On the first part of this series we talked about how you can generate traffic to your website by getting it featured on Web Design and CSS galleries. On the second part we talked about Blog Carnivals. Today we will cover another basic yet effective strategy: leaving comments on other blogs.
The concept: Blogs are conversations. Most of them, in fact, allow any user to post a comment at the end of every article. Usually you just need to write down your name and email (kept private) and publish your comment.
Most blogging platforms also allow you to insert your website URL, which will then be used to hyperlink your name to your website.
Should people get curious, angry, excited or feel any other emotion while reading your comment, there is a good chance that they will click on the name to see what kind of website you have on the other side. If the blog where you left a comment is a popular one, you could end up receiving hundreds of visitors from a single comment.
Does it work?: Yes, but mainly when your blog is new. You will still receive traffic from blog comments even if your blog is one or two years old, but by that time I expect that your average daily traffic will be too large to be able to notice the blog comments incoming visitors.
There are also some guidelines that you should follow. First of all do not spam as many blogs as possible with as many comments as possible. People will recognize a self-promotional comment miles away, and usually they will just delete it (apart from the fact that it is pretty lame to leave comments just for the sake of traffic).
So first of all make sure that you are adding value to the conversation with your comment. That should be something easy and natural if you comment on blogs that are related to your niche. You should have endless things to talk about the topics you like after all, right?
Secondly, there are certain types of comments that will attract more attention: the first comment, funny comments, thought provoking comments and controversial comments are just a few examples.
Finally, pay attention to the size of the blog where you will be engaging in the conversation, and on how active the community over there is.
How to get started: Just create a selection of blogs that are relevant to your niche and engage on the discussion there. Ideally you should subscribe to their RSS feed so that you can keep updated and follow up with comments as soon as an interesting post is published.
If you don’t know many blogs on your niche just head to Google and start searching, it shouldn’t be difficult to find heaps of them.
Over to the readers: Have you used the strategy of leaving comments on other blogs to generate traffic? How did it work?
Website Traffic Series
- Part 1: Web Design and CSS Galleries
- Part 2: Blog Carnivals
- Part 3: Leave Comments on Other Blogs
- Part 4: Faking A Website Sale
- Part 5: Pulling an April Fools Prank
- Part 6: Using Forum Signatures
- Part 7: Putting A Blog on Your Static Website
- Part 8: Adding a Forum to Your Site or Blog
- Part 9: Buying Targeted Traffic
- Part 10: Email Signatures
- Part 11: Put Your URL On Online Profiles
- Part 12: Email Bloggers to Showcase Your Best Content
- Part 13: Faking a Hacker Attack
- Part 14: Promoting Your Content on Social Bookmarking Sites
- Part 15: Promoting Posts That Link to You on Social Bookmarking Sites
- Part 16: Promoting Your Content on Social Networking Sites
- Part 17: Using Article Directories
- Part 18: Exchanging Links with Partner Sites
@Garen – I have found the same.
Plus you actually become part of the blogging community.
I also try and find sites with CommentLuv installed.
Since this displays your post titles… it gives you the opportunity to come up with interesting post titles that people will want to click on.
I can tell you when i just getting started i well try to get traffic from all part of the web,
but guest what i had too much to do, then one day i sat down and look for the best way to get traffic
you know what,
i had no money to but traffic so i start to comment on blogs
guest what.
traffic, traffic, traffic, traffic, traffic, traffic
Garen Thoms
P.s. If you would like to have a backlink to this site, come-on over to Guru Celebrity Site were you will get celebrity treatment
This is a very helpful article. I have a new blog and I want to build its traffic. I was having doubts to whether leaving comments on blogs is an effective way to generate traffic.
But now I know that it does count to leave comments on blogs 😀
Thanks a lot for sharing this 🙂
The secret to building up links via leaving comments in blogs. has to be… only comment in blogs that you are actually interested in.
