Photo by Red Mirror on Unsplash
If you’ve ever read a post, book or eBook, or listened to a webinar or conference session on the topic of ‘finding readers for your blog’ you’ll have heard the advice:
‘Leave comments on other blogs‘
It was the first piece of advice I remember reading about building readership and which I’ve heard (and given) hundreds of times since.
In fact this technique is a key element of Engaging and Networking – Day 11 of 31 Days to Build a Better Blog Course.
7 Benefits of Leaving Comments on Other People’s Blogs
1. Building your own profile – leaving a comment gets you seen. Leaving a good comment can make people pay attention.
2. Showcasing your expertise – sharing what you know or the experiences that you have can help build your credibility.
3. Getting to know other bloggers – leaving a comment can often be a great way to get on the radar of another blogger.
4. Driving traffic to your blog – as a result of your engagement, you will often get people checking out your blog.
5. Idea generation – often, when you engage in conversation in other blogs comments, you get ideas for your own blog posts.
6. Staying sharp – I find that reading and commenting on other blogs is a good daily discipline to help me keep abreast of what is happening in my industry and keep my brain engaged on the topics I write about. It’s also great writing practice!
7. Opportunities May Follow – just last week someone left a comment on my photography blog that I thought was so insightful that I asked them to write a guest post. In fact, now I think of it, one of our most successful eBook authors on dPS first made himself known to me through a great comment on the blog. You never know where a great comment might lead!
1 Problem with Leaving Comments on Other People’s Blogs
The problem with leaving comments on other blogs, as a technique to grow traffic, is that while it can have many benefits it can also end up hurting your blog’s brand and reputation – if you don’t do it the right way. More about that below.
This post will give you some advice on how to leave comments effectively and what to avoid.
4 Types of Commenters
Over the last 10 years I’ve seen a real spectrum of approaches to leaving comments on blogs. I suspect that most of us sit somewhere along this spectrum.
1. The spammers
We’ve all see them – they leave comments on your post that are completely irrelevant and stuffed full of keyword rich links in an attempt to rank for those words in Google. Many times these are auto-generated spam systems that simply get caught in your spam filters and never work anyway.
There’s no real debate around the legitimacy of these comments – they are spam and any blogger in their right mind mark them as such.
2. The spammy self promoter
A little further along the spectrum we see commenters who usually at least go to the effort of manually leaving their comments and who sometimes even go to the effort of keeping comments slightly on topic…. (sometimes).
However, their comments are pretty obviously only about trying to get a link to help their search rankings or to get a few clicks back to their site.
This group use a variety of tell tale strategies that show what they’re really on about.
For one, they usually don’t leave comments with a personal name but their name is something like ‘Best Dog Biscuits’ or ‘Hawaii Accommodation’.
They also rarely say anything that builds on the conversation but leave empty ‘great post’ comments. Alternatively, sometimes this group will do something controversial to try to get some attention (attacking the writer or other comments) in the hope of people wanting to check them out.
They also will often leave links in their comments that have no relevance to the post.
In short – this group are impersonal, irrelevant, add no value and self promotional.
Sometimes these comments get through spam filters but most bloggers will delete them if they are spotted. It’s doubtful that the comments have any real benefit to the commenter as most blogs have nofollow links in comments which kill any search ranking benefits and nobody in their right mind will click their links as they’re so obviously spammy.
3. The Commenter who Builds their Profile by Delivering Value
In my opinion this is the commenter who is doing it right.
They have obviously read the post and have something of value to contribute. Their comments may not always be long or in-depth but they add to the conversation with something that is thoughtful and relevant.
This group might share a story, give an example, put another point of view, answer a question or do something else that provides value to the blogger and their readership.
This commenter is all about delivering value but in doing so builds their profile and credibility. They are after a win/win exchange where the blogger/readers get value from their comment but they also might get some traffic and kudos from the exchange.
The best of these commenters in my experience tend to use a personal name (and where possible use a personal avatar). They tend to leave less comments than the above groups but the comments are more effective.
Note: on avatars, it can be worth registering for a Gravatar account as this is often used for avatars on many blogs.
4. The Value Provider Who Gets No Value Back
At the other end of the spectrum are a rare bunch of commenters who are all about delivering value but for one reason or another don’t promote themselves.
