I agree with the person who wished there was a ‘floating’ comment plugin – as I save/write this comment in notepad, so as not to lose it!)

Anyway – yes, there is huge value in commenting on blogs – to interact, meet people, join discussions, and get links back to your site – but you do have to be upfront – at the top of the list to be noticed if this the main intention.

I did make several posts on a highly controversial topic recently (high-traffic blog: zenhabits.net) – and thought, quite naively, that my comments might have provoked a response of some sorts.

I even wrote an article on my own blog, about the owner’s blog post and the resulting controversy/comments – but no-one read my comments on his blog – I was too far down the list I guess. It also seemed that not everyone was interested in interacting – just to get their own ‘bit’ in, or link in there. So there were several duplicate-type posts.

But after all that effort – no-one, not one person responsed to my comments/responses to other people’s comments (perhaps a forum would be better suited for this?!!)

I found this surprising because I also get so much value from reading the comments on blog posts (but then again, time is an issue).

Anyway – not that this was my intention originally – to get backlinks – because I wanted to get a point across, particularly for the blog owner, and other readers in direct response to their comments – but not even a response from the owner … hmmm – did I waste my time?

No – I don’t think so – at least I got one comment on my own blog about the post!! hee hee “:-)

Thus – I am gradually starting to take my own blog more seriously, as I learn more each day from reading other blogs and comments – a gradual process. More organization and planning – perhaps even an ‘editorial calendar’. I think my site will also be taken more seriously when its on my own domain and off of blogger

– and yes, I am telling my readers about these plans (yes, I have a few now – wow!) – although, again, this is another ‘no, no’ in your books (ie. telling people your plans about your blog, or reasons why you won’t be blogging for awhile – oops again!). But I also agree with someone else’s post on this – I don’t want to lose the readers I do have, so I want to keep them informed.

Anyway – this comment is all over the place – my apologies. I guess its because I have read so many of your articles today (and related comments), that my brain is reeling, and I cannot possibly comment on every page – so a big ‘blurb’ here!

—-
BACK TO THE POINT OF YOUR POST – In terms of blog commenting – I do realise the value of this, as noted, and have relevant folders on my computer entitled -

- ‘marketing’/'comment marketing’/'blog networking’/'blogs’ – and I keep a notepad file, with all my comments saved in them, with the blog post title, URL and my comment, date, etc (soon to be put in a proper records management file/approach), as my ‘work from home’ strategies and project goals evolve.

(btw – I really like your ‘projects’ section – this is surprisingly similiar to the approach I was going to take, although not exact) – again, thank you for the valuable info there too.

Anyway, at the moment, I tend to comment when a blog post inspires me too – not just to get links. However, if I do want to get more traffic, to be honest, I need to make more comments

SO – TO THE MAIN POINT I WAS ORIGINALLY GOING TO MAKE !!!

Has anyone heard of the relatively new blog commenting software –

- ‘COMMENT KAHUNA’?

- its great and not a ’spamming software’ – developed by a well respected marketer, Jason Potash (white-hat) – its mainly for commenting on blogs, but also includes a few web2.0 type sites, such as squidoo and others. There is a video demo by the owner on the landing page (its free btw – see below …).

There are other pieces of software out there, which enable you to comment automatically on multiple blogs, but these tend to be ’spam-like’ comments – eg. you make one comment for all the blogs – there is no real value provided.

However, with Comment Kahuna, you can easily -

- search for high or low ranking (do follow/no follow) blogs in the field/niche you want, using keywords you specify
- select your blogs on different types of platforms (eg wordpress, blogger, typepad, a few web2.0 type sites and more)
- create your profile so its automatically entered into the correct fields (eg name, email, website) (a time-saver)
- write your comment in the software within your niche area (which can be modified when you arrive at your selected blogs to add more value/relevancy)
- the software takes you directly to your selected blogs for you to actually read to see if the blog/post is relevant to you
- and you can write and submit a more personal comment – none of the – automatically generated ‘great post – some see my blog too’, types you see in other softwares!)

I think it even saves the comments for you, and date/time written, etc – so less time taken.

I have yet to fully try it, to give you a proper review, but it definitely stands out, compared to the other ’spamming’ type software.

While the demo. video also notes you can outsource this commenting process using the software because it is so easy to use – I, like others who have commented here, don’t like this idea – commenting is really a personal and interactive thing. So, do ignore that part. It doesn’t reflect the value of this software and strategy.

