Blog Commenting Tips

When I entered the blogging arena about less than three years from now, Adrienne was already a seasoned commenters. It was her comment on my blog that drove me to her instantly.
Something about her struck a chord with me – something that I could relate to immediately.
I loved her way of commenting, which involved the way of treating people and creating relationships. No wonder that she was even named the “Engagement Superstar” – because she’s a blogging legend.
Here are some qualities that I tried to imbibe from her commenting practice, besides adding some of my own:

1. Be generous – Comment from your heart
2. Be intelligent – Comment using your mind
3. Be good – Comment following the rules
4. Be smart – Comment incorporating Google’s suggestions

Since most of you are regular and professional bloggers, you probably live by most of these suggestions on a daily basis.
However, this might turn out to be a gold mine for new bloggers, if you add your suggestions and tips in the comments.

10 Tips to Becoming a Successful Blogger

Comment From Your Heart

When you comment, don’t do it for the sake of the free bonuses that you’ll be receiving.
Comment to share your thoughts and views, or your heartfelt feelings.
In order to do so, you’ll need to complete two tasks:
· Read the entire post on the blog.
· Read or scan through the previous comments on the post.
If you don’t do these tasks, your comment will never be complete and you’ll not do justice to the post. That’s because either your comment will not be completely relevant, not to the point, or you might end up repeating something, which doesn’t look nice.
Obviously, doing it all takes time, but it’s surely worth it.

I’m sure if you comment from your heart, you’ll not try to restrict yourself in number of lines or words. You’ll genuinely try to complement the post with all that it takes.
It fills my heart when visitors heartily discuss the issues of the post in their comments on my blog, which makes it so valuable because they’ve taken out their precious time to add their thoughts and feelings.

When I comment on a blog, I intend and wish it all the success. Such positive attitude helps creates positive vibes, and other bloggers too learn that blogging is all about helping each other.
Following up your comment on a blog is also a good thing to do. It helps you create a dialog and put your point across more candidly, and create more value!
You create an image or reputation among bloggers with your commenting style to get noticed in the crowd, and your blog is linked along with your popularity as a commenter.
For example, I’m not in any way boasting, but I’m a little known for my long comments, and almost everybody knows that I’m from Aha!NOW. Isn’t that free publicity you achieve through blog commenting?
Though you don’t have to necessarily write long comments like me, but make sure its substantial and of substance.
Even when it comes to answering the comments to your guest posts on others’ blogs, be generous, friendly, and helpful.
The blogger has given you an opportunity and opened the window to its faithful readers. You on your part should respect that gesture and interact soulfully with those who comment there.
This would only help you create a good image of yourself, and help you to make new contacts and friends.

Comment Using Your Mind

You should never comment just as a formality. Instead, try to make your comment complete and sensible.
There are commenter’s who just write anything and expect the comment to be approved. On my blog, I’d rather prefer that such people don’t comment at all, or I just have to trash their comments.
What I prefer receiving through the comments of my readers is their rich knowledge and experience. Similarly, what I like to do when I comment is give my 2 cents.

Here are some questions that cross my mind as part of my thought process while writing a comment:
· Have I answered all the questions put forth in the post?
· Do I agree or disagree with the content of the post, and have I expressed the reasons thereof?
· Is there any special effort on the part of the blogger that needs appreciation?
· Does the post deliver anything of value, if yes – then have I thanked the blogger for it?
· Did I share my personal experiences relating to the topic of the post, if I know any?
· What are “my 2 cents”, and have I explained it thoroughly to make the post meaningful.
· Lastly, do I have any specific question to ask regarding the post?
So, I guess now you know the reasons for my long comments.
Shouldn’t they be complete in all respects?
I personally value blog comments because whenever I do a research, besides the post content, I like to go through its comments, as I find the personal experiences mentioned there are often helpful.
One thing that I noticed on my blog is that some commenter’s simply copy the comments that others made and paste them as their own. Whenever I suspect such foul play, I check for plagiarism in the comments.
As for you, I’d suggest to always be original, make your comment relevant, and never spam. Just share what you feel about the post with others – be you, and use your own voice!
You don’t have to be an Einstein to analyze the post and write your comment! Blogging is about journaling your thoughts and experiences, so just let your comment fulfill that requirement.