There’s nothing wrong with this – but I have come across a few bloggers of late who are either so shy or so scared of being seen as a spammer that they don’t ever leave a link back to their own blog.
I do partly understand the ‘shy’ thing but my advice to this group would be to know that if you deliver value that most bloggers wouldn’t mind you leaving a link back to your blog – or they wouldn’t have a field in their comments section for you to share a link.
One blogger who I came across lately said that he never leaves links because he heard it can get him in trouble with Google.
I do know that Google look for unnatural links (so those in the first two spammers categories above should watch out) but that they don’t have a problem with genuine comments. In fact, Matt Cutts (from Google) made this video on that topic.
How to Effectively Leave Comments on Other Blogs
Several years ago here on ProBlogger I suggested 11 tips for getting the comments that you leave on other blogs to stand out.
I think most of the tips I gave are still relevant today:
- Be the Early Bird – earlier commenters will have their comments seen more than later commenters. However, being first on every single post can be a bit annoying.
- Share an Example – built upon the blog post with an example that illustrates what the blogger is saying.
- Add a Point – if there’s a point the blogger has missed, politely suggest it.
- Disagree – you may not want to do this on every comment you leave but courteously disagreeing and then adding constructive reasons why can make a good impression.
- Write with conviction, passion and personality – these things stand out and show you care about your comment.
- Use Humour – this can grab attention of those scanning through comments.
- Ask a Question – I’ve long noticed that those who ask good questions often become the centre of conversations in comments.
- Formatting Comments – be careful with this. Some commenting systems allow you to bold or italicise comments. But don’t go over the top here as it could looks spammy. Comments systems like Disqus allow you to add images – this can also work to draw attention to your comment.
- Helpful Links – if you’re going to add a link make sure it is of high relevancy and value
- Comment Length – Are all the comments on a post long? Leave a short one – it’ll stand out. Are all the other comments short? Leave a long one – again, it’ll stand out.
- Lists/Break it down – think carefully about how your comment will look. Will it be just one big block of text? If so – consider breaking it into shorter paragraphs or even a list type format
One additional tip that I’ve used a number of times: when you leave a comment that you think adds a lot of value to a blog post – share a link to that post with your own social networks.
This shows the blogger that you’re not only willing to engage but promote their blog (which creates a great impression). It also has the side benefit of providing your followers with something useful to read (both the blog post and your comment) and shows them that you’re engaging beyond your blog which can only enhance your brand.
You can also take this a step further by blogging about the post you commented on. I’ve only done this on a few occasions and only when I think the blog post and the comment thread are of high value – but it can have a big impact.
Oh – and one more tip, regular commenting on the same blog can be worthwhile. A one great one off comment can have an impact – but this impact grows exponentially over time. Just don’t become an over contributor and dominate the blog (see below).
What to Avoid When Leaving Comments on Other Blogs
Also written several years ago is a post I wrote about how you can actually hurt your brand by commenting on other blogs. In it I listed 10 things to avoid (this did cause a little debate on a couple of them so there are different opinions):
- Excessive use of Signatures – this practice was more common several years ago but it involves leaving a link to your blog IN your comment in addition to in the link field that bloggers allow you to link to your blog in.
- Excessive Self Linking – only leave links that are relevant and not in every post you write.
- One or Two word Comments – it’s ok to show some appreciation and say ‘great post’ – but more useful to the blogger is for you to tell them WHY you think it’s a great post. Add some value.
- Not Reading Posts Before Commenting – this is pretty self explanatory. I would also advise reading through other comments already left!
- Flaming and Personal Attack – not good form. If you disagree, be constructive.
- ’Anonymous’ Flaming – if you have something to say, put your name to it.
- Always Being First To Comment – I’ve seen a few people do this over the years and they’ve ended up annoying the blogger and other commenters. It’s not good manners to always be the one to say something… conversation is also about giving others room to speak.
- Dominating Comment Threads – similar to #7, listen, allow others to contribute and let your comments bounce off them a little.
- Keyword Stuffed Names – I know this one causes some debate but my personal preference is to know the name of a person that I’m speaking to rather than refer to them as their Business Name.
- Not adding value to the Comments – Ultimately this one is what it is all about. If you’re adding value, you’ll get value back. If you add no value, you could be hurting your brand.