If anyone is interested in blog commenting as both a traffic strategy, and a way of interacting in the blogosphere, the software is still free I think, as of 23 April 08 in ‘aussie down under’ here. (as noted, the software has been upgraded since the video, which demonstrates vsn 1.9 – its now at vsn 2.2):

The URL for Comment Kahuna is

> http://www.commentkahuna.com/

(you need to subscribe of course!) :-)

- if you just want to watch the video first though, the URL for this is:

> http://www.commentkahuna.com/CK/CK-video.html

I highly recommend that you have a look if you want to save time and also provide value in your blog commenting strategy.

(if you signup, you will receive the software, a video tutorial, and will be given an unlock code to use on one machine only).

Of course its up to you as to how systematic you want to be about blog commenting, but it will certainly be a time-saver (and not a spammer either).

If you do like the software, perhaps you might even want to do a blog review on it – but not all of you! isn’t that one of the ‘no-no’ type of posts – too many reviews of same product?

Perhaps Caroline can give a review if she looks at/likes the software – for us all? (or I will on my blog later)….

I will end now – phew, Caroline thinks! I do apologise for writing so much/digressing – but I have so much to say that I could explode! But I won’t do this to you again. I will ‘even’ out my readings of your site and comments from now – I just felt a need to ‘catch-up’ for some reason – a society of ‘instant gratification’! There I go again… !

Great post as usual. I look forward to more (and some more podcasts??). And I look forward to my own blog[s] improvements

- during down times, when I wonder if I should even bother, given the millions of blogs out there, especially blogs like yours, I have been inspired to keep going because of just a few good comments about my site, or knowing that I can learn more from you. Of course, not everyone will like my blogs, some will – and I find that if I am ill/not up to writing a full post, I will do a short ’stop and smell the roses’ moment’ and focus on my free ‘goodes basket’ policy!
:)

- everyone’s perspective is different of course!

Warm Regards
Meg
Adelaide, South Australia

@Dennis, it takes an hour to download your email! Wow!

@Megan, you certainly got my attention :-) I’m so sorry to hear about your struggles illness – that certainly helps put my own troubles into perspective.

I often find when writing in general, whether its a post here or a comment somewhere else that something that I think will generate a response doesn’t, and something which I just throw up without a second thought generates a massive uproar! You can never tell what is going to get the responses! To this end it’s a bit of a numbers name – just keep on plugging and don’t get too attatched to the effect on any one particular post or comment.

There’s nothing wrong with telling readers about your plans – that is in fact a bit of a trademark with me on this blog. I always break down what I am doing step by step and always talk about what’s coming up (well, I do keep a few ideas back but not many!). Don’t worry about ‘fluff’ posts – the point is to focus on the ratio. As long as you are putting out plenty of solid content then the odd fluff post is fine. It’s been its all fluff that you lose your readers.

Now to comment kahuna – I’ve heard of it many times but I have never got around to testing it out! I think I will one day and do some kind of write up about it here on the blog but as I developed my own strategy for commenting I guess I just never felt the need for software. I could see it being particularly useful if you don’t know where to comment and of course I had more blogs in my reader than I could possibly comment on so that wasn’t a problem for me.

Anyway Megan, thanks for your comment. I’m really pleased I could have inspired you – that’s a great feeling and when you get people leaving these kinds of comments on your blog then you’ll feel it too and that’s when you know its worthwhile! It must be difficult to find the motivation to keep going when you have an illness to battle as well but it sounds like you have a lot to offer to keep plugging away! And yes, you can never please everybody – if I have managed to pick up one or two “haters” along the way!

Hi again Caroline

Yes, I had to return to see if there was a response ;)
And to my great surprise – there you were, with a long reply to my comment! So, at the end of a long, hum ha, painful day – I can now rest-easy, go to bed and not be afraid of not waking tomorrow – as I write this now, with a smile on my face and just say – THANK YOU! Truly, thank you for taking the time.

And yes, I agree about people’s responses to what we say -often unexpected – you never can tell! And I won’t take it personally – everyone looks at life from differing perspectives as you know. And I have seen some quite awful, almost hateful comments on some blogs. Perhaps there is a greater risk in getting the ‘haters’ if one is particularly open and honest as you are – no ‘holding back the punches’ and telling it how you see it.

