Ask popular bloggers for 10 ways to build traffic to a new blog and I’ll guarantee that almost all of them will mention the importance of commenting on other blogs as part of their answer.
Much has been written about commenting as a strategy to build traffic (because used correctly it is a powerful tool) – but very little has been written on the dangers of it. Over the past few months I’ve noticed some bloggers using comments in increasingly aggressive ways to build their own readership – to the point where I think they are probably doing more harm to their own brand than they are doing good.
I should say that this topic has been one I’ve been a little hesitant to write about – partly because I see some of these tactics used here at ProBlogger. This is not a post written with any particular person (or people) in mind – however I put it out there for your consideration and feedback.
Two notes before I start:
- I’m not going to include using automated comment spamming techniques – I’m assuming that people will have the brains to work out why this can hurt your brand
- Some of these techniques will annoy some but not others. Some of them I personally don’t like but some are observations about what I’ve seen annoy others. A lot of this is about the perception that you give off to others. Whether you see them as annoying or not is important – but more important to your brand is what others think of the techniques.
1. Excessive use of Signatures – I ran a poll back in 2005 about whether ProBlogger readers thought that I should allow the practice of leaving a signature in comments (ie a link to your blog at the comment itself in addition to the link that you get as your name). The result at that time was that 56% of readers said the practice should be allowed. As a result I decided to allow them here at ProBlogger. However at the time I also suggested that I didn’t like them as did a significant number of other readers. I still don’t like the practice personally and particularly get turned off when people leave 2-3 (or more) links under their comment (note, I’m not talking about relevant links inside your comment that add to the conversation). While this might not turn off everyone – it’s worth noting that it does get some angry – and even if this is the minority it can hurt your brand.
2. Excessive Self Linking – The practice of leaving links inside posts is not something that bothers me too much – unless it gets excessive. A well placed link back to something you’ve written (or that someone else has written) previously can really add to a conversation – particularly if what you’ve written else where is too long or detailed for the comment thread itself. What does risk annoying others is when you include lots of links to yourself in every comment you make and/or when the links are irrelevant to the topic and/or when you just leave a link without saying anything else. Keep links relevant and in moderation and you’ll find people respond to them well.
3. One or Two word Comments – Some comment leavers seem to be have a ‘quantity over quality’ mentality where they think that the more comments they leave on as many posts as possible the better they’ll be (whether for SEO or direct click visitors). Newsflash – it’s not. One insightful, intriguing and intelligent comment that is relevant and helpful to readers can achieve far more than many two word comments that ultimately mean nothing. All you’ll achieve by leaving loads of useless comments is to annoy bloggers, get yourself listed on comment spam blacklists and to potentially hurt your blog’s reputation as a spammer.
4. Not Reading Posts Before Commenting – I’m sure most of us have been guilty of this from time to time. You see a post title that you want to react to, you read the first line or two and feel strongly moved to comment. You leave the comment without reading the full post and then realize that you’ve made an idiot of yourself by saying something stupid, wrong or poorly thought through. While you might be able to repair the mistake by leaving another comment – it’s hard to get a comment removed on blogs – your words remain for years to come to highlight your opinion. Take a moment before leaving comments to make sure you understand what’s being written about – this means reading the full post first – it can also mean reading what others have written too.
5. Flaming and Personal Attack – While blogging has always been a medium where people don’t mind a little vigorous debate – it’s also got a history of flaring up into personal attack and flaming from time to time. It’s easy to do – you read something that you strongly disagree with and write a comment in the heat of the moment. Your comment is misinterpreted and read by another emotional person who responds – things escalate and suddenly things get personal. No one really wins in these exchanges – in fact more often than not both people come out of it with slightly tattered egos and reputations. Get a reputation for repeated flaming and you can really hurt your credibility.
6.’Anonymous’ Flaming – From time to time I get ‘anonymous’ comments left on this blog which get a little personal or which critique me or my actions. While I try to take these in good spirit (critique is actually an opportunity to improve) I sometimes wish that the person leaving the comment would reveal who they are – not so that I could attack back but so that we could have a good constructive interaction via email. What I do find interesting however is that many ‘anonymous’ comment leaves don’t seem to realize that when they leave a comment their IP address is also included with the comment in the back end of the blog. If you’ve written a non anonymous comment previously under your real name it is very simple to connect the two together. So your attack, jibe or personal swipe might not be so anonymous after all – and this can only hurt your reputation.
