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October 13, 2005

Building Traffic: Leaving Comments

Liz wrote this at 2:49 pm

It’s a simple thing to do. Leaving comments on other sites in your niche with an URL pointing back to your site. Should be easy traffic right? Not if it isn’t done correctly. How often do you click on a commentor’s name to see their site when all they left was a comment that didn’t either make you laugh or think?

Sure you can get the author’s attention by asking for links, but what if you want more than the author’s attention? What if you want his audience’s attention? Leave an insightful comment, but don’t just do it once, do it often. Do it on every post for a month if you can. Maybe do it for two months, but do it enough where people begin to recognize who you are.

You are more than likely starting a blog to become an expert in that field, even if it’s just a personal blog. You want to be an expert at something because experts get traffic. Comments can help get you there. I found girlspoke simply because Meme continuously leaves comments on Paul Davidson’s blog and the result was that I invited them into the 9rules Network. What was her expertise? It was humor and it showed through in her comments.

You are not trying to build massive amounts of traffic directly from your comments, but hopefully you can get the attention of some sites that can give you lots of traffic by linking to one of your posts. Indirectly you are looking for that traffic from your comments. This option requires patience though, but building a successful blog never did happen in a day.

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16 Comments to “Building Traffic: Leaving Comments”

  1. October 13th, 2005 at 4:07 pm
    Steven Ametjan said

    This can work fairly well if you comment on enough blogs, and know at least a little in the subject about the blog. Sort of like the comment that I posted on Whitespace when you were talking about MySpace. While I’m nowhere near an expert on MySpace, I knew more than most people having been with the company.

    The hardest part of trying to build up credibility through comments, and using those comments to drive people to your site, is knowing how not to abuse it. If you are blatantly trying to spam yourself, it will backfire on you. Regardless of how much information you have an the subject people will lose trust in what you have to say. If you were to start something with “Well over on my site *link*, I wrote about such-and-such *link*…” people will be less likely to visit.

  2. October 17th, 2005 at 1:38 pm
    leon said

    If you fancy the fun posting controversial viewpoints can dramatically raise your blogs profile. The downside is you can sometimes get a deluge of commenters on your blog who are very outraged!

  3. October 22nd, 2005 at 5:33 am
    Internet Home Business :: HomeOfficeVoice said

    QuickBits: October 22, 2005

    Okay, it’s a little bit late coming, had a big Friday afternoon-slash-night celebrating a friends business success (he’s just had his first big export order - it’s men’s products) and it was a hard-earned win!
    So here goes wit…

  4. October 25th, 2005 at 9:04 am
    Building Traffic: Community Participation » Successful Blog said

    […] As recently discussed, community participation is a great way of building traffic to your weblog. Scrivs mentioned commenting on other weblogs as a way of getting your voice out there, and Keith gave us a great list of starting tips on building traffic. The key message from those two articles is community participation. The more you give to the community the more you can expect to get back. You might wonder where to start, well, that’s where we come in. […]

  5. October 25th, 2005 at 5:56 pm
    Jan Davis said

    Rumor has it that posting to sites more popular than yours also drives business to a website, or at the very least gives you brownie points with the SEs.

  6. October 31st, 2005 at 3:00 pm
    pcunix said

    I don’t think I like the idea of commenting on every post.

    If you are really adding something worthwhile, fine. But how many of us have something useful to add on each and every post? And if it IS that useful, I’m probably going to blog about it myself and include a link back to my inspiration rather than leaving a comment. Of course that does zilch for building traffic links, but if I’m really saying something important, it may be better for me long term.

    In fact, whenever I start writing a comment and it gets over a paragraph or two I start thinking “Shouldn’t this be a post?”

    This comment qualifies, but I’ll leave it here just this once :-)

    I also don’t necessarily like putting links in my comments. If I honestly feel that I have something you really have to read, I might, but I’m more apt to just say “I do have a post on this at my site” or (most often) say nothing at all. I just don’t like using other people’s comments to promote myself.

    When someone comments on one of my sites for no apparent reason than to get a link, I delete their comment entirely. If they have added something at least marginally useful, I’ll leave it be. I’m not draconian, but I’m not going to be spammed.

    If somebody asked a question and I have a good answer on one of my sites, yes, of course I’ll link to it. But sometimes, and particularly if the post at my site is short, I’ll just cut and paste from the post instead of linking.

    I’m probably too conservative in that regard. The rest of you should feel free to self promote :-)

    I do have posts on building traffic :-)

  7. October 31st, 2005 at 3:58 pm
    ME "Liz" Strauss said

    Hi pc,
    Glad to see you back again. I don’t comment on every post I read. I’m just not that quick at clever insights and I’m too self-conscious to do the “yes, I agree” thing.

    “In fact, whenever I start writing a comment and it gets over a paragraph or two I start thinking “Shouldn’t this be a post?â€? :) YOU do that too? I can’t tell you how many posts I have that started that way. :)

    My feelings of links and comments aligh exactly with yours. I have to have a real feeling that someone can use something. I’m happy to help, but I don’t ever want to be seen as a self-promoting imposter.

    Thanks for the conversation.
    Hope to see you soon.
    Liz

  8. September 21st, 2006 at 5:32 pm
    Abi said

    Has anyone noticed that designers who blog is down? It is currently displaying a page covered with ghastly advertisements for kitchen design! Its one of my favourite blogs, I do hope it is back soon before someone swoops the domain name.

  9. September 21st, 2006 at 5:43 pm
    ME Strauss said

    That’s not good.

  10. April 16th, 2007 at 7:09 pm
    articlestamp said

    Hay can I join in on the fun?
    I notice that no one mentioned link building, posting comments also help build links that track back to your website in the search engines a great way to boost your PR.

    P.S. I think I just found a great place to hang out.

  11. June 6th, 2007 at 10:48 am
    5 Tips To Get The Most Traffic From Comments said

    […] it won’t directly drive hundreds of hits, it will do a great job of building your brand and increasing awareness of you among other blogs.  But commenting on many other blogs can take a lot of time.  Is it […]

  12. February 9th, 2008 at 7:59 am
    A Beginner's Teeny Weeny Guide To Blogging said

    […] Actively comment on other blogs […]

  13. April 11th, 2008 at 10:54 pm
    TJ said

    #6 pcunix, your comment left me thinking, and I went to visit your site, but I see its dead

  14. May 14th, 2008 at 12:03 am
    A Beginner’s Guide To Blogging | Learn Some Shit said

    […] Actively comment on other blogs […]

  15. June 2nd, 2008 at 5:04 pm
    Rose said

    Wonderful advice.

  16. June 17th, 2008 at 6:36 pm
    Mike said

    Commenting is a great way of getting traffic. All you have to do is comment on blogs that interest you. It does not have to be what your blog is about. If you have an interest in Japan, go on Japan blogs and comment on something that you like they posted. Your link stays on that post forever.

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