Not everyone will agree – what a boring world that would be! However, I would say that most people are impressed with you and your approach from what I have read Caroline. Most definitely! You are going to go a long way – and be a ‘name up in lights’! :-)

And thank you for your kind words re: health etc. I don’t want to go into a ‘hard-luck’ story (everyone has one to some degree). But I do want to say that, yes, while it can be painful, difficult, its also a blessing in disguise in some ways. I see the world in new and different ways. Sure, there are the bad days. Some days I have some relief – wow what treasures. The point – never ever take anything for granted in this life. My life is not really that bad compared to many.

You took a great risk, with great courage to give up your day job and enter the online world. Me – I was forced into it (fortunately, I also have a passion for it!). Two of my key principles in life: “Everything is relative’ – and ‘everything needs to be put in its context’.

So – a bit off the topic again – but to anyone who may read this – please, please, please, look after yourself, your health and your family. Take care of what is most important in your life. Because one day, you might lose it. Prevention is much better than cure I asssure you (if there is one!) Never take anything for granted.

Enjoy your online journies and blogging – its a wonderful and exciting new world we live in – where we can all (most of us) have a voice. Use this well, including in your blog commenting strategies.

Caroline has provided a great place for us to do this – as have many of you whom have commented here. LIVE AND ENJOY! And I will continue writing my new ‘blog commenting and other marketing strategies’ in a more systematic manner now – much less ‘ad-hoc’! And some more substantial posts, incuding my future plans :-)

Thank you again for your reply and the further advice Caroline. You truly do care about the interaction and your community – and I will look forward to the day I receive such comments, as you note. Sending you a big smile :-)

Warm Regards
Megan
PS agree re: Comment Kahuna too – look forward to a review if you do one – but I think essentially, in addition to finding blogs if just starting out – it could be a great time-saver, by doing everything from within one software window perhaps?

Megan McCarthys last blog post..Free Law of Attraction Audios

@Caroline – Mostly SPAM along with blog subscriptions, forum responses and the odd newsletter I’m still subbed too..including yours now ;)

With the new commenting AND forum marketing strategies I’m devising, it will end up mostly SPAM :-)

@Megan – Now THAT was impressive, feel free to comment on my Blog ANYTIME! LOL

There are a few such software’s out now. Comment Kahuna was one of the first, if not THE first and still the best in my eyes :-)

Dennis Edells last blog post..You CANNOT Link Away From An eBay Auction! Or Can You?…..All Legal Too

I like your strategy, and no, it doesn’t sound too clinical. Thanks for the tips!

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@Dennis – thanks – I think! Not sure if you are laughing ‘at’ me or ‘with’ me! :-) But I will be sure to have a look at your site too now – hmm, think I attracted some ‘attention’ and so did you! hee hee. Great to hear about Comment Kahuna too :-)

Megan McCarthys last blog post..Free Law of Attraction Audios

LOL Definitely ‘with’ you, I love the enthusiasm. :-)

Hi Caroline,

I’ll confess to not having seen this post when I made my post about blog commenting recently, Amanda @ VagabondettaVA directed me over here.

You make some fantastic points about your strategy, I’m not sure I have such a defined strategy – more just a blind determination not to fill other peoples blogs with spam (as I hate the one’s I do receive) and to provide quality content.

You’re right about the fact of being unlikely to be the first commenter on a US blog (unless the blogger has posted first thing in the morning), but I hadn’t considered the Australian angle, definitely one worth thinking about in future!

Keiron @ Full-Time-Bloggers last blog post..Commenting for the Future

Caroline, I’m very impressed with how you strategised your blog commenting activities. I like your approach because the activities you describe are about prioritising / targeting your efforts instead of spamming blogs with trash comments.

Congrats on a very well established blog!

Isn’t this blog a “no-follow” blog as well?

Very interesting strategy. The do follow movement has seemed to taper off quite a bit. I think new blogs will be very tempted to go do follow for a while at least, to draw in readers.

Jacqulyns last blog post..The true cost of construction on the strip

Making sure your comments are relevant is probably the most important aspect to this. If people perceive your comments to be spam, they won’t follow the link back to your site.

Commenting is a very good way of getting traffic. I find it fun to discover new blogs also.

Mikes last blog post..Bank CD rates are low

Wow, well, I found this site through searching for another term to see if one of my posts was indexed and I landed here lol!

But I know this post is old but too bad I didn’t get a chance to read this when you first posted it. I actually started doing something like this to organize which blogs to comment on… I think my system is similar to yours but I added a few things that can help me visit them once a day or once a week…

Jay

Jays last blog post..DoFollow Social Bookmarking Sites that Will Help You!

