Website Promotion – Blog Commenting Part 2
In Blog Commenting Part 1, I discussed finding active, relevant blogs that will bring you initial traffic and in most cases, indexing.
Now we are going to discuss all other methods of blog commenting as well as a few tricks which will help in your link building campaign. There are actually 2 more steps, but I will be covering those in this post.
For the next phase, we are going to look for blogs that are dofollow as these comment links will count with Google. There are a number of free and paid tools you can use for finding dofollow blogs. Let's take a look at a few.
CommentHunt.com is a free search engine that will help find dofollow blogs. Simply enter your search term and it will find blogs on your topic.
You can also go to Google Images and do a search for "U Comment I Follow" (with quotes) and it will bring up sites (most likely blogs) with these images. There are also a number of dofollow blog lists online. Just do a quick Google search for dofollow blog list and you will find many to choose from.
There are also a number of paid tools that will find dofollow blogs and if you are serious about using blog commenting in your link building campaigns, I highly recommend investing in one of these tools at some point. My favorite has to be Fast Blog Finder. It has more features and is cheaper than most all of the other tools. You can grab a free trial for Fast Blog Finder and take it for a spin here.
Here are just a few features that Fast Blog Finder can do:
- search the Internet for blogs that accept comments using the keywords or keyword phrases
- determine the domain and blog page PR
- determine the type of blog page ("dofollow" or "nofollow")
- show the quantity of outgoing links on the page
- post comments on the blogs directly from the program (not a spam tool)
- load your own lists of blogs and determine the blog type
- create folders and sub-folders to sort blogs lists
- contains a built-in spell checker for the Comments box
- submit the pages that you comment on to social media sites
- add blog domains to the blacklist and exclude them from search results
- export blog lists to different file formats
- reduce to minimum your time for finding themed blogs and submitting comments to them
- dramatically increase search engines and human traffic to your web sites
- boost your natural search engine rankings
- gain dozens (if not hundreds) of high quality backlinks to your websites
- instantly get the search engine spiders to your web sites and get your sites indexed naturally
As you can see, it has quite a few features that would take a lot of time to do manually. Don't get me wrong, it doesn't do anything that you can't do for yourself, it just saves a lot of time and is something you might want to consider either now or in the future.
Now for the tips. You will also want to find blogs with the Top Commentators plugin. You can do this easily by searching for it in quotes on Google. If you want to be niche specific do your search like this: "Top Commentators"+"your niche" It will not matter if these blogs are nofollow or dofollow. You are going to want to leave 2 or 3, maybe even more, quality comments on these blogs. When you do and you are listed as one of the top commentors, your link is normally dofollow and many times, it is from the front page.
Last but certainly not least, there is one more very important thing you will want to do when leaving blog comments. Add the pages where your comments appear to social bookmarking sites. I will talk more about social bookmarking in another post very soon, but this is something you should do for every comment you leave that gets approved.
Some of you may be asking why you would want to bookmark a page on someone else's (even a competitor's) site. I am going to try my best to explain and hope that you will see the benefit.
Let's say you just left a comment on a dofollow blog post. That's great, you just gained a backlink. But if the page the post is on is not ranked, has no traffic or even worse maybe not even indexed, it may be of very little value to you. The simplest way to combat this is submit it to some of the top social bookmarking sites using a tool like SocialMarker.com.
This benefits you in several ways. First, even if the site is a busy one, it will have the bots crawling all over that particular post and the comments. In turn, it brings them once again to your site. As well, you just never know - the post you submit may just become very popular on one of these sites and attract a huge amount of visitors. If these visitors read the entire page including the comments (most will), and you have left an intelligent, thoughtful comment, these visitors are likely to click through to your site. Trust me, this happens more often than you could possibly imagine.
So yes, you are helping out the other site owner by giving their post a few backlinks, but the benefit to you can be much greater. And it only takes a minute or two.
The other way it benefits you is that social bookmarking sites do not like it when you only bookmark your own urls. In many cases, doing so can get your account suspended or deleted. This way, you mix it up a little by adding other sites to your lists. And the best part is that the page you are submitting is not your url, but it still has your link on it. Some may call it a bit sneaky, I call it working smart.
Do this enough times and you will be pleasantly surprised with the results. You will end up with a lot of high quality backlinks and you should definitely be pleasantly rewarded with the effort you have put in.