7. Always Being First To Comment – This is one of those tricky ones that doesn’t really annoy me personally and which can actually be a good tactic on some levels – but which can get a little excessive and become annoying for some. I’ve done heatmap tracking on comment sections of posts before and it is true that the earlier that you comment on a post the more chance that people will come to visit your blog. As a result – I’ve seen numerous people compete on popular blogs to be the first to leave a comment. While this can generate some traffic – the problem is that if you do it on every post and if in your rush to be first you write junky, quick and irrelevant comments you will begin to annoy both the bloggers who you are commenting on the posts of as well as their readers. Balance is the key if you want to be first – and quality comments count for a lot.
8. Dominating Comment Threads – A couple of years ago I had a blog which had a particular reader who commented multiple times on every post that I wrote. I’m not sure why they did this but while the comments were on topic, relevant and quite often helpful – they were also overwhelming in their quantity. In any given week this person would comment on my blog 50 to 100 times by responding to everything I wrote and most of the comments that other readers wrote. It got to a point where they were more active on my blog than I was and that other readers began to complain that they felt they were being drowned out. I ended up talking to the comment leaver about it and they scaled things down to a more reasonable level. Lots of comments are great – but when comment threads are dominated by any one person the feeling of community and dialogue can be lost and the person dominating the conversation can be seen in a negative light.
9. Keyword Stuffed Names – This is another one that people will have differing opinions on – but it is annoying for some and therefore could be considered as slightly risky. The reason that people leave comments under names that are not their own name but which are other ‘keywords’ are numerous. For some it is an SEO strategy (although it is worth noting that the majority of blogs these days use no-follow tags which stop Google Juice being passed on), for others it’s about communication what your blog is about, for others its about anonymity and for others it’s probably more of a branding decision. I get all of this and as a result it doesn’t worry me that much – however I do know some bloggers and blog readers who can’t stand it and who consider it to look spammy. While I don’t hold such strong views I would say that by not using your real name you could actually be hurting your own personal brand because there’s something about a real person’s name that is… well…. it’s personal. I would much rather chat to someone who has a name like James, Sara or Rahul than someone called ‘Million Dollar Get Rich Quick’ or ‘Free Debt Advice’.
10. Not adding value to the Comments – This is related to other points in this list but is worth saying. Every comment that you leave has the potential to either add value or take value from that other person’s blog. Add value to the conversations that are happening in the wider blogging community and you’ll build yourself a reputation as a wise, insightful and knowledgeable authority figure. Conversely – every comment that you leave that is obviously self serving, that illustrates that you’ve not read the post or that tears down others says something about who you are also and can give you a different kind of reputation.
OK – so there’s 10 ways that you can potentially hurt your brand by the way that you leave comments on others blogs. As I mentioned above – some of these are more black and white in my mind than others (some, like ‘being first’ or commenting a lot can start out as good but tip over into being bad if you get excessive – however all are worth considering.
You may decide to continue to do all or some of the above for good reason – but do so knowing that there is cost and potential for being misunderstood or perceived as doing something that perhaps you’re not intending to do.
Remember – everything you do or say in a public forum like another person’s blog comments have the ability to positively or negatively impact you and your blog’s brand. Not only that – the things you say and do in these spaces are permanent (at least until a person retires and deletes their blog). As a result commenting on blogs should not only be seen as an opportunity – but also as a practice that can be risky if you do it in the wrong way.
Have Your Say
Now it’s time for you to have your say. By no means am I an expert on any of this – so I’m keen to get your input:
- What practices would you add to the above list?
- Which would you remove from it (or modify)?
- What advice would you give bloggers when it comes to commenting on others blogs?
- As a blogger – do you police any of these types of things? Do you have a comment policy of any kind?
LOL, I think we are all afraid of commenting first and commenting at all :-)
Another one I would add to the list (I read the whole list first to make sure it wasn’t already there!) is to proof read your comments before you hit “submit” to make sure you aren’t leaving spelling mistakes!
