Any one in the blogging community that has been trying to learn how to increase traffic “organically” – that is, without having to pay for something like Google AdWords or Facebook Ads – knows about going around to people’s blogs and commenting on them.  No, not the “nice post” or the “I agree with you” type comment that is more likely to have your comment dumped into the Askimet spam filter.  I’m talking about the thoughtful comment that indicates that you’ve actually read the blog post.

Backlinks

Part of the reason commenting on other people’s blogs is that it’s supposed to create backlinks.  However, a little known fact about commenting is that a lot of those comment boxes are NoFollow which means that the search engines are being told to specifically ignore your blog or website URL in the comment box.  Pretty sad, huh?

Yet, it’s true and it may not be the fault of the blog owner/author.  It’s a default.  So the blog owner/author has to be proactive about making the URL link a Follow link or else install a plug-in similar to CommentLuv which will search for a link to your latest blog post and, hopefully, someone will see it and click on  it.

Community

More importantly, in my book, is the sense of community that commenting on other people’s blogs build.  Hopefully, if someone is writing a good blog and the topic is interesting you’ll keep coming back and reading.  Maybe one day, you’ll buy something.  Or, maybe, you’ll just be entertained or educated or something.

Of course, the blog community is built on actual face-to-face meetings at conferences or, if you’re lucky, at things like Meetups or Tweetups where you get a chance to sit down with a fellow blogger and talk about life and what works.  If you do this enough, you end up knowing enough people that you actually can form some alliances or, dare I say, friendships that can propel your blogging career to new levels.  At a bare minimum, it can’t hurt to have another friend or someone you can have some fun with.

Commenting for the Sake of Commenting

In a recent video rant, Not a Pro Blog author and general raconteur and hilarious funnyman, Jordon Cooper held forth about the act of reciprocal commenting. I’ll comment on your blog if you comment on mine.  Jordon seems to think that this reciprocal commenting is a total waste.

I’m not so sure but I do know that if the objective is to build a blog that people like, read and follow that being a commenting slut and leaving “Nice post” all over the place doesn’t get it.  Jordon is right about one thing.  You have to be good or you have to get better.

Anyway, thanks, Jordon, for spurring me one to write another blog post about something I know a little (very little) about.

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