The Ultimate Blog Commenting Marketing Strategy

As we should all know, marketers have been using blog commenting as a means of generating traffic and backlinks for years. It’s definitely become one of the most well known link building strategies on the planet, but is it still as effective for link building and traffic generation as it was a few years ago? Yes and No…

Blog commenting can easily be abused much like many other link building or traffic generation strategies. That said, by posting meaningful and insightful comments on blogs in your niche, you can, in fact, drive immense amounts of traffic to the website of your choice. All while building up your authority and reputation within your niche. So first of all, why use blog commenting?

Well, four reasons…

• Traffic Generation
• Backlinks
• Gaining Authority
• Repeat Visitors

Overall, the main reason you should be using blog commenting is to build up a following, a fan base, and a group of repeat visitors, i.e., blog subscribers. When you leave comments on related blogs, you’re almost guaranteed some traffic. Generally, it’s the best kind of traffic, especially if you’re a blogger. You know how many bloggers subscribe to RSS feeds? A ton!

By leaving comments, the majority of the traffic you’ll receive will be other bloggers and webmasters. Other bloggers/webmasters are far more likely to engage with your website/blog than any other visitors. The reason is that bloggers have a commenting mindset (they’re always checking their own blog’s comments). They usually scroll down the page and read the comments; bloggers just do. Stop asking questions, okay?

Anyway, the average internet user barely scrolls down past the fold, so the majority of the traffic you’ll be receiving will be from other bloggers. Other bloggers are highly likely to read your stuff, opt into your email list, and subscribe to your RSS feed. The next reason, of course, is backlinks…

Backlinks make the search engines go round. As most of you should already know, without link building, you’re not going to get much search engine traffic. Despite what others say, you just can’t compete with today’s marketers with naturally attracted links. If you believe that, you’re kidding yourself. So, are comment links worth anything? Honestly, in terms of SEO and the weight search engines give them, they aren’t worth much.

Unfortunately, they’ve been the easiest links to artificially create through automated link-building tools. A great example of a tool that I own myself is Scrapebox. The tool allows you to scrape and test proxies until you’ve found a good few hundred to use. Then it allows you to simply input a few keywords and gather thousands upon thousands of relevant blogs to comment on. A few clicks later, the software can be spamming hundreds of thousands of blogs with crappy comments that don’t contribute to the blogs in any way. (I actually don’t use it for commenting; it can do all kinds of cool stuff.)

Seriously, it even has a name, email, and comment generator. (I am in no way promoting this thing.) Anyway, when I first came across it, I thought, “great… this thing’s going to skyrocket my rankings.” This was back when I was just getting started online, before I discovered the whole quality versus quantity thing. So, unfortunately, because blog commenting is so easily manipulated, they are the lowest grade backlinks unless they are posted on relevant, high PR, authority blogs within your niche. Those links do actually help in many ways. Conclusion: they help, but they aren’t going to explode your rankings.

Gaining authority is another obvious one. With some of the authority blogs out there, the vast majority of their readers are repeats. A blog can be like a good TV series. Although I don’t watch much TV, everyone knows how addictive a really good series can be. Blogs can be the same, where people read them religiously. So basically, your comments will be seen by the same people over and over again. And if they are high enough quality, you’ll get quite a large percentage of the regulars visiting your website. At first, when visitors read your valuable comment, you’ll instantly gain authority and credibility.

In the long run, you’ll gain repeat visitors. It’s sort of like guest posting. You’re borrowing their regulars. I guess you could compare it to Ad Swaps, where you’re getting other people’s subscribers. So, here are a few blog commenting best practices:

• Try to be the first
• Only comment if you can add to the discussion/article (don’t go around commenting “nice article”)
• Become a regular commenter
• No blatant self-promotion
• Find the right blogs

Honestly, blog commenting probably isn’t going to drive thousands of daily visitors to your website. However, with enough commenting on the right blogs, a few hundred visitors a day wouldn’t be too far-fetched. So here’s the action plan:

Find at least 10 blogs in your niche that are considered authoritative and subscribe to their RSS feeds. From then on, try to read their blog posts as soon as they’re posted. Once read, leave a thoughtful and insightful comment that adds to the conversation/article. The key step is to become a regular. When you’re first exposed to a regular reader, he or she might not click through to your website.

However, after seeing and reading several of your insightful comments, I can almost guarantee they’ll visit your site. Curiosity rocks! Oh yeah, no blatant self-promotion. People will eventually visit your site; there’s no need to be pushy about it. Lastly, find the right blogs. You could be completely wasting your time with this strategy if you comment on the wrong blogs. Just make sure the people reading your target blogs are likely to buy into whatever you’re offering. Do all of the above, and you’re good to go.

In Prosperity,
David Wood

P.S. Leave me your thoughts, comments, and questions below.

Comments

Sara Johnson

This post was really insightful! I never realized how powerful blog commenting could be for both traffic and building authority. Thanks for sharing these tips, David! I’ll definitely be incorporating this strategy into my own marketing efforts.

Mark Daniels

I’ve heard about blog commenting as a strategy before, but I’ve always been skeptical about how much impact it can actually have. Do you have any data or examples showing the traffic or backlinks you’ve generated from this?

Emily Ross

Great post, David! I have a question though: When you say that comment links are the “lowest grade” backlinks, does that mean we should focus more on other types of link building? Or is there still value in blog comments when done right?

Kevin Stone

While I appreciate the effort here, I think blog commenting has become too saturated and doesn’t provide the same value it once did. Isn’t it better to focus on guest posts or social media engagement for traffic and backlinks these days?

Rachel Kim

Hey David! Long time no see. This post reminded me of the early days of my own blogging journey when I first learned about blog commenting. How have you been? Let’s catch up soon!

Carlos Rivera

I can totally relate to the challenges of getting meaningful backlinks through blog comments. I’ve tried a similar approach and found that it does help, but it takes consistency and finding the right blogs to comment on. Thanks for the detailed tips!

Alice Walker

If anyone is looking for a great way to automate some of the comment tracking, I recommend using BuzzSumo. It helps you find trending topics and popular blogs in your niche, which can make the blog commenting process much more efficient.

Michael Greene

This post was incredibly helpful, especially the part about becoming a regular commenter on authoritative blogs. I’ve been struggling to drive traffic, but this approach seems like a great way to build long-term engagement. Thanks, David!