Blog Comments Equals More Traffic, More Friends and a Happy Blogger

Photo : larskflem

I have just read a post entitled 10 Reasons Commenting is Good for Bloggers by Chris Garret (an authoritative blogger and consultant on new media) and have decided to take up his suggestion and increase the amount of time I spend commenting on other blogs.

The main reason I am going to do this is to increase traffic. It would be good to also meet a few new people along the way, but ultimately it is the traffic I am after.

As a slight aside to this, I read somewhere that only 1% of visitors ever comment on a blog.

One person in 100 leaving a comment sounds about right from my experience, but I guess this figure can be much higher for popular blogs where the potential for traffic is greater.

I have a few blogs that I read regularly and comment on already, but in (another of Chris’s articles, he makes the suggestion that you should comment on more blogs each day. Obviously there can only be so much time spent commenting on other peoples’ posts, but 5 – 6 well thought out and well written comments per day should be an achievable target (to start with).

Don’t just leave a “great post” type comment

One of the pointers Chris Garret offers is to make comments interesting.

If you just add a comment along the lines of “great post, thanks for the info” it is likely to be published, but the link to your site is not as likely to get clicked on as much as a “great post, but…..” type comment.

Comments which add value, an alternative point of view or become another angle in the debate get noticed by the people who read blogs. If the comment grabs the attention of the reader, there is a chance the reader will end up at the commentators blog.

When commenting on other blogs, think of the following:

1) The comment has to interest other people and say more than “great post”
2) The comment space is an opportunity to sell a website. Not in a “click here now” kind of way, but in a way in which people would like to become involved with you
3) The blog owner loves to have people comment on his/her blog. It gives the owner a lift and encourages the owner to continue with something that can sometimes feel like a giant void
4) Comments open doors. Once a comment has been made it can remain in place for years! You just never know where it can lead
5) Don’t be afraid of speaking your mind. Offering constructive criticism is something most people, and I would suggest, pretty much all bloggers, are open to if they want to improve performance

As this post has been about comments, it would be good to get some feedback! Please feel free to comment.