WOW, and I thought I had a strategy. I definitely like how you order and number your blogs in the reader. As it stands now, I only have a “daily read”, “great blogs” and “new blogs” category.

However, after reading this, it makes much more sense to categorize them by TC, DF, and traffic they bring.

I absolutely love it! I must say, I have heard quite a bit about this blog….but, this post has made me very interested. You shall be seeing me around a bit!

JK Swopess last blog post..Garry Conn is Whoring out his blog again!

I see you are using CommentLuv – you should implement KeywordLuv as well – it’s great!

@Peter, I actually quite dislike it when people use keywords in the name field. If the comment doesn’t add much to the conversation I delete them.

Caroline –

I’m just scratching the surface of this, and it’s fantastic looking stuff. I particularly like the idea of juggling the top spots in the feed reader based on traffic.

Will be digging into this further this week.

Hi Caroline, thank you for a very good article. I got the reference from Webproworld.com forum. Since I just started looking into blog commenting seriously. I had posted there a question about dofollow blog commenting. I usually would read blogs for learning new ideas and sharing them on social bookmarking sites. I am willing to investigate especially how to narrow it down, since it is very time consuming. And also TC plugin?

I haven’t yet went through all the comments here, seemed there are several real good ones.

Thanks again

I also noticed your relpy on a comment:

“I actually quite dislike it when people use keywords in the name field. If the comment doesn’t add much to the conversation I delete them”

I thought it is also another way of using blog commenting, but actually, not encouraged. Well, since I cannot edit the comment, I decide to just make another one. :)

I am in the learning process, but this comments are juts to thank you for showing the path.

@Kristina, actually you can get away with this if you’re careful. In your first comment you used my name and your comment made it obvious that you’d read the post so I couldn’t delete it :-) As long as people leave meaningful comments then they’ll stay – at least on my blog. However, if somebody uses their keyword in their name they do have to work harder for the comment to stay. If it doesn’t add to the conversation then its gone!

Carolyn:

I was wondering if you also try to get reciprocal link exchanges with blogs you comment on. Is it worth the time?

Regards
George
Quant Investor

George Spritzers last blog post..Ospraie Closing- Will they return prior years incentive fees?

Caroline, this post really demonstrates you have a well thought out strategy for link building. It’s obvious you’ve done a great job at building relationships and branding yourself.

I noticed you using the CommentLuv plugin and I think that’s a great way to encourage user participation (which you have tons of already!)

Mike Collinss last blog post..Free Report – Info Product Basics

@George, no I don’t like link exchanges.

Hi Caroline, you have certainly made commenting into a science. Great work – big enough to fill an ebook – may be you can called it “The Art of Commenting”. :)

Stephen Lees last blog post..Could your Blog Benefit from a Redesign ?

I could tell you my strategy, but then I’d have to blow up my blog. well not really. I’m late for this party, but I comment on blogs related to my last post, my regular blogs and people who leave comments on my blog using the commentluv. more times than not if you leave a comment for me, i will go back and leave one for you.

This was a great list, I’ll have to book mark it and refer back to it. Thanks.

Naturals last blog post..Butt-to-Gutt Ratio Gone Wild

I’ve been thinking a lot about my own commenting strategy the last few days, so good time to stumble on this one (not literally though – got here via Google). I’ve been thinking along similar lines as you, although I haven’t started segmenting my hit list yet – but I think I will now. Good tip to “tag” them in your reader, rather than having to keep visiting each site to remember its characteristics.

Thank you.

Rods last blog post..Strategic commenting

Since “most bloggers will read all comments, no matter how far down in the list they are, and no matter how old the post”, I thought I would chip in and be the 189th commenter of this very popular, very commented and very awesome post.

Andre Thomass last blog post..Is Fancy Graphics Hurting Your Sales?

This is great reading well done.

Great Post! Click here on 3 more strategies

What I’d really like to know is, is that pop-up really making money for you? I mean, really…

Caroline, thanks for the tips. I’ve actually incorporated some of them into how I outsource my blog commenting.

Just added you to my Hitlist, thanks for a great and informative blog.

Richs last blog post..Headlines

Hola Caroline ~

Thanks very much for this wonderful topic. I found you through Ittybiz & am loving your resources.

I think the beautiful thing about commenting too is that it fosters more of a sense of community & tribe-hood. People love being SEEN for who they are and their work, ya know?

