Second Thought On Blog Commenting

Blog commenting is always cited as one of the most effective ways to promote a website. For a long time, I didn't believe that. In my previous view, the chance of the comment being accepted is quite low. The fact that webmasters have the tendency to post their comments with the sole purpose of promotion rather than providing valuable insight make the acceptance rate even lower. So, personally I wouldn't want to spend my already precious time to do blog commenting.

My bias with regard to blog commenting is completely gone after I tried it once a couple of days ago. I downloaded a free software which could search and list all the blogs that allow one to post a do-follow link together with his or her comments. To be honest, I didn't take it quite serious as I didn't believe it could have any visible impact on my link popularity. So I just randomly picked a few blog posts and posted my comments to promote 2 Submit Article, and deleted the software after that. However, the result was completely out of my expectation. I checked my website's link popularity at the Google Webmaster Tools dashboard. It's quite astonishing to find that one comment I posted on a blog alone brought over 30 backlinks for my website, which constitutes a majority percentage of my total backlinks! Although the quality of those backlinks may not be quite high, the big number itself counts. Imagine you try to exchange links with other webmasters. According to my experience, out of 100 link requests, only around 10 of them will get responded, and unlike the multiplying effect of blog commenting, these 10 reponse will only be considered as 10 backlinks by Google. Therefore, blog commenting really worth a close examination.

After a thorough analysis of the blog which gave me such a large bulk of backlinks, I've summarized the following tips with regard to blog commenting to share with you so that we all can maximize the benefits from blog commenting.:

• The blog should allow commentators to post website URL along with the comment itself
• The website URL should be has do-follow attribute, or should NOT have the
  

  'rel="nofollow"' attribute

• Pick the blog that has "Recent Comments" section on the side bar. So, a recent comment will appear in every list or content page of the blog. This is what exactly contributes to the backlink multiplying effect.
• The comment is better to be closely related to the content of the blog post, so that the chance of being accepted by blog owners is higher.

As mentioned earlier, one big concern here is the quality of the backlinks. Since the backlink multiplying effect is largely determined by the "Recent Comments" section, you need to ensure that your comment will appear in this section. As the number of "Recent Comments" is limited, usually less than five, the less popular the blog is, and thus the less frequency of new comments, the more likely that your comment will appear in the "Recent Comments" section. However, it's the backlink from more popular blogs that has a much higher quality. Apparently, this is a dilemma for us webmasters, which returns to an old topic in the field of link building - webmasters need to balance between quantity and quality of backlinks.

New Site Deserve More Attention From Webmasters

Directory submission and link exchange are still among the most effective promotion methods to drive link popularity. When choosing which directory to submit and which site to swap links, we webmasters always focus on those established site that already get a certain ranking position in Google. With regard to those new sites, no matter how large their potential is, we always neglect them completely.

For a long time, I'm following the rule mentioned above. Now, I'd like to give it a second thought. Here by "give it a second thought", I don't mean to discard the rule. On the contrary, I strongly suggest we continue to strive to get our sites accepted by those established sites, because if those established directories, such as the most famous one, dmoz.org, accepts your sites, or a high PR site which operates in the same market niche with you is willing to exchange links with you, the promotion return to you will be huge. The key point that I want to make here is, at the same time that you strive to get your sites accepted by established websites, you'd better try to take advantage of new directories or websites as well. The reasons are as follows:

• Every site has its early days. Dmoz.org can give you a ranking boost in Google once you get accepted by them. But such promotion benefit couldn't be possible without Dmoz.org's continuous development. The same is true for those small directories or individual websites. If you can identify those news directories which have huge potential to be a second dmoz.org or those new sites which have all the qualities to become a second digg, the long-term promotion benefit is quite promising if you spend appropriate promotion efforts to them.
• Submission to new directories or link exchange with new sites can secure you a better position in those new sites. I wonder if you have the following experience. Your site finally gets accepted by a famous directory after several month's waiting. However, when you try to locate your link in that directory, it's over 10 clicks away from the home page. Wouldn't you feel such experience frustrating? If you submit your site to new directory, it's highly possible that your site appear on the first page under a certain category. The same is true for link exchange with new site. Some new sites are even willing to exchange homepage links with you, rather than parking your links in so called "sponsored links" page.
• Submission to new directories or link exchange with new sites has a higher possibility to get accepted. I'm also a webmaster, so I can understand how happy webmasters are when their links get accepted and how frustrated when their links get rejected. Link building is such a long lasting project that many webmasters give up half way. We webmasters really need acceptance joyfulness secured by submission to new directories or link exchange with new sites to keep us upbeat all the way to the final success for our link building project.

In brief, I strongly believe those new sites, especially those with huge potential to get good search engine ranking position and administered by a responsible and diligent webmaster, are quite worthwhile for promotion. When we are focusing on those established sites, why not divert some energy to them as well?