I will have one more post in this series that will come in the next day or so as I think this is enough to digest for one day. Have fun commenting and as always, I would appreciate your thoughts.
Digg This! | Add To Del.icio.us (0) | Stumble It!
About the Author: 
Website-design-india (1 comments.) | Jan 6, 2009 | Reply
your tips are useful. but i want to know do commenting do follow blogs really work or not? I heard that google gives less value to comment links. do u have any idea?
Melissa | Jan 6, 2009 | Reply
Great question! Google has it’s own scoring system for every kind of link. The heaviest weight is given to content links. In other words, when a site links to you in their page content. Sidebar links and links coming from a page that is specifically setup for links hold the least value. But they are still counted. Comment links are valued less than content links, but usually better than sidebar links or links from a “links” page. Comment links seem to hold more weight when they are placed on a related site.
Short answer is yes, they do work. Even if it holds a little less value than a content link, it is still a backlink to your site. Sometimes it’s only a matter of a few backlinks that can mean the difference from the #10 and #1 position on Google for your chosen keyword. Not to mention the traffic that can come just from leaving comments. Just something for you to think about.
This could easily get into a quality vs quantity issue. Of course you want to aim for high quality backlinks from authority sites as these can make a huge difference. You don’t need near as many to achieve the results you are looking for. But it never hurts to have the lesser quality links pointing to your site as well since they can still help place you on the first page of results for your keyword.
In my opinion, it is most definitely worth pursuing and scheduling a little time each week for. Hope this helps.
James from Discount Codes (3 comments.) | Jan 7, 2009 | Reply
Wow, you’re far too SEO savvy for my liking
. I’ve been using Fast Blog Finder for about 6 months now and the Top Commentators method you described never even occurred to me. Thanks again.
Jamess last blog post..Marks and Spencers New Year 09 Deals
Cashmere Lashkari (1 comments.) | Jan 8, 2009 | Reply
Hi, have recently got my own blog going and am very thankful for your articles. They teach me a lot.
Cashmere Lashkaris last blog post..Bargain Shoe Shops: Berry, Dawar, Ideal and Chor Baba
Mira from Custom Tablecloth (1 comments.) | Jan 8, 2009 | Reply
I have used the top commentator position to increase my backlinks and it did help for a short while. Then the PR dropped again.
Melissa | Jan 8, 2009 | Reply
Thanks so much and please let me know if there is anything I can ever help you with. I wish you much success with your new blog!
Melissa | Jan 8, 2009 | Reply
Hi Mira,
That is one of the downsides to using the top commentator method. A person has to keep track of the blogs that use it and remember to comment on them either weekly or monthly, depending on when the plugin resets. If you are diligent in going back and commenting, the links will remain beneficial and PR should remain at least the same.
James Wheelock from Eagle Springs (7 comments.) | Jan 11, 2009 | Reply
I am a bit concerned that commenting on “do follow” blogs will become a waste of time. My reasoning behind this is that so many people are running around spamming on theme again and that it would be ever so easy for Google or the other SEs to make a simple change to their algos that could down grade or eliminate the value of comment links. As all of the major blogging platforms display these links in a similer manner.
Add to this the huge rise in spam comments I am getting on my blogs as of late. I have no problem giving links to those that add to the discussion or bring something of value to my blog. However, these types of comments are by no means the majority in fact I get 3 times the spam comments.
I would like to hear everyones take on this issue.
James Wheelocks last blog post..Humble Carnival
Melissa | Jan 12, 2009 | Reply
At some point, what you have said will become reality. Unfortunately, that is the nature of the internet.
Spammers have a tendency to exploit the crap out of what is working at the time by using extreme measures. Google and others become wise to what they are doing and change their algos in response.
This has been the name of the “game” basically since the internet hit mainstream. And also why so many techniques that used to skyrocket you to the top of the search engine results are no longer effective.
The sad news is that it leaves honest people scrambling to find a new solution and the spammers are usually already 2 steps ahead.
By the same token, I believe blog commenting will always be an effective tool for branding and gaining traffic. Reason why is that when you leave great comments that add to the discussion or add value to the blog, visitors become curious about you and will click over to your site. If they enjoy what they see, they will become a subscriber or a buyer. The same holds true if they see your name everywhere, especially if it is in the same niche.