Wishing you a gorgeous shining day,
Leonie
http://www.GoddessLeonie.com

Seems like lots of people comment on THIS blog! Oh the irony. It’s more than funny….. Where is the future of blogging? Seriously. Can this comment thing go on like this for blogging to survive?

Hi Caroline
Nice title and some interesting ideas. I only recently discovered that leaving a comment created a backlink. I think some bloggers forget there are lots of newbies out there and they maybe do not understand the netiquette of commenting.
I think idea of top commentator a good idea.

Perfect strategy and it obviously works.

I think someone else said it earlier in the comments, but not only do comments get you noticed by other commenters, but often times the host will notice too. That is how you can start guest posting and doing other JV’s.

Nathan Hangens last blog post..Wine Library TV

I’ve found blog commenting to be very useful. It usually is marketing to the blog owner, instead of average visitors. He/She in turn tends to be a fairly loud voice on a topic, and you’ll get more visits that way.

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Your strategy for commenting a blog sounds great! I will follow it very carefully especially when my blog gets more attention in the near future. Thanks!

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thats quite an informative write-up and it looks pretty obvious for webmasters to derive new methods and techniques that could help in the up-bring of their websites. blog commenting is becoming very popular and many have started implementing it.. on one side where comments adds up to the back link count.. they also help in building new contacts with other webmasters..share knowledge and extend business capabilities.

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Hi, I got here from ProBlogger and found your post very informative. I don’t really have anything to add, but didn’t want to leave without leaving a comment :)

I’ve printed this post so I can refer to it later and follow some of your advice. Thanks!

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thanks for the very informative information. I use blog commenting a lot to gain backlinks and traffic.

Jeez Caroline…Remember what you said about DoshDosh? That’s how I feel about this post. There is so much valuable info the only thing I can do besides be overwhelmed is complement it. I have all of the same goals you have with commenting but a lot of the tools you provide are useful and they sure as heck beat rummaging through backlinks manually for dofollow blogs! Thanks for the post!

Wow.
What a well presented plan! I certainly appreciate the time that went into this post.
As for your questions: No, I am not normally a commenter-only if I am truly drawn to the post will I leave something to say. However, after reading your ideas, I believe I will be changing my way of doing things! I will be taking more time to comment, to write something well put and meaningful, and to make my name known!

Thank you for your wonderful post!

Hi Caroline ~ I arrived at your post via the 31 Days challenge and have now spent a good part of the afternoon reading your superb piece about commenting and the amazing number of comments it generated (in fact how do people know the number of comments? are they actually counting? or maybe it’s the browser – I don’t see a count).

I’m a blogger newbie but have been commenting here and there on other blogs – and looking forward to the day that my own blog begins to generate comments. I really appreciate your advice and am taken with the thought you put into the process.

Now I’m off to read your new stuff!

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We’ve only recently started to use many of these methods, but have already seen great returns on the time invested.

More importantly we are now talking with some blog writers about sponsorship, offering competition prizes and other tie ups with them. This would not have happened if I hadn’t commented in the first place.

That is an overwhelming amount of information about blog commenting-much like the poster above- very DoshDosh esq.

Is there any type of software available that incorporates the blog commenting function with the searching too?

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Excellent post. Blog commenting is very important not just for getting direct traffic, it helps in fostering good relationships with others. I’ve personally found that to help in more ways than one.

You are absolutely the best Caroline! I have never come across any post about blog commenting strategies. Yours is very detailed and organized. How can anyone go wrong with this?

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Hi Caroline,

This covers everything! I used lots of my energy into the search of well-working blog comment strategy information, and- then I found this one.

Thanks so much and take care,

Juhani Tontti

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Sweet blog. I never know what I am going to come across next. I think you should do more posting as you have some pretty intelligent stuff to say.

I’ll be watching you . :)

“Willy-Nilly” would have to describe my current blog commenting strategy. :-)

However, I thoroughly enjoy posting comments – especially when I find valuable and fresh content like yours, Caroline! Thanks for an all-inclusive overview that really commands a second read.

I’ve often joked about this in the past …

Too bad “blog commenting” isn’t a career. That’s a job I’d be thrilled to have!
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There are many blogs which feature their top commentators in the sidebar. This is one of the easiest ways to get a brand new blog started.

:)

Carolyn,

This is quite possibly the single most useful post on the internet.

Thanks.
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