Blog commenting is an incredibly useful link building activity for multiple reasons. First off, it’s a good way to build up the amount of quality, one-way links pointing to your site. Secondly, commenting on industry and related blogs helps establish your company as an expert. Blog commenting is also the first step in building a strong relationship with influential bloggers in your industry, a partnership that can have long lasting benefits. But none of these benefits of blog commenting will come if you don’t go about it in the right way.
Here are a few dos and don’ts of blog commenting:
Do
Use a real name whenever possible. People like to talk to other people, not nameless and faceless corporations. Using a real name also makes it harder to hide behind the anonymity of the Internet, which can go a long way in building trust with the blogger and the blog’s readers.
Don’t
Include sales pitches in your blog comments. A blog comment box is not the place to take about your company or products. A blog is a place for discussion, not advertising.
Do
Add value to the conversation. While comments like “great post” or “awesome tips” might make a blogger feel all warm and fuzzy inside (then again, maybe not), they don’t do anything for helping establish you as an expert. If you are going to comment on the blog, then actually comment! Pick a point or two that you found particularly interesting and build upon them.
Don’t
Include anchor text in your comments. Some blogs allow you to include links in the comment fields. Unless you have a really good reason to be linking to another site (like a reference or related story) you shouldn’t be targeting keywords. The link back to your site is going to be attached to whatever name you used to leave the comment. Don’t try to stuff extra in the comment itself.
Do
Shoot for a minimum of three sentences. This shows the blogger that you took the time to actually read the post and put some time and effort into leaving a comment.
Don’t
Comment on unrelated blogs. If you own a tax preparation services site, don’t leave comments on sites about dog grooming or wind-surfing. If those sites do happen to have a blog post about tax preparation, then you can consider leaving a comment on that post and that post only.
If you run afoul of any bloggers by leaving irrelevant, sales-pitchy or spammy comments, you risk being labeled a spammer and banned from that blog from all time. Many blog hosting services automatically filter out comments left by users that have been marked as spam. Even if you wrote a fantastic and interesting comment, the blog owner would never even see it. There is little to no chance of redemption once you anger a blogger.