One last thing to avoid – don’t comment just for the sake of commenting.
While leaving comments does have many benefits I think that most people get into trouble with commenting when they are just going through the motions of leaving comments as a ‘strategy’ rather than leaving comments because they genuinely want to engage.
What Did I Miss? (your chance to practice)
I’d love to get your input on this topic.
What commenting practices have you used or seen others use that either are effective or annoying?
I’m looking forward to some good comments on this post!
For more on commenting, finding readers and other ways to kickstart your blogging, check out my course 31 Days to Build a Better Blog
This post was first published on November 20, 2013 and updated September 29, 2022
It looks like you might have scared everyone off from going first Darren, so I’ll throw my hat into the ring.
This is a wonderfully comprehensive post. Good show. Not just about how to approach commenting but there is lots of great info to help with comment moderation. When I started my own blog, I was devastated when someone told me all my comments were from spammers! And they are getting more devious too so they can be harder to pick.
I personally approach commenting on blogs much like I approach my content marketing – showcase my skills, be generous with my knowledge without asking for anything in return and engage. I think if that’s the mindset you have, you’ll get the returns.
I think that says it all!
Another great post, Darren!
I remember for the longest time when I wouldn’t leave comments. I didn’t want to come off as a spammer so I just read. However, I’d want people to comment on my stuff even if they have a link so I started leaving comments. These blog comments are a lot like the forums I run…you have to reply with something read-worthy to actually get a response from others. I focus on adding quality to all my comments just as I do on all my message forum replies.
Its come in handy, too! I’ve left ‘good enough’ comments in the past on some blogs and then soon after, the author mentioned my comments along with my blog’s link in an actual post. So I know I am doing something right here, ha ha.
Great post!
Great stuff Shawn. I too have actually taken great quality comments and then run them as the basis for posts on my blogs. You’re definitely on the right track by the sounds of things.
Indeed! I think its important to add value into every comment you make for two reasons… 1 to help the other guy out! 2 to help develop your online reputation. I’d rather not have the reputation of a ‘one liner’ spammer, ha ha.
Wow. When you said, “The Ultimate Guide to Leaving Comments on Blogs,” you really meant it. Not only was this post eye-opening for me, but it was a major motivator, and I think that’s the intention. Almost immediately after finishing this article, I updated my Gravatar image, commented on this post, and committed to commenting on my favorite blogs’ posts at least once a week (if not more).
Thank you for this!
thanks for the feedback Elliot – glad it inspired some action, that’s my favorite kind of comment!
Thanks, good read. I’ve been playing around with my commenting lately since I haven’t had the result I wanted lately, but it’s nice to read that I may be on the right track. However, I do read a lot of blogs (and sometimes comment on) blogs that aren’t in my niche, but I like.
Sometimes I don’t leave my blog name when I comment (typically on blogs like yours) because I’m not posting in my niche or demographic, and I’m afraid the traffic I do get will leave a very high bounce rate, etc.
Do you (or anyone else) have any thoughts on just posting your name or your name @ yourblogname on the name field?
I didn’t know if it’s better do so when I’m not in my niche to get more quality clicks or if it’s better to do if when I’m on a blog in my niche to stand out. I feel like I’ve seen it 50/50… and I didn’t know what’s a better approach. Thanks!
Kate – first, thanks for commenting.
To your question – it’s one that there are differing opinions on.
I personally prefer to see a persons name only – but I think ‘Name – blog Name’ is probably a good compromise and could be a way of being both personal and also piquing interest and getting a better targeted click through. Good idea. Maybe give it a go and see what the reaction is?
I think if you did it with a commitment to high quality comments then it wouldn’t be too badly reacted to.
I use my name when commenting because it’s more personal, by my gravatar has my “brand” profile picture that I use across all social media. That way I’m identified both ways and don’t worry about annoying people on either side of the issue. :)
Hi Darren, I must say it takes quite a lot of discipline to write good comments. It’s much easier to write “nice post.” But commenting is worth it. For me, it enables me to get noticed my the author and, like you say, it’s pretty good practice.
totally agree. It is tempting to go the ‘nice comment’ route at times and not put the effort in. However it does pay off to go deeper. Thanks for commenting.