I have to agree with the proofreading before hitting submit. I don’t know how many times I’ve hit submit and went “Doh!” as I realized I used has instead of have or left out an “a” or “of”. I comment on other blogs to drive traffic to my blog, but I don’t leave a comment unless I have something to say that will help with the conversation regarding the post. I don’t comment just for the sake of leaving a comment.
What do you think of this practice I’ve started to see around the net? I think it’s better than using a signature.
-J
Hi Darren, it’s a useful list – I like the way you take normal advice and turn it on its head to consider how it can backfire, esp if you take it to extremes.
On self-links, I don’t think it’s a good idea. People can find your blog from the comment box and if your stuff is good (and well signposted) they’ll find it on their own. If I was going to leave a link it would be to someone else’s material.
I had to smile at the ‘don’t always be first’ point. There’s a couple of times when you’ve posted something at the moment I was reading, wanted to comment, thought people might think I was being too keen, prevaricated – but then told myself not to be silly… If the comment is of value, if it’s written with a positive intention don’t hold back just because you might be first :-)
Joanna
This is a new perspective I had not considered. For the most part I agree with the exception of number eight. That seems more a question of spam than “dominating” the comments. Yes, I understand the comments were helpful, etc but even then it seems spammy.
I enjoyed reading your article. I just found you on the Big Blog Directory.
I have been trying to increase traffic to my blog, because I beleive the topics are important. I comment sometimes but not a lot. I just didn’t consider it. I have read about many interesting things and many blog topics are important, so I guess I shouldn’t be as quiet about them as I have been.
Thanks for the tips.
Some of us “newer” bloggers are just happy to get any comments :) About your statement of reading posts before yours….. Sometimes I take a long time to write out what I want to say, so, unfortunately others are writing and submitting comments while I’m writing mine, so I have no idea what those comments are saying… I hope that made sense.
11. Tone down the adulation.
Comments that are excessively flattering make me have negative associations with the commenter and, as a result, the commenter’s blog.
I have tried blogging in the past and always felt as if I were writing to no one. I want to thank you for your tips. Even though I frequently read blogs I find through a comment thread, I don’t comment. It just never occurred to me that this might be a way to increase readership on my own blog. Thanks a million.
As uncomfortable as I sometimes feel about sticking a signature in a comment, the fact of the matter is it can work really well, depending on the site. You are definitely right about overdoing it though. If I have a relevant link in the comment I won’t push it by putting my sig in as well.
I am utterly sick of the SEO keyword names – I don’t mind those that include their name with some relevant text, but like you say, how do you refer to someone calling them selves ‘Make money online!!!’?
Politely anyway….
I don’t completely agree with your point 3 about leaving one or two word comments.
Although clearly that isn’t helpful in taking a discussion further forward, sometimes it’s nice to leave a quick word of appreciation.
I blog about spirituality and community (she says, carefully not leaving a link to self!), and my blogging friends don’t get anything like the volume of comments that appear here.
If someone has taken the time to write something really insightful, or maybe something that doesn’t really need taking forward in a discussion, it can be nice to leave a “beautifully written, thanks” or similar. Just a bit of appreciation.
I’ve also recently started using the share facility on Google Reader on my blog to point people towards posts by others that I may have enjoyed but not specifically commented on.
I think it all adds to appreciating what others have written even if you don’t have that much to say about it.
I have worked some of these points into my commenting policy: really short comments which do not provide value to other readers will be rejected. And of course I would be a tremendous hypocrite if I didn’t lead by example.
I think of commenting on other blogs as though I were writing a mini guest post. Everything I say represents my brand. The tone, the value of the comment’s content, and the grammar/spelling need to be the same as though I were writing on my own blog.
Each comment you leave on someone else’s blog is like a calling card back to you. Ask yourself what do you think that calling card is going to really say about you?
This is a good post, as well as a good way to give a friendly nuggie to commentors.
Like all conversation, commenting on blogs is a matter of style. And everyone will have their own style. Politeness and intelligence will be accepted an embraced, and obnoxiousness will be avoided.
my comment policy, if you’re going to comment: add value or don’t bother
I can imagine that most of the readers of ProBlogger come here to learn how to make money from blogging and this article is a great value added to that knowledge.
However there are some readers that are coming here to learn the principles of the blogging which will help them to create better blog for finding friends and creating community.
For that small (I believe) part of the ProBlogger readers I’d like to give my advise:
If you want your blog to bring you friends (not visitors) you should stick to yourself.