In this case, it will not matter if the blog is dofollow or nofollow. Working this way can often lead to others linking to you without you having to ask for the link, others may write about you, friends will tell friends, some will want to joint venture with you, etc. And all of this happens a lot more than you can imagine. It just opens up a whole new world of possibilities.
Sure, none of us want to feel like we’re “wasting our time”. Depending on the niche, backlinks are crucial to SE results. However, traffic is the lifeblood of your business. Without it, your website will not survive.
And I agree, spam comments can definitely be a problem. The bulk majority of mine come from a bot. Anymore, it is rarely a human being. Like you, I have no problem linking to people who add to the site.
Great discussion starter and I hope more people join in.
Ozgur Akkur (1 comments.) | Jan 16, 2009 | Reply
Thanks for sharing
Best Regards from Turkey!
Charles from Las Vegas Homes (1 comments.) | Jan 21, 2009 | Reply
I just downloaded and installed the free trial. So far I’m not that impressed with it. It seems to find far more nofollow blogs that it does dofollow. Another thing I noticed is that after I installed it, certain sites running bad behaivor are blocking me. I think its listed on its suspicious software list. Anyone else run into this?
I agree about commenting opening up a line of communication with others. I’ve ended up with far more links by getting to know other bloggers than by just commenting for commenting’s sake.
Charless last blog post..Looking at the Las Vegas Real Estate Market
Melissa | Jan 23, 2009 | Reply
Wow, I’m so sorry you had that experience with it. I have never run into the problem with Bad Behavior before. However, it is definitely possible that it has triggered something within the plugin. From what I hear, the spamming community has jumped all over this software, which was not the case just a few months ago. Of course, I’m sure some have used it without scruples ever since it came out, but if what I mentioned is true, then it would explain the reason for blocking.
Please go ahead and uninstall the software and I will take the recommendation out of the post in the morning. Honestly, if you are running into this problem, then we will all run into it eventually. If it’s being abused then it soon won’t be beneficial to anyone. A shame because it was a great time saving piece of software. Thank you so much for pointing this out to me.
Exactly. This is one of the hardest points to get across to people – especially new bloggers. Nearly all comments and links will be approved when you take a minute or so to get to know the person or leave a meaningful comment. Best of luck to you!
Richard from Under Cabinet Lighting (1 comments.) | Jan 26, 2009 | Reply
This is a great way to find blogs that offer do follow links. I would also recommend searching for blogs with the keywordluv feature as many of them are do follow as well.
ajay from sitecore (1 comments.) | Jan 28, 2009 | Reply
hi.
That tips are great, thank you ..
I love your blog…
thank you again carry on…
Christian Counseling (4 comments.) | Jan 29, 2009 | Reply
Great post thank you it seems nice way to find blogs that use do follow links , nice plugin..
thank you keep sharing things..
ajay from Design competition (1 comments.) | Jan 31, 2009 | Reply
Hi, Thats very useful information, i hope this is going to boost the position of my website….
thanks for the post….
Melissa | Feb 1, 2009 | Reply
Thanks. Yes, if you take action – even it is a little every day or every few days, you will see positive results. Best of luck to you!
ajay from design competition (1 comments.) | Feb 2, 2009 | Reply
Melissa Thank you very much for your kind reply.. I hope you will continue to share such great ideas with us in future also..
James Wheelock from Humble Homes (1 comments.) | Feb 4, 2009 | Reply
I hate spammers! And I cannot wait until Google and the other SEs are able to remove link building from the algos. I enjoy commenting on blogs so this was a great method for link building because I actually enjoyed doing so. But, now I am almost sure that by mid 2009 it will not be worth our while as an SEO tactic. Add to this that some markets have very few blogs so building traffic from comments on blogs is not going to be all that helpful. Oh, well that is how things tend to go.
James Wheelocks last blog post..Atascocita Meadows
Melissa | Feb 4, 2009 | Reply
I agree, I hate spammers too. In some respects, blog commenting has already been affected. It’s hard to say if or when, link building will ever be taken out of the algos. It is already down to getting more quality links. What they are looking for are links within the content of the page.
One of the best ways to do this is to approach another blogger in your niche and ask them to write an article for you and include their link and offer to write one for them and include yours. As well, you can post a request for guest bloggers or become a guest blogger on another blog. These “content” links are some of the most quality links you can get and will help you the most.