As the Community Manager of a social network- I tend to be the first commenter. What do you recommend for scaling that back? I really would like to not be starting the convo. My comments are always meaningful- but I don’t want to be annoying. The problem is, we don’t have members that are really participating in comments.
I do have a small qualm with the “Early Bird” comment advice. I’ve noticed on many new sites that have comment applications like Disqus or Livefyre, the more recent comments are actually the ones on top. Not sure if the first commenter is going to have as much say on new blogs as say the person with the most upvotes.
(See? I disagreed with one of your pointers, so it’s a valid comment, right?)
Nice work James – bonus points for you!
Yes – with Disqus the Early Bird strategy doesn’t come into play as much when they are shown the other way around – although some sites also have it set up so that the most highly rated comments appear at the top which is yet another factor to consider.
Thank you for another invaluable guide sir, you’ve answered a bunch of questions that I’ve been wrangling with.
I’m blessed with some of the best readers and commenters I’ve ever seen online. They’re engaging, grateful, take action on what we discuss, and ask great questions that extend the conversation into depths and details I never considered when I sat down to write.
I try to be and do the same when commenting on other blogs.
Because of my name I’ve long considered adding my middle name to help with my personal brand. Along with changing my avatar to my photo instead of a graphic for my blog, I’ll be adding my middle name to my site and comments. So much great advice here to grow from.
Your tips on presenting yourself as a person instead of as your business, and not always being the first commenter, are pieces of advice I’ll be implementing immediately.
Do you feel that embedding so much of yourself into your blogging platform limits your long term ability to grow your business beyond your own two hands (giving you the opportunity to explore other passions), or is your personality and personal brand the catalyst that enables such success as a blogger in the first place? How do you maintain the latter while building a team and company that multiplies the reach of your words and guidance?
Thank you for all you do – you have a real impact on the lives of your readers.
Thanks for the feedback James – glad the post has been useful.
Good question on putting yourself into your business. There are certainly some pros and cons of doing so and I’ve actually taken a different approach on my two main blogs. Here at ProBlogger I’ve injected myself a lot more into my blogging – in fact in the early days I did it a lot more than I do today. It paid off because the blog became more of my story and had a personal voice.
The challenge has come as I’ve found myself with less time and other passions and opportunities that I want to explore – particularly as Digital Photography School has grown to become my major focus. I guess for me it’s about trying to transition the blog to include other voices (something I’ve had mixed success with).
Interestingly with Digital Photography School I’ve never really injected a heap of myself into that blog. While I was pretty much the only author for the first 12 months I wrote in a less personal way (or injected less of ME into the posts). This has meant that the transition to it being a multi-author blog has been very smooth and in fact this week we even announced that we had hired a new editor for the blog and there wasn’t a single complaint!
Not sure that that really answered your question – but I guess ultimately for me it has been about taking any transition slowly and finding good people who have a similar set of values and voice to you to work with.
Hope something in that helps. I’m completely pre-coffee so not sure it will :-)
That’s awesome sir, thank you for the thoughtful response.
Each blog can have its own voice, just like each blogger – on a site that educates on technique, a more technical voice seems apropos; whereas here on ProBlogger, which educates on personality and personal process, a more personal voice fits best. Your readers here may point less to an article and say “I want to learn that skill,” and more so point to the proven talent behind the article and say, “I want to learn from this guy!”
What you’ve built is phenomenal and an inspiration; thank you again!
Excellent and incredibly helpful post, Darren! Just what I needed to read. Thank you!
Darren:
This was a serendipitous post for me. I’ve been blogging and commenting on other people’s blogs long enough that I was recently invited to participate in a panel discussion on using social media in the nuclear energy business. That panel is occurring tomorrow afternoon.
I have been traveling so much recently that I had not yet had a chance to formally prepare for the event. Your post will help me organize my thoughts, because they align almost perfectly with my own experience in building a community at Atomic Insights and helping to establish a community that includes a number of other pro-nuclear energy bloggers.
Thank you for the excellent summary.
Rod Adams
Publisher, Atomic Insights
That’s quite the opportunity Rod – hope it goes well and glad to have been of use in helping you prepare.
