How to comment for SEO

June 1, 2012 by 14 Comments

Comments have been on the decline for a while.  People still read the stuff, people still visit, but they just don’t comment like they used to.  Instead, they’ll share it on Facebook or Twitter or even Google Plus (see those little icons up above?)

Yet Comments are still fabulous.  Comments make me giddy as a school girl.  Comments are conversation.  They are the start of a possible relationship.

I see three types of comments that happen here.

1.  The real ones, from real people, taking the time to discus real things.

2.  The sort of real ones, from real people but just adding a small generic sentence or two.  If you look at the their name it’s a link to their website.  That’s what they really left a comment for – they are trying to get people to go back to their site.  Inbound links back to their site, follow vs nofollow, and other items are all an SEO tactic to build their site.

3.  The total spammers.  They have links back to their site in their comments as well.

It’s easy to see the difference between the three.  I see them all, you don’t.  I run a comment management system (Thank you Disqus) that eliminates the #3.  It does allow the #2 but I will sometimes edit or delete them.

I’d love you to comment on this blog post, I’d love you to share it via the icons, and I’d love to send traffic back to your site as a way of thanking you for taking the time to do so.  Commenting is a great way to drive traffic back to your site but you have to do it write (pun intended).

Rand is one of the smartest SEO people I know.  Here’s a great video he did on using commenting as a SEO tactic.  Plain english, simple instructions.  Take 5 and watch this.

Next step up from a comment would be a guest post.  Want to write a post or two or ten?  Read the Guest Post Guidelines.

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Mike Mueller

Mike builds the custom Apps that create the Tabs that make Custom Facebook Pages special. He also builds WordPress Blogs. He's an avid hockey fan, rides a mountain bike and a motorcycle (a really fast one), loves strong beer and good red wine.
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  • Angelo Davis

    Mike, the video is acting strange on ie. Cannot play and also is covering some of your text.

    • http://AreWeConnected.com mikemueller

      Thanks for the head up Angelo! Just tried viewing it IE 9 and not logged in to see what it looked like – here’s what I see… http://twitpic.com/9rnqts Can you do a screen shot of what you are seeing?

  • http://blog.mdsuburbanhomes.com/ Ken Montville

    Great post. Ooops. I wasn’t supposed to say that.

    It’s amazing how comment spam has evolved over time. It uses to be gobbeldy gook, than nonsense, now people actually try to make it relevant but it’s not quite all there. I spend lots of time deleting spam comments.

    On the other hand, I want to be able to acknowledged a good post without necessarily going into a long comment breaking apart the post for all the cool nuggets.

    • http://AreWeConnected.com mikemueller

      Ken – It really is amazing. I guess everything changes, eh?
      I remember back in the early days of ActiveRain. It was unheard of to see the infamous “Nice post. Bookmarked for later”.

      I’ll argue that for the first or second time commenter, they really need to add something of value to the conversation. With a little quality comment history on their side they can pop in with the occasional “Nice Post” and leave it at that.

      Using you as an example, I am constantly humbled by your taking the time to ‘quality comment’ here as well as the other places we frequent on the internet. I think of it as an extension of The Wuffie Factor. You’ve got a ton of Wuffie in the bank! Thank you! :)

  • http://FlanaganRealty.com/ Jim Flanagan

    Mike,

    I know there is no such thing as a dumb question, so here goes; how does one create/maintain an avatar and where? I seem to remember something with wordpress.com and I see Disqus alot, and now I see your “connect with” icons below. any direction would be appreciated.

    Thank you,

    Jim

    • http://AreWeConnected.com mikemueller

      That’s a great question Jim – actually what you want to do is go setup an account at Gravatar http://en.gravatar.com/ the profile pics you see below and most everywhere else on the internet are Gravatar driven.
      When I comment on other blogs that don’t have disqus, I enter my email and their backend looks to Gravatar for a corresponding email – if it finds one, bingo! There’s a avatar.

      Does that help?

      • http://FlanaganRealty.com/ Jim Flanagan

        Mike,

        Yes, it does. Thank you. Right after I asked, I created this profile on Disqus. I will see if I have a Gravatar account already. If not, I now know what to do.

  • http://twitter.com/OakvilleOntario jennykotulak re/max

    I had to chuckle about your reference to Active Rain. I got so sick of those “great post” comments. Silly people would do the same ten comments a day to get their points. As for the total spammers I now make sure I am able to moderate any comments on my blogs and websites to stop those bad guys. I’ve also noticed that my Facebook seems to be a little quieter lately and friends aren’t posting as much. Maybe it’s the nice weather or we are just out making money.

    • http://AreWeConnected.com mikemueller

      Was the AR reference that obvious? ;)
      Double Kudos to you Jenny for commenting! Makes me giddy!
      With scholls just getting out – yes it’s pretty quiet out there.

  • http://210consulting.com/ Jeremy Blanton

    So is this where I should say: Great Post! Keep up the good work!?!? :)

  • http://abdallahalhakim.tumblr.com/ Abdallah Al-Hakim

    The type of people that you call ‘sort of real’ ones are in many cases trying to indicate that they read the post and appreciated it. This small contribution is still more valuable (at least to me) than just liking or retweeting/reblogging the post. The SEO part of commenting is an important value to being engaged, however, I also engage with conversations because of my interests in discovering interesting conversations and people. Disqus is one way to find good conversations and follow people and it works even better when combined with my other social conversations that are organized within the Engagio platform (full disclosure – I work at Engagio).

  • http://www.dougfrancis.com/ DougFrancis

    I often feel old-school leaving comments since people these days, it seems, feel that contributing is giving someone a “like”. Your comment about getting excited over comments is so true because, just this morning, I left a comment on an “influencer’s” blog and he responded back quickly… kind of like an excited kid!

    • http://AreWeConnected.com mikemueller

      Doug – you just got me all giddy as well!
      and yes, I know exactly what you mean by old school.

  • Bruno Morejon

    At the moment I have just one thing to say: Great video! Sorry :)