Eren from Christian Homemaking Encouragement (3 comments.) | Feb 6, 2009 | Reply
Hi Melissa,
You’re offering some great advice here. Most people don’t understand the whole help others and you will be helped also philosophy. Obviously you understand that =)
I’m going to stumble this post because it offers quality advice on how to help others in their businesses.
I thought also of another handy and free tool I learned about. It’s a software called Comment Kahuna.
Works great but you do have to check because sometimes the results are not completely accurate. But it does help weed out the no follow blogs saving us time.
All the best,
Eren
Erens last blog post..Fresh Homemade Lemonade Recipe: How to Make Lemonade So Great that No One Stops On the First Glass
Ankit from poster printing (1 comments.) | Feb 9, 2009 | Reply
Really this are nice tips and thanks for sharing it.
scs from skype (1 comments.) | Feb 11, 2009 | Reply
Does the date of the post you are commenting on matter?
That is — let’s say all else is equal and you have one post from 2009 and another from 2005. Does Google see the backlink you left on the 2009 post as somehow more valuable?
scss last blog post..First Look At The Kindle 2
Melissa | Feb 13, 2009 | Reply
In all honesty, it seems that Google follows and indexes the comments on a newer post before the older post. I don’t know about it being more valuable. Some of that will depend on the age of the page, how long it has been since the content has been updated, etc. Though if it was a popular post on the blog at one time, it could have a decent PR. Most of the time, it is worth going ahead and leaving a comment.
However, if you can’t even find the post in the index, I don’t know how much the link is actually going to help you. This is one of those things that lies in a “gray” area. You will just need to use your best judgement. I hope this helps and if you have further questions, please let me know.
Text Exchange (1 comments.) | Feb 16, 2009 | Reply
Very good information that you are sharing here thank your. I have also found that advertising exchanges can be quite helpful as well. An example of a good one is linked in my name. I don’t think people should use automated posters though, as they tend to get spammy.
Thanks
Melissa | Feb 16, 2009 | Reply
Yes, there are some ad exchange sites can be worth pursuing. Though your success with those mediums depend on what niche you are targeting. Thanks for sharing.
chapter 13 bankruptcy (1 comments.) | Feb 18, 2009 | Reply
Thank you for the info. i’m looking forward to the additional valuable information here. thank you
Aakash from Credit Debt Settlement (1 comments.) | Feb 18, 2009 | Reply
Really it is great idea and tips are really nice and thanks for sharing it.
Terry from CharlotteRealEstate (1 comments.) | Mar 2, 2009 | Reply
Great post for anyone serious about building backlinks- I’m working on building backlinks to both my website and blog, http://www.charlottecommunitesonline.com, and will go get the Fast Blog Finder- that will save loads of time. Thanks again for your good work. I’ve already Stumbled this post and I think you are absolutely right about the Social Bookmarking sites too.
Melissa | Mar 2, 2009 | Reply
Best of luck to you. Would love to hear how everything works out for you.
Jeff from Tampa Movers (3 comments.) | Mar 12, 2009 | Reply
Melissa, I just found your blog and this is only the 4th of your posts I have read but I must say that you have great content. I have read many SEO/blog related blogs and you still managed to mention some things I had never seen anywhere else or thought of on my own. Your idea (in another post) about using spam as material for evaluating niches was very smart and in this post I liked that you suggested using image search rather than web search. Also the SocialMarker technique is very innovative too. It’s a win-win because you get more traffic to the blog on which you’re commenting and you get more traffic to your own blog. If everyone did this, we would all be helping each other. Thanks for writing such great content, I will be sure to check back often.
ankit from Michelle Obama (1 comments.) | Mar 13, 2009 | Reply
Good post.
I like this post.
thanks for such a lovely post.
thank you.
Ann Marie from CHEESESLAVE (2 comments.) | Mar 18, 2009 | Reply
Another great post! I actually learn a lot not just from your posts but from the comments as well.
Thanks for such a great blog!
Ann Maries last blog post..Natural Beauty Products for Real Foodies
Melissa | Mar 22, 2009 | Reply
Thank you for the kind comment Jeff. I will have more material to post soon!
Amy from Resveratrol Supplements (1 comments.) | Mar 28, 2009 | Reply
This post is wonderful! My one quick question is have you seen a huge increase in comment spam since you started removing the no follow tag and using commentluv ( I see you’re using it)? Seems initially to me like you would have a lot more people who are only looking to drop links and not contribute to the discussion.