As a blog owner I was first excited to see the first so-called comments on my blogs were, only to see that they were done by worthless spam bots. I even find it hard to believe that they can get some revenue this way, (the spammer ones, number one on your list of types of commenters) but apparently they must or they would have stopped. Even if you’re a parasitic spammer for a living I still think a lot of this spam bots look half assed.
I too have often wondered why they do it. I guess it must work to some extent for them… or… some might be being done by desperate people who’ve been sold on the idea but not really informed of how it won’t work for them.
I had an old blog where all comments were approved automatically (I guess I set it up that way by mistakes) so all of the spam bots comment were actually posted and gave the spammers the backlinks from my blog. This is probably the main reason why they blast every single blog on the planet – hoping that some blogs don’t moderate comments.
Recently I have noticed that spam bots are writing messages like:
“Wow, what a cool post! Do you mind if we share it on our blog or send it to our subscribers?” – it’s actually hard to tell if it’s spam or legit and requires more research about the comment author before approving or rejecting the comment.
I’ve got some previous experience in the SEO world, and in my experience the spammers leaving those comments fall into a couple of categories:
1) A remnant of people trying old SEO strategies that used to work (regardless of the potential negative impact on your brand when people see it) – but don’t really work anymore.
2) People who are doing heavy black-hat SEO with a combination of other tactics. Unfortunately, spammy links like this can actually still work in combination with the right strategies – but ironically most of the SEO’s that are still doing spammy blog comments fall into one of the two other categories where the comments won’t actually help their search engine rankings.
3) People who are using other tactics for their search engine rankings, but work in a competitive enough niche that they feel a need to cover up their ‘footprint.’ They throw out a bunch of junk links in the hopes that it will prevent competitors from being able to reverse engineer their ranking strategy.
(not a complete list, but those are some of the main categories)
Assuming nothing has changed in the past year or so, you can actually buy 10-20,000 of these links for like $5. For most people’s purposes they are utterly useless (in regards to both direct traffic and SEO), and $5 may not sound like much but, back when I was more involved in SEO, I was aware of people making hundreds a day selling those links. The size of the market for people wanting to buy these spammy links may add some clarity to why they come so frequently on even obscure blogs.
thanks for that John – makes a lot of sense seeing those motivations.
Thanks so much for this Darren – very comprehensive!
I have a ‘don’t comment unless I can add something of value to the conversation’ policy …. (Which I sometimes throw out the window simply because I want to show my support to someone or let them know I really enjoyed their post but have nothing to add.)
The problem with my policy is it means I hardly ever comment anymore due to lack of time, or the fact that it is really hard to write well thought out comments on a mobile device. Tis very frustrating but you have motivated me to make more time in my day to leave good comments on posts I enjoy and feel I can add to the conversation.
The point I most liked in your post above is that commenting makes you a better writer – because you have to frame your thought in a concise and easily digestible way. So true!
thanks Kelly. I think you’re onto something there with mobile devices. The other factor is I think people are having a lot of the interactions they used to have on social now. The world’s a changing!
Thanks for the immensely helpful advice. I’d say I fall into that final Commenter category, being a bit too timid for my own good. I don’t want to appear spammy or self-important and if I see a comment form that asks for the website, I usually think that’s a good enough shout out for my own stuff. I don’t think there’s anything else TO add to this advice, unless you have a way to make the spammers and bots self destruct, along with their spammy comments, within 5 seconds of hitting the Post Comment button. :)
Thanks for stepping out of that final category and linking your name – will check out your blog Deborah!
Thanks for a great post, Darren.
I often leave comments on videos, articles, blog posts because I like sharing and most of all I like the interaction and the social aspect of it. Normally I would spend a lot more time reading people’s comments and replies rather than reading the actual content… so Yeah, I love comments.
My biggest issue is actually getting comments on my own content. My threads in forum would usually get many replies however I haven’t been able to achieve the same results on my blogs :(
– Alex
Getting comments on your own blog is tough and takes time to build that culture of interactivity (and it also takes a certain level of traffic I guess).
Here’s a couple of suggested articles on that topic:
https://problogger.com/10-techniques-to-get-more-comments-on-your-blog/
https://problogger.com/13-types-of-posts-that-always-get-lots-of-comments/
What’s the difference between leaving a comment on a blog and eating an Oreo?
I’ve never eaten an Oreo but I would have thought that they’d be worse for the waistline!?
