I have a lot of people asking me about the effectiveness of blog commenting as a link building / SEO technique, so I’d like to express my opinion on the topic. I personally believe in blog commenting, and have enjoyed great SE results from this technique, but, and this is a big but, it must be done correctly. Here’s how:



Contribute, Don’t Spam

If you think you’re gonna get easy links by just writing a really generic message, and posting it to hundreds of blogs using something like Comment Kahuna (or anything similar), you’re wrong. Most blogs will simply flag you as spam (assuming you get past the Captcha code), and the ones that do accept you will most likely by poorly maintained blogs that carry very little SEO value in any case.

If you want to get that link, you have to work for it. And its really not that hard. Simply read through the article, and draft a short, worthy response, that adds value to the blog. You can even ask a question you might have on the topic as this too adds value. Now I’m not saying that you’ll always get a link this way (because there are some nasty moderators out there), but this strategy is a lot more likely to win you some link juice.

Forget About NoFollow

The “nofollow conspiracy” as I call it is highly overated. Don’t waste your time looking purely for blogs that implement a “dofollow” comment policy. Rather mix it up and comment where its most appropriate. Looking for only the best, high PageRank, “dofollow” blogs is going to waste so much time that you could have used building links or otherwise marketing your business.

Get A Gravatar

This one’s more an opinion than anything else, but as a moderator, I always look for comments that have Gravatars (avatars) to add to my blog posts. Not only are they more colourful and exciting, but chances are that someone who’s taken the time to set up an avatar is less likely to be a spammer.

Link To Something Useful

Don’t always just use your root domain – if the blog post is about something that you have more info about on your site, link to that page instead. This adds more value to your comment, and also diversifies your backlinks, ensuring a “natural look”.

Spread It Out

Getting backlinks from the same blogs over and over again isn’t really that useful. Aim to get a few links from many different blogs, and diversify your linking domains.

Be Consistent

Last but not least is the one that trips us all up. Be consistent - its no use commenting a whole lot this month and forgetting about it next month. Rather commit to doing a few comments each week, and you’ll enjoy a much higher rate of SEO success.