Melissa | Mar 29, 2009 | Reply
Hi Amy,
Honestly, in the long run, you do see more comment spam. However, I would not completely remove the no follow tag. There are a few great plugins you can use to adjust how many comments must be approved from your visitors before the no follow tag is removed. I would suggest going with something like that. At this time, I have one that requires 3 comments before the nofollow tag is removed. Just something to think about.
Tom from fiberblend (1 comments.) | Jul 20, 2009 | Reply
Nice to see some honest, refeshing advice been dished out! I have ‘dofollow’ blogs and like other commenters have been struggling a bit with spam lately – i’m not sure if I should keep it or not.
Like the chap above i think the 3 comments and then dofollow might be a way forward
Keep up the good work! thanks again
Toms last blog post..Colon Cleansing Diary 1 Week On
manoj from accident claim advice (1 comments.) | Jul 22, 2009 | Reply
Hi,
Very nice post.
I really like your post.
Thanks for such a lovely post keep sharing.
Tracy from addi turbo knitting needles (1 comments.) | Jul 27, 2009 | Reply
Be careful using programs like Fast Blog Finder. Somehow Askimet can tell you do and will place your comments in the spam folder. Even if your url is not on their list this will apply.
Vance from south texas TBI lawyer, causes of traumatic brain injury, compexities of tbi, south texas head injury lawyer (3 comments.) | Aug 7, 2009 | Reply
Hi Melissa,
Another gem of a post. It will take a while to study and absorb and even longer to implement. But there are a few questions I have right now which would be great to have answers to.
I found many so called do follow sites based on your first post on Blog Commenting. But when I check the links they are no follow for most if not all comments. The question is: Is there a certain number of comments required before a commentator gets a do follow link? What would the number be?
When bookmarking it would seem that some bookmarking sites do not want one to bookmark the main page. I always wondered why.
Please keep up the good work. I’m so glad I discovered you through my friend Brian G Johnson. I’m lucky to know of people like you and him.
Ruri from Free article directory (8 comments.) | Aug 12, 2009 | Reply
I try commenthunt. This one is cool tools. Similar like DoFollow Diver, this one is tool I use.
However for fast blog finder. I try this before and I think this cool is not user friendly.
Webplore (1 comments.) | Oct 29, 2009 | Reply
Nice tips just came across your blog felt lucky to read your blog, keep posting.
DoFollow Forum (1 comments.) | Dec 26, 2009 | Reply
Nice to see original content for once on a blog ! super
Click Here (1 comments.) | Jan 5, 2010 | Reply
You have obviously done your research on this subject. You should protect your content on this site to prevent people using your content on their blog ? excellent
Johnny from Bowtrol (3 comments.) | Jan 21, 2010 | Reply
Great tips here! I’ve never heard of CommentHunt.com, but I will be checking it out very soon.
You also nailed something that I’ve always done. Whenever I leave a comment on a blog, whether it’s dofollow or nofollow, I like to also tag it to Delicious, StumbleUpon and submit it to Reddit. As you say, what good is a backlink when nobody, including search engines, can see the page. Adding it to these social sites has always been my way of getting the page noticed, as well as my link.
Glad to see that I’m not the only one that does this. (gonna go do this now, in fact)
Bob The SR22 Insurance Guy (1 comments.) | Feb 8, 2010 | Reply
Great Blog. Just not sure why I am up at 3 a.m. reading this.
arquigrafico from bloques autocad (1 comments.) | Feb 24, 2010 | Reply
Thanks for sharing this information. Especially the commentHunt page and lookin in google images for dofollow site. Its a great trick.
Anne from Art Drying Rack (1 comments.) | Feb 25, 2010 | Reply
I stumbled on this blog looking for blogs to comment on in my niche! Clearly art and website promotion is not related! However I just want to add that this site has helped me. I learned about Comment Hut and about social bookmarking the pages that are approved. This would just add to my list of things to do – already overcrowded – but I might do it for a few of my sites on topic and related to the niche.
thanks again.
regards
anne
Web Hosting UK (7 comments.) | Apr 5, 2010 | Reply
Useful long post, i bookmarked it really worth it. I never knew blogs can be found by Google images, that quite a great tip.
Commenting on related blog is good way of building awareness among other blogs and if the site does not use the nofollow attribute, then additional backlink benefit.