That too, but the main difference is that there IS a wrong way to leave a blog comment.
Had to leave a comment on a post about comments. Though I have nothing really to contribute! Lol. Great post as always Darren. Not sure where this puts me on the comment spectrum. I’m not spamming honestly!
you’re on the watch list now Glenn :-)
Whenever the intent of a comment is purely self-promotion or an attempt at driving traffic, I think it’s almost always obvious.
I usually only will comment when I decide I am moved to engage in the conversation. But there are times too when I genuinely want to tell the writer Hey,great post! and leave a bit of feedback. Maybe a bright side of all the spam-type of comments is it does force us to engage more than we might be first inclined to, in order to ensure our own comments aren’t going to be perceived as spammy!
Eric
thanks for sharing that :-)
Useful tips Darren,
One of my problems is the language barriers, I am from Indonesia Darren, my English is not too good, I am still in the learning phase.
Perhaps because of these constraints, I was impressed as spam comments. : (
I imagine that that would be a challenge Budi. Your comment is welcome here though and your English looks great!
Hi Darren! Thanks so much for sharing. What would you suggest our name be? As we usually comment as the two of us, should we comment separately or continue to use our ‘stage name’ – if that’s what you would call it! :) e & c
that’s a tough one because your sisterhood is your brand. At least your avatar is personal and your name/brand is a bit more personal than ‘Cheap Printer Cartridges’ :-)
You could comment separately I guess as at least people would know which one of you was commenting?
Great Post!
end of comment… lol.
But seriously, that was a nice collection of do’s and don’ts. I think it might easy to say that in a nutshell, just be genuine. But really, it helps to know some of the rules or the road to help guide your genuine self along. Nicely done.
I was expecting a lot of ‘great post’ comments on this one – thanks :-)
‘be genuine’ is great advice for all aspects of blogging I think!
Great post Darren. I really enjoy commenting on blogs, since I really enjoy receiving comments on my own blog. It really only takes a minute of your time and that little act can make a huge difference for someone, especially those folks just starting out.
It is one thing to be able to look at your stats and see your traffic and rankings are increasing, but it is a completely different experience when you get those first few comments from real live folks interested in your content and what you have to say.
very true Chris – receiving great comments is one of the most satisfying things in blogging!
Thank you for this article. I was wondering about how to make comments more valuable for linkbuilding and branding. Those advices of you, are gold worth. Unfortunately i didnt saw any blog in my life that uses gravatar. Or maybe i just dont know how you´ve meant this. i google this now.
Greeting from germany! :)
looks like you got set up with Gravatar because you’re icon is showing on this comment :-)
Hi Darren and yet another quality post.
Like a few of the guys above, I take the ‘Quality over Quantity’ approach and try to add some value to the post or article. If that’s not possible then I’ll either leave it or if it’s someone I know really well and the tone is right, i’ll leave something cheeky. I’ve found that a comment on something that someone has taken the time and effort to publish, certainly on a blog, is usually well received.
In this comment, i’ve added nothing! Apart from adding weight to an already well supported group and adding to you’re ever growing list of comments :)
thanks Simon. Cheeky can work well for sure!
Hi Darren,
3 things:
1. Great post (I mean it, but I had to say it!)
2. To all the people reading this who are also active bloggers, have you found any success with plugins that help encourage comments (like CommentLuv or Do Follow)?
3. I have gotten more than a few requests to remove what I thought were pretty thoughtful comments on some of my blogs; reason stated was that the requestor was attempting to remediate “bad link profiles”…my sites have good PageRank, good traffic, and I keep down the spam, so I don’t know what’s going on there…
Thoughts?
I’ve never used those plugins. I do use Disqus on dPS and its helped with spam a lot!
Yes – the requests to remove comments is a pain – we get a lot of those. Shows how many people were commenting as link building that are now regretting their actions!
Good stuff – as always!
My personal pet peeve is the commenters who leave things like “Hi! I found you over at BlahBlah.com. Love your blog. Please follow me back at my blog, Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest” with links to all of their social media homes.
One link is enough, people! If you’ve got all your profiles clearly linked with buttons, then I can find all those other places by just going to your blog. And if I like what I see, I’ll take the time to follow you without you asking me to.
spot on Tonya – hate those comments too!