Drop the rules, drop the overloaded politeness and stay far away from the duplicity.
You want your blog to be visited from people to whom you would talk like you talk to your best friend. Your friends are your friends because they know you the way you really are and they love you for that.
If you are honest, open and with sense of humor you’ll have your friends visiting your blog.
Following the rules might bring you more visitors, but that could turn in to trouble for you, putting you in a situation to suck a conversation out of your fingers and to politely agree with truths that don’t really apply to you.
I founded Bulgarian web site which is now close to 14 thousand registered users with more than 6 thousand visitors per day, and people come there not because I’m polite, not because I don’t disagree with them or because I make them feel special. They come because I am Truden.
They come because they heard that Truden has good friends and because we (in that web site) value the person but not to the extend to be good with the sucker as we are good with the decent person.
To say “be yourself” is stupid, because you are yourself.
Just don’t apply to many rules to yourself if you are seeking for friends.
Thanks for the opportunity to say all that, Darren :-)
I am not annoyed by signatures, and feel that if my commentors are giving good insights, they can use them when they want. There are SO many blogs out there that can barely get a few comments… most of us can’t afford to be so picky on how our commentors are commenting. However, I do agree that excessive “spam” signatures are bad, and should be banned.
The anonymous flamers aren’t so bright, and generally they make me laugh.
doh, I feel a little guilty…
I certainly do not comment just for the sake of commenting, but I do practice number 9 a lot “keyword stuffing”. Mainly for branding sake, I don’t want my name associated with my blog. The idea is to make new visitors to feel that they are part of the bigger picture(which they are/will be) and not feel that they are just reading personal opinions.
I like to comment first and often, I like to be the top commentator. I make every effort to stay on topic and relevant. Sometimes I just follow the conversations that are happening and chime in ( with a word or two) although sometimes those convos may be off topic to what the author wrote.
I leave a blog as soon as I see flaming starting and move onto the next one.
Daren, you say “by no means are you an expert on any of this.” But isn’t your expertise the whole reason for this blog? Your Authortiy ranking sure says you are. I’m confused.
:) Just checking the notify me box, sorry
RE #9 Keyword stuffed names… my testing shows that “WordPress Installer” as a name will definitely get more clicks than “Jon Symons” as the former may target curiosity or a need in the reader a lot more than a run of the mill name, which has little meaning or value to a reader.
That said I will use it reluctantly since it does seem spammy, a tough call.
Another “trick” which is related… now that you have subscribe to comments available you will notice that the URL of the commenter doesn’t get passed with the email which is mailed to those who are subscribed to the thread.
But if you put your domain name or something like “Jon – NinjaBlogSetup.com” as your name, then most email applications will turn NinjaBlogSetup.com into a clickable link, which could bring in significant traffic on a popular post on a site like ProBlogger.
Did I get enough links in there? :)
Personally, I don’t use my real name because I have several different blogs and would rather brand the blog name than my own name.
Signatures annoy me, especially if the blog already allows you to link your name to your blog. It’s just not needed and I see it as spam. It’s not a deal breaker and I might still visit your site, but it definitely is another obstacle for you to overcome.
What drives me even more crazy than people constantly leaving short “great post!” comments is bloggers that approve or allow those types of comments. That’s one of the things that drives me crazy about JohnChow’s site. He doesn’t care that most of the comments are what I would call spam. He just likes to see the numbers…
My personal preference is to not visit a commenter’s blog if they include the title of their blog or URL in the “name” field. I usually mouseover a name link and if I like the name of the blog, I’ll visit it. If it’s a marketing blog, I won’t visit. Anything that seems like the person is just really pushing it, rather than allowing their comment to stand for them and letting the reader decide whether or not to click on their name link, I won’t respond favorably to.
I enjoy reading your articles and as a new blogger, I’m learning from both my mistakes and reading insightful articles from other bloggers like yourself.
I don’t think a lot of newer bloggers are aware of the no follow tag. They believe every comment they leave that contains a link back to their blog will result in a backlink. Once they learn about this, I think they will put more effort into what they write. I know I did.
#9 is what bothers me the most….it’s very impersonal to leave comments under your blog name/keywords, and like you said, responding back to “Free Debt Advice” just feels weird. I consider it to be quite spammy.
