By Dorien Morin-van Dam
You are business owner. You are active on social media. You even have a blog on your website and you are doing your best to keep your blog original, fresh and active, posting new articles on a regular basis. You send out updates on your social media sites and you might even have joined a blogging community to share articles of like-minded bloggers.
Does this sound like you?
But you knew thereÂd be a Âbut right? What else can you to do Âspice up your blog? What are you forgetting? I am here to tell you that many bloggers forget to do one important thing. Blog commenting. Asking for comments as well as leaving comments.
To my own clients who want to get more eyeballs on their articles, one of the first things I recommend is for them to start seeking out the blogs of other bloggers & experts in their industry and to start leaving intelligent, well thought-out blog comments.
Not sure youÂd know what to say and what to comment on? Go read some comments!
Seriously! The best way to learn blog commenting is to go to (larger) publications and to see first hand what types of articles generate what types of comments. According to Jeff Goins, there are 7 types of commenters. Read his article here and decide which one you are, or want to be!
Who Should You Give Your Blog Comments To?
There is no Âright or wrong way to leave blog comment, because in essence any blog that accepts your comment should be grateful youÂve taken the time to give them feedback.
However, if youÂd like to target and leave blog comments for the purpose of getting blog comments back, I suggest starting here.
Leave comments for:
 Those in your industry
 Local (business) blogs
 Your colleagues
 Those in your blogging community
Why Should You Take Your Valuable Time To Leave Blog Comments?
There are many reasons behind blog commenting, that is another post on its own, but I did want to start you thinking about a few reasons why leaving blog comments could be beneficial to your business, your own blog and your writing skills.
 To show your expertise – Leave a comment that adds value to the article
 To make new connections  Leave a comment
 To find collaborators  Leave a comment and connect with like-minded people
 To start online conversations – leave a comment and get noticed
 To give feedback – Leave a comment for a specific reason
 To get backlinks  Once your comment is approved, youÂll most often get a link to your own site
 To get noticed for guest blogging – leave a comment and show off your writing skills
What Should You NOT Do When You Leave a Blog Comment?
DonÂt make these five blog commenting mistakes! It might seem like common sense to you, but I often get these types of comments on my blog. When I see these types of comments, I am always happy IÂve set my blog commenting system up so that I have to approve any and all comments before they go live.
Now that you know the importance of commenting on blogs, how about I help you figure out how to get some comments for yourself? Consider how you should go about attracting the right audience to your blog and how to entice them to interact with you and leave a comment.
Why Do You Want Blog Comments On Your Blog?
There are multiple reasons to want to have an active commenting community on your blog. Here are some of the more obvious reasons to want to get blog comments.
 To build your online community
 To get potential customers to notice you
 To develop strong relationships with your readers
 For economic growth (get new customers!)
 Give-Away/Promotion
 To get feedback on your writing
 To become an authority in your field/industry
 To drive even more traffic to your blog
Caution!
There are a few things to watch for once you start to encourage blog commenting on your own site. Here they are in no particular order.
 Watch out for spammers
 Take time to moderate any and all comments
 Deal with, and process, negative comments
Ideas on How To Get Comments
An active community of commenters is a sign of a great blog. Comments inspire new comments and the cycle continues. To insure this commenting will go on and on, here are some ideas to get, and keep generating, good quality comments!
 Ask for comments
 Include a call-to-action at the end of each article
 Ask a specific question of your readers to be answered
 Give comments to get comments back
 Write provocatively (or Âshake things up a bitÂ)
 Make commenting easy for the public, hard for spammers. Check your settings!
 Create a blog comment policy outlining what is expected of your community
 Respond to comments! You will get more comments that way. First, as people see you reply, they are more likely to leave a comment in the first place and once you reply to their comment, you can ask a follow up question.
Whether commenting has been on the back burner or not, ramping up your commenting can make a huge difference in the quality and quantity of your blog comments going in and out!
IÂve had fun writing this article (my first on this site!) and I have just one question for you:
Will you let me know what your most successful blog commenting strategy is? I canÂt wait to read the answer!
Answering your question re: blog commenting strategy Dorien, it can be summarised as follows: If there’s nothing I can add to enrich the post or to give feedback to the author with encouragement from a personal gain after reading the post, I won’t leave a comment.
Sometimes I read a great post but I have nothing to add, so I just share it on social media or use it as a reference in one of my own blog articles, if it relates.
I also feel that the way authors reply or not to comments left on their articles can lead to creating those ties of obliging and reciprocating that flow naturally rather than forced.
Thank you for putting this together, it’s great information for bloggers and thanks for asking and giving your readers the chance to comment and enrich both ways.
Thank you Dorien. I am not a business owner myself but I have managed social media for a few small/medium sized businesses in the past and I found your article very helpful! Previously, I had only been commenting on blogs for the SEO link-back value. I don’t think I truly realized all the potential commenting on blogs could hold.
As far as strategy is concerned: I keep a bookmarked folder in my toolbar of blogs to visit and comment on in my own time. When I check my email I’m usually in the business of getting through them as fast as possible. With a bookmarked folder I don’t feel pressured to read as much as I can, as fast as possible. This way,I can really focus on each article. Thanks again!
Hi Rosemary,
No one will disregard the benefit of post engagement, it shows you are doing well and that your blog articles are making impact in the life of your followers/readers.
As a bloggers, i do always take my time to drop comments. There are lot of benefits which comes with blog commenting as a visitors.
You get the opportunity to drop your blog link especially when comluv is enabled, you also stand the chance to earn traffic 🙂
I found the link to this post on Kingged and i have also kingged it on kingged.com
All commonsense sense applicable advice…add engaging with people across all networks and with time, success will come (assuming your content has quality of course ;-))
Hi there, when I did a rebrand and redesign of my site I thought long and hard about whether to enable comments. I am a therapist with a full private practice and online business – and really struggled with the time needed to wade through the spam! So I decided NOT to enable them but am still in a conundrum as to whether this was the right choice. I miss the community aspect but work hard on my social networking to fill that gap. And I also can gage interest that way too…but still wondering about that choice in the long term. Thoughts?
As for: “Take Your Valuable Time To Leave Blog Comments …” – actually that is a bit of a misnomer. IF the blog commenter (-to-be) already reads the article above the (future) comment before contemplating to comment (if not, that’s the definition of a spammer anyway) THEN he/she already has spent a considerable time reading and unless he or she is rather slow at writing (and thinking) the ADDITIONAL time spent commenting cannot be more than, say between ten to thirty percent of the time spent on a) FINDING the blog post in the first place (assuming it was a search, then we often skim through, say, five to ten posts before we find what we look for) and b) READING it in its entirety PLUS maybe reading the preceding comments if warranted. What I usually do is research on the latest web trends or in a certain niche that I or a client I consult for is interested in. Now that is time I’d spend anyhow. And it is obviously a subject I know something about (either in general or after finding that particular post …); to THEN leave a pertinent, succinct comment does not take that much time. So, in relation to finding and reading commenting is not so time-consuming (in relation) than many people seem to think.
Hi Dorian. Thank you so much for sharing this. I’ve always wondered whether it was really important to have comments on your blog, and after seeing this post, I can now see that it is important. I like the idea of having engagement on my blog. I also think that people are more likely to comment if they see that others have done so, and that you have responded to those comments. So, thanks again. I will definitely be referring back to this post often!