Well I guess I’d be a bad blogger if I didn’t leave a comment on this blog about commenting on blogs huh?
[insert spammy link here] :P
:-)
Do I leave a comment, do I not??? Just kiddin’ Darren! Love this post. I actually read the other piece you did back then about how commenting can hurt your brand…that really helped…so thank you.
As a matter of fact, although I visit your site just about once a day, I do not comment all that much. However, I think that will change.
Also, with the thanksgiving holiday we celebrate here coming up soon, I just want to say thank you for everything and this includes those who post here. I bought your book a little over a year ago as well, and that has been a major force behind my own success online…so thank you and God Bless.
thanks for your thanks David – hope we do see some more comments from you too!
THANK YOU for posting that video about links in comments being considered bad links or not! I shared that video on every social media I have. I was scared off of posting links a few months ago when Google updating that policy and a bunch of “big” bloggers cried that the sky was falling! I edited comments on my blog so they wouldn’t appear as hyperlinks and quit leaving links on other sites. I’m so glad to have some of that freedom back!
An annoyance to me regarding comments is when a blogger will say something like “Great post- I’d love for you to link it up to —– link party found here (Link to party). You can tell when they haven’t even read the post and are just mining for links to their parties.
Hi Darren – Great Post – lol – I do think there is a time when it is valid to write a comment when you really can’t think of anything to add value to the post, and that is when you have a blogging friend who you would like to support i.e. help them out by building up their number of comments. Then I might say what I liked about their post.
Hi Darren. This article was incredibly thorough. I’ve seen a lot of commenters making certain grammatical errors and typos, which make their comments dull and difficult to read. How much of an impact do you tihnk grammar has on comment engagement?
Great article Darren that highlights the benefits of commenting and how not to do it. I must admit I don’t comment a lot as I don’t think of it as what is in it for me (even though I know it is very beneficial). I prefer to think of it as adding value to a conversation. Funny how I pondered long and hard before typing my comment here. :)
Darren,
At what point does leaving a comment cross the line from friendly conversation to a marketing strategy?
I enjoy leaving comments but the thought of doing it as part of the “business” takes some of the enjoyment out of the process.
Do I need a new perspective?
Hi Darren,
The most powerful and click worthy bloggers to me are the ones who don’t seem to be over reaching this principle commenting for commenting sake for link backs. I love when people comment on my blog with an insight I didn’t have, or a link that is relevant to the discussion.
Please, please sweet Lord of Mercy, bloggers get rid of those ‘branded’ in-personal comments. putting your brand name in the title puts me off, rather than switches me onto what you have to say. ;-)
Whatever you do, add to the conversation!
This post was quite an eye opener for me! I am a blogger who has never taken blogging seriously. I used to blog maybe just once a month and sometimes will never write anything at all for a couple of months!
It was just recently that I realised that I could generate a second source of income from blogging and have started writing a bit more frequently. And I was just waiting for people to comment on my articles but I myself never used to comment on other blogs!
Thanks again, Darren!
Hi Darren, I’d probably add a fifth category of “revenuers”: People providing genuine value in the comments by answering other commenters’ questions, but they’re clearly trying to capitalize on a larger blogger’s traffic and visibility to generate traffic to their own (usually service-based) site. While they’re definitely putting in real effort, I think there can be a fine line between standing out as a community leader and just plain being annoying.
Definitely the best article I’ve seen on the subject of blog commenting Darren. For better or worse I learned the hard way to monitor all comments to ensure that nothing gets posted that would be unsuitable or offensive to my readers. It really isn’t that time consuming and it also gives me the opportunity to reply to each comment, and since I use CommentLuv which displays a bloggers recent posts, I often check out links to other articles and comment on their blogs. It makes me feel like I’m taking that extra step to build a relationship with fellow bloggers. I will confess there is one hot button for me when it comes to comments. The person who leaves a comment that sounds at first blush like they are offering their own “expert” opinion on the subject but is in fact the exact point I’ve made in the article just slightly reworded. One of these days I’ll figure out a really good comeback that I can actually post as a reply that doesn’t include x-rated language.
Leaving meaningful comments rocks!
PS. That’s me practicing ‘short comments’ strategy…
How did I go?