I’ve noticed that you don’t get a lot of that on your blog, that most people use their name.
Well it would be good to get some clarification on what is meant by a signature. Do you mean signature as in a name/web site designation at the bottom of the comment with a link back to the commentator’s website? Or do you mean any notation following the link? I personally always sign off as my real name because it’s different from the name of my blog site……
-Raymond
I find the two word comments annoying. But also, it gets up my nose a bit when people write comments that are actually longer than my original post (and my posts are long) – full of links to read this and read that.
But the one thing I really hate is the spammers who put links to porn sites, drug sites etc, because I believe they would be offensive to my readers.
I was getting a lot of this on the Kwik Fix Blog Darren, then this morning something really weird happened.
I only had one comment, in an old post, it was by Google, and all it said was Google. I clicked the link and it even linked to Google.
I’ve not had one bit of comment spam since, but I don’t understand what Google did to stop it. That’s why I came over to your blog to see if you’d already blogged about it, and whether you know how Google are managing to do it.
Have you heard anything?
Great post, Darren. I had to share it with Brandcurve’s readers. I’m constantly amazed at comments left by “anonymous” visitors on blogs. If you have to hide behind the blanket of anonymity of the web to write a comment, then the content of that comment is probably inappropriate at any time. I think many people use the internet’s blog comments and user forums as a way to start flame wars for no reason. It’s unfortunate that they have nothing better to do.
I don’t worry about being the first to comment. I don’t mind being in the top 3, but I don’t go trying to be one of the first commentors.
My blog has been steadily growing in popularity, and I’m starting to be a little overwhelmed by comments. What’s the best way to stay up to date with all the new comments, and reply to them without taking up too much of my time? It’s kind of awkward looking at the “Recent Comments” box on the WP dashboard, opening the posts in new tabs, reading all the comments, and then replying to them. Is there an easier way?
I made sure I wasn’t the first. :) You have to be worried about a site like problogger that gets so many coments that the owner has to preapprove all new commenters. So if you change your name then you may not get your comments on at all and your time commenting was a waste.
Here’s another way to damage your ‘brand’: be focused in your life on one issue and one issue only – preferably some story about how you have been wronged or mistreated by an evil governmental or corporate entity. Write up a 300-500 word diatribe and submit it repeatedly to your local newspaper. After a year or so, when you can honestly state that the local paper won’t print your letter and doesn’t care about your issue, start making the rounds of blogs and post your diatribe in the comments section of at least one post on every blog you visit, regardless of whether the blog or the post has anything to do with your issue. Congrats, you have just established yourself as a nut-job.
On point #5: I agree totally that there are some bloggers who feel that their comments and point of views are the right views and everybody else’s are wrong.
They seem to forget that it is their opinion, that there is no “necessarily” a wrong or right answer! just an opinion.
Thanks for this post Darren
I can’t say I agree, I think commenting is a great thng..
I wonder what it would be like to try to dominate one of the huge comment lists you find here on ProBlogger. :o
I agree that it’s all perspective though. I know that my own name is probably pushing it for some, but personally, I like it. I got the idea from another blogger. You get my name, and the name of my site.
If the blog owner doesn’t like it, they can edit it out, and the next time I comment, I’ll do my best to remember to remove it. (Has only happened once so far).
In return, anything goes on my own blog. I won’t disallow any sort of comment name, provided it isn’t offensive.
“I sometimes wish that the person leaving the comment would reveal who they are – not so that I could attack back but so that we could have a good constructive interaction via email.” :D
That’s not a euphemism is it? :D “Quit ^#$^#$ commenting on my blog you #$@$@@!”
Joking.
I often advise people to leave comments on other like blogs to get more traffic. The practices you mention above go against everything to are trying to accomplish in commenting and building traffic. You should be commenting to build relationships and community within the blogging world…to meet new people…to gain new friends. This means leaving meaningful comments that reflect that you HAVE actually read their post and NOT linking to yourself in the body of the comment. If someone does the things you mentioned above on my blog they get flagged as spammers.
this issue is great.. thanks for problogger
Personally, I find number 9 especially grating in comments. Not only is it very obviously an SEO tactic (and makes you question whether they are posting a comment because they feel strongly about the content or whether they just want to get a link on the page) but it makes it very difficult for other commenters to reply to the comment. I personally fee awkward saying something like “I totally agree with you DVD Shop Dot Com, but…”. It kind of kills the mood!