So which ones are they?
Blogs that deal with your interests or your hobbies, blogs that provide tutorials on skills you are trying to learn or improve, blogs that are humourous blogs that are related to your profession, blogs that are interesting, blogs that inspire.
And with all the great blogs out there… there is something for everyone.
I cant deny that simply pushing comments into blogs is a great way of increasing your own Google PR – but it does take time to achieve this.
I must stress that leaving quality comments is key in order to keep the blogging community alive!
I don’t agree with bloggers who keep promoting comments as a way to generate traffic.The traffic generated from commenting on other blogs should not be considered as a marketing strategy by any means.Original content please, write about something people need to know be creative. your blog or website will make it.
Yes, comments are great but only if your adding some value to the coversation and not commenting what has already been said by somebody else.
my blog is 1 year old, but we a very low traffic ( 20 daily ) even with 1000+ posts !! thx for the tip
This is something that I’ve been tinkering with for quite some time now.. I’ve seen a few traffic spikes here and there, but nothing substantial. I am not ready to give up on “commenting” for traffic purposes just yet… But I will say this : nothing beats quality content. Especially original quality content.
Great article! I usually leave comments on blogs where I can I figure it cant hurt.
Does the website link embedded in the name (like on this blog) serve as backlinks …the once tht google traces ?..and such traffic from comments wont be really interested i guess because they hav just cum to check the blog where as people who land up on a blog thru search engines or referred from other sites are more interested cuz they r really finding something
I have tried this approach very seriously starting slowly and increasing pace after few days. After I commented (of course related to conversation) on popular blogs and their latest posts, I found that blog started getting a spike in traffic.
My serious effort succeeded as shown in the statistics (page reads) of my blog. I am learning/inferring some more smart techniques to use while doing this activity. I liked this and the potential that it has. It gave me confidence that this is the most effective marketing strategy that is fully in our control..
I am hoping that as I am participating in the communities of bloggers, in my case political, that the links will begin to reciprocate and that comments will start to come with the increased traffic. I hope they start to come sometime soon though. Is their a time line for when traffic really starts to pick up for a new blog?
HI and Happy New year…. I sometimes thought that when I read other blogs/articles I usually comment. So in my arrogance? I guess I assumed others would reciprocate.
I am still fumbling around the blogging community… I like the idea I can pass on what I stumble across… articles?.. etc.
What niche is there?… aren’t they all taken.. do personal sites work?
Anyway I am rambling… again HNY everyone and have a wonderful 2009
Thanks for your post; I’ve never even considered the idea of building PR through comments. I have a fairly new blog, and it’s pretty upsetting to feel like your posts are being completely ignored by the general populace. ^^;; Anyway, thanks again for the tip. Your blog as a whole is very helpful — please keep up the good work. 🙂
I have to disagree. It certainly works. However, it needs to be a part of a larger campaign. You can’t expect web site traffic from any one source. It is when you put all the SEO campaign parts together that it really starts to work.
It does not work, I posted to million blog and no one visited me.
yaa .. it is good article . It is so helpfull . The blog is so well presented and informative .It will help to all …
Thanks again…
Usually I will end up subscribing to the blog if it looks fun or if it has value to me. Often times this generates feedback from the blogger and I’ve made a few blogging friends this way.
br
svetainiu kurimas
Very good article for seo. thanks
I have found blog commenting to be useful, not just for any traffic that may come my way, but being able to engage with other “bloggers” in my niche has helped me tremendously to understand what potential buyers really do want….real content , and helpful resources to better help them with their business or personal issues
It has been through following links left by other commenters that I’ve found some of my favorite blogs! Posting comments on others’ blogs is a great way to bring new visitors to your site. It may not result in droves of people flooding your door, but I do think it’s more likely to net you new subscribers than other methods that focus on volume.
I have been leaving comments on other blogs since my first day of blogging and I think it is not only about adding traffic. It is also about being sociable, and I earned some virtual friends by doing so.