Comment Following The Rules

Every blog has some said or unsaid commenting rules.
You need to check if there are any specific rules for commenter’s to follow on the blog.
In fact, there’s a general code of conduct that is obvious and known as commenting common sense or etiquettes, such as:.

· Use your Gravatar image.
· Use ONLY the root domain of your blog in the URL field.
· Write your real name in the name field.
Now, tell me honestly – how many times do you get visitors that don’t follow any or some of these basic guidelines.

I get plenty of such comments and it becomes a headache to correct or remove such entries.
Most bloggers don’t like that you link the comment to your company’s site, page, or product.
Other thing to take care is not to include any site links in the comment if the blogger doesn’t allow it, as that is generally seen as an overly aggressive content promotion.
Also, try to format your comment according to the comment styles of the blog if possible. At any cost, avoid grammar and spelling mistakes.
I particularly don’t like people starting the comment using small alphabets, using mobile texting style, not using punctuation marks, not giving proper spaces between the sentences or paragraphs, and other little things.

So, always proof read your comments, and break it into many small comprehensible parts for clear and immediate understanding.
I believe the commenter should be as careful while commenting as he or she would be when commenting on his or her own blog.
Not to mention, you should not be bad or rude in your comment even if you don’t agree with the post. There are civilized and sober ways of disagreeing and expressing your discontentment.

Comment as Per Google’s Suggestions

You all know how much Google is trying to reduce the webspam, and Matt Cutts has even expressed concerns over the misuse of blog commenting by the link baiters, spammers, and SEO professionals.
You should avoid letting unknown blogs and sites put a keyword-rich anchor word in the name field of the comments box, or in the content of the comment.

I’m sure you’d not want to risk linking out to sites that use spam and black hat techniques to influence their ranking. If you’re not careful, Google might even penalize you for facilitating such links.
As a word of caution, I would also suggest not to comment on blogs that don’t show any recent activity, don’t have quality blog posts, and are suspicious of using malpractices.

Of course, I also use the Broken Link Checker plugin to inform me if any links in the comments have expired or gone bad, so I can repair or remove them.

Although it is stated that Google prefers you to comment on blogs of your own niche, but I don’t always follow that – on this front, relations are more important to me than my Google or Alexa rank!
But commenting on same niche blogs would help you develop an authority for yourself and your blog.

Some of My Blog Commenting Secrets

I’m going to share what many bloggers know but don’t really follow.
· I’m usually one of the first few commenters’ on select blogs. I’m sure that’s nothing new for most readers of this blog as you tend to see me right on top and have often asked me about it too.
Like I always say that the time zone plays in my favor here, so I guess I get lucky at times to be among the first few to comment on various blogs.
But this also helps me because it increases the chances of bringing more traffic back to my blog. Wouldn’t you also want that?
· I’ve opted for RSS feeds on my Feedly and subscribed to the email newsletters of a few bloggers.
Why do I do that? This helps me to keep a record of the blogs where I need to comment without fail, and the email notification helps me to be one of the first commenter’s on that blog!
· I share the posts I comment on in the social media. If the blog has CommentLuv and the blogger offers the social media buttons through it, then I use them to get DoFollow backlinks.
What different does it make?
Well, with the recent Google updates, most bloggers have made their comment backlinks as NoFollow. So, it’s wise to go for the DoFollow links through CommentLuv, provided the blogger offers this option.

And That’s Not All!

I would conclude by saying that blog commenting is an excellent blog promotion strategy. It’s free just like the social media, but I feel it’s more effective to develop relationships than anything else.
When you comment on other blogs, generally those blog owners reciprocate by commenting on your blog too. So that creates engagement and brings traffic to your blog.
Remember that you don’t develop relationships over a single comment. You need to frequently visit a blog and interact with the blogger through your comments to build a relationship, which happens only with time and patience.
If you can’t remember all the blogs you want to comment on, and then make a list of blog communities you want to be a part of and visit them often.