Several of the commenters who regularly visit my site like to use keyword-stuffed names. On the one hand, I love that they bother to come back and comment at all. On the other, though, I really don’t like the spammy-looking “names” they leave behind.
Also, I’m really skeptical that keyword-laden names convince more people to click through from a comment to a site (if that is indeed the goal). A good *comment* will make me want to read more from a particular commenter, not a spammy name.
I just wanted to say thank you for your good tips! I myself just started a blog, on how to promote a singer, and am looking to gain more traffic through commenting on other similar blogs. I really learned a lot from this post and from now on I will be using smart(er) about posting on other blogs!
I think leaving comments is similar to forum discussions and most forums do have rules about signature lines so posting rules on the comment form may be a good step. I personally don’t mind seeing a single link back to the posters website, but feel it is really unnecessary since the name of the poster is linked already. Also, I have seen on other site where readers can mark the comment as spam if its too self-promoting and doesn’t add much to the post, so that may be an idea as well to implement. Does WP offer a plugin to do that? I would be interested in adding that feature to my blog instead of moderating the comments.
Lately I’ve been getting an avalanche of “Nice post” and fake trackbacks with “I didn’t really understand this, but it looks like good information.” Both of those seem to be slipping by Akismet and Spam Karma, though they do mostly end up in the moderation cue. Maybe eventually if I mark enough of them as spam the spam filters will start to catch them. (Million Doillar Homeboy – WordPress ships with a good antispam plugin, Akismet, that should deal with most but not all of your comment spam problems. You have to sign up for a WordPress.com free account to get a “key” for it to work.)
I am so tempted to type “great post” and sign it “FREEKIN AWESOME REMARKABLE COMMUNICATION BUY BUY BUY BUY BUY BUY NOW,” but not being first wrecked it.
:)
I leave a lot of comments on a lot of blogs – but I’m very careful how I go about it. I don’t want to ruin my reputation, especially now because I’m just starting out as a blogger. So I always invoke a few “self-imposed” rules for commenting, many that follow what Darren has said:
-I always read the post in question.
-I write my comments in a way that’s intelligent and makes a positive contribution to the discussion of the post.
-I read other comments.
-I click on other people’s links that attached to their names in the comment field. I’ve found many great blogs by doing this. It’s also how I get a lot of traffic, so I like to return the favor.
-I post links with care. I only post another link if it deals directly with the topic at hand. The last thing I want to be accused of is spamming!
-If I have nothing useful to say, I don’t comment.
Following these simple rules have paid off for me. I’ve gotten some good feedback for my comments, and someone even quoted one of my comments and provided a valuable link back to my blog!
Comment spam is an unfortunate part of this business. And it’s unfortunate that others have to abuse the system and weaken it for the rest of us.
Great post Darren! I’m glad you addressed this issue, as many don’t talk about it.
The practice which I hate, mentioning no names of blogs this happens on, is when a blog has threaded comments. A commenter replies to all the comments on the threaded comments, thus passively dominating the comment thread (especially if they have mybloglog avatars, so skim reading it sticks out)
I wanted to add to the topic of flaming. If you feel so strongly about topic, write a post about it. You don’t flame the comment area and at times gain exposure to your blog.
In regards to #7, I never looked at it that way but seeing that now it makes complete sense. I also agree with the comment flamming, if you just use a comment thread to argue then it will definetly turn people away from you.
I think that your analysis is spot on. In order to be successful as a blogger you need to remember that you want visitors to return to your blog time and time again so getting “false” visitors to your site through useless comments and excessive linking which is likely to turn people off and hurt your credibility
Don’t type angry! Easier said than done sometimes, though … so how about something a little more flexible:
Respond to the post, not to the person.
One thing that really drives me crazy is when people leave very vague compliments, followed by a off-subject advertisement for their product.
In fact, I’m quite happy to look at new products if the person reads a little about my blog, and then emails me to tell me about their product or service. I’m especially happy to take a look if they show that they’ve spent some time reading my blog.
But when a commentor just says ”interesting blog… come here for more information on our new innovation product…” I’m not interested in learning more, and unpublish their comment.