It's Time to Change the Way We Think About Blog Comments

It’s time to debunk this common misconception about blog comments. Gone are the days of thinking about blog comments as links or a link building method. Anyone who has had their ear to the wind in the SEO world knows that Google has a pretty tight grip on what types of links actually help your rankings. Blog comments are indeed one of the most annoying vehicles of internet spam that exists but we need to stop thinking about them that way. Instead of fighting the battle of moderating blog comment spam, join the party but make your comments deliver the highest value possible.

How I Discovered the Real Value of Blog Commenting

At the start of this year I was reading the book Quiet by Susan Cain and thinking about playing toward the strengths of my introverted self in my business. I realized where I got my start working with computers was within online communities, forums, chats. I used to love forums, first for my passion of computers then later cars once I got my drivers license. I’m just one of those people who is way better at letting it flow behind the shelter of the internet. It turns out when you have these conversations online that opportunity usually follows as well. Usually if someone has value to offer the other person these chats turn into relationships. Through being active online I have been able to acquire much more than I ever thought when leaving any single comment.

What Blog Commenting Can Really Do For You

Blog commenting does not boost your search engine rankings to the top. What blog commenting can really do for you is help you position yourself as an authority while generating awareness of your personal brand. Another huge benefit of blog commenting is that often times you’ll have a nice bi-product of very targeted traffic. Focus is key because remember that nobody attacks the nonthreatening generalist. Conversations and Discussions can often lead to healthy debates so play nice.

Best Practices for Placing Links in Blog Comments

Only place links in a blog comment when the linked material adds value and is highly contextual to the conversation. You always want to curate the link as it directly relates to the discussion going on in the comments already or the blog article. Do this and you will find that people are visiting your site from this comment activity. Do not place a bunch of naked links on related articles in the comment section. You must bring your article link into context by curating it within the context of the discussion. Call out and respond to a certain part of the blog and then tee up your post how it relates and adds value.

Traffic from Blog Commenting

Good news is that if you are doing the commenting correctly, respectfully with authority, you’ll gain new eyeballs on your content. These visitors should be aligned with your target marketing persona’s if your comments and content are focused enough to get at their triggers. Otherwise much of your blog comment traffic will be from other experts or authorities in your industry. But there is nothing wrong with that because likely their audience is your audience so we are enabling shared exposure. Reports from some of my colleagues confirm that simply being active in the discussion sections of blog articles over time has contributed to more traffic to their site than blogging and guest blogging combined. That’s a little subjective to a few things but still a powerful thought.

Authority Positioning and Personal Branding

This is the real benefit of blog commenting that I’ve been wanting to get at this whole post.

Remember: These days people are looking online for your product or service long before they are ready to make a buying decision. Seeking information and answers to the common questions that surround your product or service. You have a huge opportunity to be the one personally answering those questions and providing that information. Have you ever read the comments on a blog when researching a product or service? I’m sure you have and you probably took the opinions of the commenters with more authority than the author of the blog perhaps? Blog commenting gives you an opportunity to reach your target marketing persona and provide them value by giving your expert perspective on a piece of content. Powerful.

Suddenly you start showing up on every blog article offering up your expert perspective and maybe some free resources. This will earn you that authority positioning that can help your business grow if done right. There is some fine lines to making blog commenting work as a tactic in a larger marketing strategy but I hope you are starting to get the idea. As far as personal branding goes all you must do is think and grow rich.

What has your experience been with using blog commenting as an authority building tactic? What about for generating targeted traffic? What do your blog commenting habits look like?