PS.PS. I’ve also implemented the humor tip. Or, maybe not.
So… How did I go?
The main thing is don’t overthink it. Don’t dash something out quickly, but basically just respond to the post, be honest, and hit that submit button. Let the author know you got something out of it (which I did from this post – thanks Darren!).
nice post daren, recently matt cutts has released video in which he said that he himself use to leave comments on other blogs but he mentioned few points to be concerned before doing so like relevancy of the blog, avoid using keyword rich anchor text, etc.
anyhow great work and i really appreciate this post, hope spammers read this post and learn right technique to leave a comment.
What is your experience with Facebook comments as opposed to default commenting systems(WP, Blogger etc.)?
Look, I’m implementing one of your suggestions already! (Compromising on the name – I’m never sure whether to use Bronnie or Maid In Australia, and vary it depending on whether I think the person knows me as Bronnie). I always try to comment if I think I can add anything to the post or comment conversation. I like people to know I’ve been there and appreciate what they’ve had to say. I do find it frustrating that as a frequent commenter, people rarely repay the favour. What many seem to do is comment on my comment on their blog. Which I don’t think does any favours for me really, and which I mostly miss, because I don’t go back to blogs to see if they have commented on my comment. Am I wrong?
Excellent and very needed post! I just thought I’d reiterate that using Gravatar is a must have for comments. Branding a specific profile picture with your helpful comments will help people become familiar with your mug and breed trust.
Darren: This is my first time reading you and I’m delighted to have found you. There’s nothing better than material that’s both informative and easy to follow. Apparently your advice was effective because I am not much of a commenter, and this made me think about what I might say that would go beyond: “great post! so helpful!”
I did want to add a particular circumstance in which I think it’s respectful and effective to leave a comment, and that’s when you are mentioned on another blog. I’m an author, and whenever I see that a blogger has mentioned one of my books I immediately jump down to comments to thank them. I truly appreciate their taking the time and effort to mention my books, and I want them to know that their kindness did not go unnoticed.
Thanks much — I’ll be back for more!
I never thought it would be so hard to go from “lurker” to commenter, but I still sometimes feel too shy (even with online anonymity!) to go ahead and join the discussion. Once I found a way to just jump in more often, I’ve found that it truly is a great way to get involved and build your profile up. Thanks for this post. There are more layers to the commenting onion than I realized!
Great Research Darren Rowse,Blog Commenting is easy way to get more traffic,Good work,Keep it up.thanks.
Thank you, Darren, for a great article. So many points and I think I fall into the shy category – or a shameless ‘busy/not making time’ to comment. This is inspiring me to change that!
One thing I would add is that this shouldn’t be labelled to just blogs.
I beleive comments offer a form of collaboration between the creator/author and their viewers/readers. Any point of comment-contact, from youtube to instagram, or commenting on facebook/twitter, offers that and we receive greater benefit from the constructive feedback of friends and followers. Short positives provide a guide that people like a post/article but with constructive feedback we can learn and grow together through that collaboration.
Thanks again!
Alex
All Spammers Must have a look on it. I must say that the posts is equipped with all material that a commenter wants to know about. But why have have not inserted twitter column in commenting option. I want to get involved more in this social networking site.
To put this as simply as possibly, I’d say that one should comment on topics that one finds engaging, Almost like offline where you’d engage with “relevant people” (aka friends). But this begs a different sort of question, Darren: when I comment, is my objective to (a) “engage with the author” or (b) to get other readers back to my blog/site? I know one can have the effect of (a) even if the objective is (b), but if you had to select just ONE objective for commenting on other blogs, would it be (a) or (b)?
Dear Darren Rowse,
I bless you, to your working.
Great post, your post very helpful to lot of more into my blogging.
This is a wonderfully comprehensive post. Good show. Not just about how to approach commenting but there is lots of great info to help with comment moderation. When I started my own blog, I was devastated when someone told me all my comments were from spammers! And they are getting more devious too so they can be harder to pick.
I used to only comment if I had something of value to add. But I found with that strategy I started commenting less and less on blogs, especially if a lot of people had already commented and I didn’t have anything to add that hadn’t already been said.
Commenting started to feel like a chore since I felt so much pressure to say something profound. Now, I don’t hold back from simply giving the blogger praise for a good article. :)