Blog commenting as a link building technique has long since been an effective method for getting up that all important “inbound hyperlink count”.

However, this technique is abused probably more than any other method in the SEO “guide to building links”. Of course, this guide doesn’t really exist (OK…maybe as a torrent…LOL!).

Regardless, despite the fact that blog commenting is being used by thousands of “brainless SEOs” the world over, there are SEOs that use it wisely and effectively…and they do so by following a few simple rules which I am about to lay bare in this “tell all” post about link building using blog commenting.

So here we go.

1. Rule Number One. Link to relevant pages. This is a must. All web pages that are worth their salt are human edited with respect to their comments and if you leave a comment on that page just because you found it using the search terms in this post, unless its relevant to he page you are linking to, you’re just wasting your time.Comment on pages relevant to the page you are linking to!!! At least make sure they are semantically relevant, meaning, the keywords on the page that you are linking to are relevant to the keywords on the page that you are linking from.
2. Rule Number Two. Add value to the page you are commenting on. This is a must. Your comment has to be relevant to the article and not like any of these. Automated comments that simply drop a comment on a web page using software and where the commenter never visits the page and actually reads the post are DOOMED TO FAILURE. Yes, they are DOOMED TO FAILURE. I realize that automated blog commenting as a link building technique sounds “cool” and/or “romantic” from an SEO standpoint, but please understand…you are “shooting yourself in the foot” by doing this. The links aren’t worth anything…they don’t last…the pages that accept them decay into nothingness and you end up paying for software that is worthless. Trust me on this one.
3. Rule Number Three. Let the site owner get used to you. The best way to get your comments approved is to get the site owner use to seeing you and in many cases, this means leaving relevant comments that actually don’t link to anything or that link just to your homepage, you know, before you try deep linking. This is important.
4. Rule Number Four. Get yourself a copy of SEOQuake. I can’t say enough about this plugin for Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome (It is not available for Internet Explorer because IE sucks so badly). SEOQuake is the key to making your blog commenting efforts count by helping you to find highly trusted pages to comment on using the techniques in this post. SeoQuake is really the bread-and-butter of any blog commenting campaign and should be used wisely. Personally, I like to turn everything off except for Google PR. Then I find a blog that links out using CommentLuv or KeywordLuv and then type “site:http://www.sitename.com/”. Then I sort by descending by decreasing PR and start reading. Remember, leave relevant comments and link to relevant sites. Don’t leave cheezy one liners. They SUCK and nobody like them or YOU if you leave them and remember, don’t use automated commenting software…just DON’T…trust me on this one.

Bonus Section: Recently, TheBitBot.Com has been retooled into a very SEO-friendly site. We have recently re-enabled both the CommentLuv and KeywordLuv WordPress plugins as a means of rewarding top-notch SEOs that have what it takes to provide us with legit “re-pings” and noteworthy UGC (you should know what that means). As you probably know, both CommentLuv and KeywordLuv remove the “nofollow” attribute inherent to WordPress outbound comment links. By enabling these plugins, we have essentially made all of our outbound comment links “dofollow”.

What will this do for webmasters? Simple. It will give them plenty of opportunities to build relevant links to relevant clients.

How?

Again, as you may or may not know, TheBitBot.Com is now an article directory that covers a large variety of topics whereas it was only an SEO blog before. The increased diversity is terms of subject matters means more opportunities to add value to pages on a more diverse swath of subjects and more opportunities to be rewarded for doing so.

Interestingly, the SEO environment in the post-Panda and post-Penguin virtual world has left many SEOs befuddled as to how to proceed. Rest assured, the fundamentals are still in place and as strong as ever.

And the fundamentals are:

1. Top notch content. You have to write authority posts and lots of them. Make some of them available for syndication, but not all of them. This is important.
2. Inbound links. Whether they are natural or synthetic, inbound links are a must and they are what Google looks for DURING a webpage honeymoon period…and each webpage has its own…just FYI.
3. A lead capture form on every page. Honestly. You can’t afford not to have this and neither can I…I admit this freely.

(Sidenote: If you are new to this game, I highly recommend reading all of the posts you can find on Ana Hoffman’s Traffic Generation Cafe. Anna does a great job of teaching you exactly what you need to know to be a successful internet marketer. Pay close attention to how she brands her persona.)

So how can you find relevant pages to comment on on TheBitBot.Com. Well, I’m glad you asked because we have gone through great pains to set this up properly.

As you may or may not know, I am a big fan of Google Custom Search Engines. Many respected sites use them for onsite search and they are a great way to control which pages on your website show up in search results and which ones don’t.

Truth be told, most pages on website are junk. Examples of junk pages are: archive pages, category pages, tag pages, search pages…the list goes on and on. What really blows is the fact that Google lists tons of these types of pages in search results because of the fact that webmaster don’t tag them as nofollow/noindex when they should be. Any why should they be you ask? Simple. They are dynamic pages. The content they host always changes. This means that if someone searches for a keyword or phrase and Google serves it to them as being on that page, then odds are, the results served such as on http://yourblog.com/page/2/ have already rolled on to http://youblog.com/page/3/.

What happens next? The person doesn’t find what they want, they bounce, and they essentially tell Google that they didn’t find what they needed on your site…Just FYI…that’s bad for you site metrics.

So, that being said, we nave noindexed all of our “category”, “tag”, “page”, “search”, and “?s=” pages in the engine. This means that any search term you type in the search function in the upper right hand corner of this site will yield only relevant pages that contain the actual and immediate information that you are looking for.

You’re welcome.

So in short remember these points:

1. Find high PR pages using SEOQuake.
2. Actually read the article. Otherwise, what’s the point?
3. Leave relevant comments that add value to the page…no cheezy one liners.
4. Link to relevant sites that complement the topic of the post or article.
5. Avoid automated commenting software. Its days are seriously limited.

And that’s basically it. Got it? Lets do this. Now get out there and build some real links!

Mark Thomas

Mark is the Administrator of TheBitBot.Com News Articles For Ezines and Chief Editor of the TBB SEO Newsletter. Writes. Scripts. Hacks. Cracks. Re-Writes. Mods. Practices SEO of ALL shades. Has Some “VERY SMART” Friends Boldly Experiments. Publishes. Moderates. Trains. Explains. Pursues Three Important Careers Simultaneously. If you are interested in submitting a guest post with us then simply [ click here ] and sign up for a free account. Then simply submit your guest post there.