Blog commenting wasn’t exactly invented yesterday, but nevertheless, it is a very simple trick that has stood the test of time and is still widely used today.
However, the recent algorithm updates that the Google team has made, especially the Panda and Penguin ones, have brought some changes as to the techniques comment authors need to employ in order to get their comments to actually count for something.
In order to help you out, here are a few tips you can use in order to make sure that your comments are compatible with Google’s algorithmic updates.
After all, commenting can indeed help you expand your influence, and foregoing it simply because of a few rule changes would mean depriving yourself of extra exposure and traffic, something very few businesses don’t need more of.
1. Build Yourself Up on Social Networks
Quite soon (or perhaps has it happened already?) Google will provide a lot of importance to the kind of activity you are having on social networks, including Facebook, Google+ and Twitter.
Comments that are posted on major social network platforms, especially Google+, actually affect your website’s search engine ranking.
The best course of action you could take under these circumstances is to create fan pages on the social networks you are subscribed with, updating them on a regular basis.
If you are touching on an interesting topic, then more and more people are going to comment, driving traffic to your site and increasing your search engine standings.
In addition, you can also seek out fan pages other people have made and leave your comments there.
2. Finding the Right Blogs
One of the most important aspects of writing a comment is to find the right blog to post it to.
Basically, you need to make sure that your comment appears on a website or a blog that has a good reputation, is popular, relevant, and doesn’t use any black-hat SEO techniques.
If you leave a comment on a blog that is frowned upon by the search engines, then you won’t reap any benefits from it whatsoever; on the contrary, you will have associated yourself with a website that has a bad reputation.
You can easily make a list of relevant blogs by using the Google Double Click Planner.
3. Know the Blogger
Before posting a comment on a blog, take the time to find all the information you can about its author.
In most cases, blogs have a page dedicated to the author’s biography, and you can use that to find most, if not all the information you need about them.
Your goal is to post on blogs that are run by open-minded people who have a positive outlook on working together with others.
If you manage to post really interesting comments, there is a chance that the owner will notice you and seek to develop a relationship.
4. Who is Going to Read you?
While the blog owner will probably have a look at your comment, you need to remember that apart from him/her, everyone else is simply a blog visitor just like yourself; you need to know who will be reading your comments, or at least, the type of people that tend to comment on the blog.
Take the time to read a few other blog posts and comments, tailoring your content in accordance to what you see.
You could perhaps even try to contact a few of the commentators and get a sense for the type of people they are.
5. Reveal Yourself
In most cases, blogs allow you to identify yourself, and perhaps even post a picture or a link back to your site.
It is highly recommended that you actually disclose your identity, not only for the sake of the search engines, but also for the sake of the people reading your comment.
If you give out your real identity, people will feel like you have nothing to hide, therefore buying you trust and some potential new visitors as well.
6. Be Interesting
Finally, it has to be said that your comments actually need to be useful, informative and interesting.
Don’t simply post a comment that says “great job!”, but go beyond that, providing your opinion in regards to some of the points touched in the article, relating some kind of story, or perhaps even complementing what the author wrote.
You need to make the content interesting and engaging so as to show that you’ve read the content and that you aren’t just another comment spammer looking to squeeze in an easy backlink.
Author Bio
Jason Smith is an online manager for Superior Notary Services. He is an expert on SEO & PPC tactics and in his free times likes to read and understand about mobile notary services.
