How to Abuse and Effectively Use Blog Link Strategies November 10, 2006
Posted by Andrew Wee in : blogging , trackbackMost of the traffic to this blog is generated from blog comments and forum postings.
I’ll focus on blog comments today.
There are a number of misguided bloggers and website owners out there who believe that posting spam comments on a blog will help their SEO and traffic efforts.
It’s easy to identify these comments as they’d usually be preceded with a generic comment like: “Fun and interesting site” or “This is a good site” before ending off with a hyperlink to their own site.
The newer practitioners of this tactics will attempt to manually copy and paste the comment in the comments area of a blog post.
The sophisticated blog comment spammer will attempt to use software to automate the process. Some of this software is available for as little as $1, though I feel its still $1 going down the drain.
Neither way works, especially if the blogger has enabled comment moderation and/or has their own software in place like Akismet or Spam Karma.
What does blog comment spam look like?
In the “comments for moderation” section of your blog, comments like:
These two examples above are definitely due for the trash bin as soon as I see them.
Does that mean that pulling traffic from blog comments are a fruitless exercise?
It will be, unless your comments have the following characteristics:
- Comments provide content: Just as blog posts provide content to the readers, so too can blog comments. Look at: WordPress plugin Adsense Beautifier comments
There is a dialogue for installing the plugin, and the users discuss how the plugin can be best installed, maintained, etc. This adds to the original content.
- Comments prolong the conversation: In the context of a 400 to 800 word post, a blogger has to crystallize his or her main points. And comments help direct the conversation further, especially in an area which the reader is specifically interested in. The beauty of a two-way conversation allows readers to get further information or clarify any points they have in mind.
- Comments build a sense of community: If you’re a regular visitor to a blog like Darren Rowse’s ProBlogger blog and you feel strongly about a post like: Elite Retreat you’d be likely to respond to the post. And if the blogger responds to your post, whether in support or rebutting it, you’d feel a sense of two-way communication.
I like how Darren Rowse has expressed some of these points in his:
Popularity: 26%
Text Blog feed
Hi Andrew,
I clicked on the link in Darren’s Comment Policy to get here. New to blogging, I recently started participating in an art blog called Art & Perception. It’s a real artsy intellectual kinda blog with a strong anti commerce bias among the participants. I do not share that opinion. I’m all for promotion. Marketing makes the world spin.
So I’ve been really checking out blog sites that have worthwhile things to say on the subject of marketing and promotion. You certainly do. Thank you.
It is beginning to look like the number one way to promote is, “Have something to say on other people’s sites while making sure one’s own continues to have interesting content.”