Blog Commenting Blueprint

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[This post is part of our series, 31 Days To Build A Better Blog. We used Darren Rowse's workbook to get our website, Soap Box Included, up and running. You can follow our series here.]

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This is Day 20 Of 31 Days To Build A Better Blog. We encourage you to purchase your copy of the work book and use it on your own blog. Each purchase supports our project.

What do you want?

Traffic to your blog, right? Traffic leads to advertisers. Traffic leads to sales. Traffic leads to a book deal. At least, that’s what we’re promised by people making money off of this belief.

But it’s not the traffic, on its own that gets you there. It’s the network. It’s the community. You have to build your blog community first.

The easiest thing you can do to start? Leave a comment on someone’s blog.

Easy, right? The thing is, we screw this one up all the time.

Why?

Because no one told us how to do it properly. We know we should do it. We have a general idea of how to do it, but no blue print. Just vague advice. So …

Here’s your Blog Commenting Blueprint:

1. Comment on a post if you have something to say. If you don’t, don’t say anything.

2. Don’t leave your link in the main field. If there is a URL box, awesome, fill it out. But don’t drop your link elsewhere. As Darren says in Day 20 of 31 Days To Build A Better Blog, people only follow those links to see who the spammer is.

3. Find blogs that are relevant to what you are blogging about. You can find these by going to Technorati or using Google Blog Search. Just type in your topic and search away.

4. Make sure you read the entire post before commenting.

5. It doesn’t matter how many comments a post has, post anyway. You’re posting to contribute to the community and so people can get to know you.

*Although it is worth noting: The earlier you post, the more inbound traffic you might wind up with. The thing is, this is only a short term benefit.

6. Don’t be a jerk. We are all guilty of this (I know I am). So post anything negative you have to say in a constructive manner. Touch on something positive after the negative comment if you can.

7.  Check the post later in the day to see if there are any replies to your comments. Most of the time there won’t be, but keep an eye out.

8. Consider using the post as the basis for a blog post on your website instead of commenting. Your post (usually) will appear as a trackback on the original post if you link back to it from your blog. If your comments are good enough, the blogger might do the same in reply to you.

9. Don’t use your business name in the name field. Use your real name. The days of being anonymous on the web are over, so covering yourself up will make you look like a spammer.

10. Finally, blog comments do not help too much with your SEO. Don’t leave a comment thinking this will help your search strategy, it won’t. Do it because you want to network and get to know people in your content area. Do it because you may come up with some great material to blog with and great readers, who in the end, are the ones who are going to trust you and buy from you.

Recommended Reading To Start Your Blog:

ProBlogger: Secrets For Blogging Your Way To a Six-Figure Income by Darren Rowse and Chris Garrett

31 Days To Build A Better Blog By Darren Rowse

Tagged as: 31 day to build a better blog, blog commenting, bloggers, Blogging