But I would like to add another tip when commenting on other blog posts that I find really useful – use related blog post URL instead of your homepage. In this way, other commentators or even the blog owner will be curious to visit your blog.
Thanks!
When I set up my blog/web site, I intuitively knew it would be a good idea to cruise and comment on other blogs – hell it’s what I want to happen on my site too! This post bolstered my belief.
Often times this generates feedback from the blogger and I’ve made a few blogging friends this way.
When I set up my blog/web site, I intuitively knew it would be a good idea to cruise and comment on other blogs – hell it’s what I want to happen on my site too! This post bolstered my belief.
Usually I will end up subscribing to the blog if it looks fun or if it has value to me. Often times this generates feedback from the blogger and I’ve made a few blogging friends this way.
I do this quite a bit and usually get about 10 hits per blog, depending on traffic. Surprisingly, it`s usually targeted about 60% of the hits.
One can never read this kind of information often enough.
I have a whole section on my site on how to drive traffic to a website. When it comes to leaving comments I have found that if you are one of the first 5 to leave a comment – people will click on to see you site. Its all about timing!
When leaving comments, try to variate the words you use every time. This will increase the traffic on the blog and benefit both you and the blog owner.
thanks for tips!
I think leaving comments is a great way to build traffic and relationships. In fact, Consumer News Editor Wendy Perrin, of Conde Nast Traveler magazine, and I meet in SF yesterday because I left comments on her “Perrin Post” blog and she wanted to meet me.
We would have never met had I simply been a subscriber to the magazine. Thanks for the tips.
This is a good advice, but i have a blog in Spanish, and i think the “Blogger world in Spanish” is less developed and is more difficult to increase your traffic through comments in other blogs.
Commenting works great because your links stays on that blog forever. Anyone who reads that post years from now may click on your name and go to your site. It is the best way of getting traffic.
hımmm very good thank you
There are some blog owners who don’t allow post or comments. So these blogs are not conversational and I understand that it may be due to spammers. I appreciate the fact that you allow others to post because sometimes, you might learn something new from another marketer. I am glad I found you because though I have a blog of my own, I have learned a few tips from here and other places. Keep up the good work.
Nice article about leaving comments on other blogs. I have been reading about do follow blogs vs. no follow blogs and that even takes your point to another level. Not only traffice from people clicking on your comments but all the links that can be gained by the link itself. Great post.
No questions that leaving comments on other blogs helps to bring visitors over to my site. However, one thing to think of if you are trying to monetize your blog is that if you post on sites with unrelated content, you are likely to get blog readers who are just checking your site out but aren’t so interested in your content. Therefore, they are less likely to click on content-related ads such as Google Adsense.
Do we place comments to attarct visitor or for adding backlinks?
Ihe tactics work well for blogs or newspaper articles that have a top placing in the search engines for some essential keywords.
This blog for example has a good placeing for the words frase: leave a comment
Having served in the Army for 21 years and several conflicts later, it is time for me to find a new career and have decided to undertake a career in web design and optimisation! I’m not sure if this is the right decision as all I am entitled to within the Army resettlement plan is $500 (which I need to spend wisely)
Now my questions:
1. Do you think I would be better off spending this money on an optimisation or web design course?
2. If web design how can I gain a high position without spending money and how long will it take to learn the subject of optimisation?
I know they are wide and sweeping questions but you input would be appreciated. I have my site nearly complete and have submitted it to a number of directories and search engines, what else can I do?
Lots of questions, hope you can help – biiiiiiig thanks
In the long run this strategy won`t make wonders but as earlier mentioned for beginners this could be a kick start to get the first visitors. If you post comments to get visitors post them only on blogs in your niche so the visitors could identify them selfs and come again if the blog is interesting to them. For example if you post comments on a blog about cars and you write about technology there is only a small chance the referring visitor will come again.