Increase traffic by commenting

Blog commenting has long been part of effective link building strategies, but when executed correctly it can do much more than just boost your search engine rankings. Commenting can be great for internet marketing and increasing traffic to your blogBlog comments can lure people to your site, build connections, and ultimately increase business leads. Want to learn how to get more than just link juice out of your comments? These five tactical tips will help pump up the power of your comments.

1. Get a Gravatar

Gravatars allow users to create avatar images that can be associated with blog comments. A good avatar will attract people to your comment, so take the time to add your headshot before you get to commenting.

2. Set Up Your Reading List

Set up a feed of high quality blogs in your niche or use Google Blog Search to find for blog posts you can comment on. If you’re using Google Blog Search, search for keywords related to your niche and use the recency settings to search the most recent articles only.

3. Prioritize Where You Want to Comment

Blog comments are most effective on sites that have both high traffic and a good reputation. As a general rule, unless you’re trying to build a relationship with a blogger you should try to comment on sites that get more traffic than the site you’re promoting.

The easiest way to find this piece of information is with Alexa rankings, which ranks sites from most popular (1) to least popular (in the millions). What this means is that when you’re commenting, look for sites that have a lower Alexa ranking than your site.

You can quickly determine Alexa rank by either typing domains into Alexa.com or installing a browser extension called SEO Quake, which adds website quality statistics to search results. SEO Quake is also helpful because it allows you to determine if links are dofollow (aka more valuable).

4. When Possible, Comment First

In many cases, the first comment on a blog will remain at the top of listed comments as long as the page exists. This increases your visibility as the comments start to stack up on the website.

5. Treat Comments Like More Than Link Juice

Some people will try to fool you into thinking spam commenting will boost your rankings (and they might a little), but at the end of the day taking the time to leave a thoughtful comment will pay off in relationships, traffic, and the comfort of knowing you’re not polluting the web with spam content. For evidence of this, see a recent case studycomparing the results of auto comments versus legitimate comments.

6. Measure Your Results

Not every blog comment will be as fruitful as you hope, but some will start relationships and bring you traffic. Track your website analytics to determine if the comment has brought you any traffic. (Note: You can do this by tracking referral URLs in Google Analytics.)

7. Repeat

Turn your tracking insights into action and watch your Alexa ranking drop with consistent commenting on sites that bring you results.

Want to learn more about Internet marketing techniques to increase revenues and exposure for your business? Contact Lauren Proctor, the author of this article.