In my opinion, it’s all about PPC. At the same time, you can be even better at PPC if you learn other marketing opportunities and channels as well. Just last week I wrote all about offline marketing and specifically the WebEx Caltrain Station Takeover. Today, I’m excited to share one of my new blog marketing strategies: blog commenting.
Growing PPC Ian’s Traffic Base
I launched PPC Ian, my first blog ever, back in October, 2009 and it has been an amazing learning experience for sure. My marketing strategy originally revolved around my extensive network of friends on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. As the months passed, my strategy shifted to an SEO and PR one with a little PPC mixed in. My traffic stats are now at an all time high thanks to loyal readers like you! However, I’m an ambitious guy and definitely want to grow my traffic quite a bit more. Moreover, realizing that blog marketing requires a whole different skill set than my portfolio of static websites, I’m now experimenting with some new marketing strategies including blog commenting.
Why Am I Commenting On Blogs?
There are many reasons I decided to start commenting on other blogs with the following topping the list. First, I noticed my friend Jeremy from Profit Addiction commenting everywhere! In tandem, I noticed Jeremy’s traffic and comments on his blog spiking. Blog commenting seems to be a strategy working quite well for Profit Addiction so this definitely piqued my interest in running my blog commenting test.
Second, I realized that blogging is a very social phenomenon. It’s all about conversation. If you don’t participate in the conversation, you’re not going to get as much attention. I realized how important it is for me to join the conversation. This is a very different philosophy that the one I’ve historically leveraged with my portfolio of SEO websites and one of the key differences between a blog and static website, in my opinion.
Third, I realized that blog commenting is a great way to get quality inbound links to my blog. Many of the great blogs out there have a top commentors list in their sidebar or footer (meaning the list shows up on every single page of these blogs). Moreover, many of these top commentors lists are real links. Unlike links in the actual comments you make, the top commentors links do not contain nofollow tags so search engines respect these as legit links!
Fourth, and most importantly, it’s just plain fun! I’m commenting on other blogs because I very much enjoy it. There are a number of amazing blogs out there about online marketing and it’s fun to join the conversation.
Where Am I Commenting?
There are two images in this article. The first shows me as the number one top commentor on Jonathan Volk’s Blog. I’m a long time fan of JV and enjoy his blog quite a bit. If you’ve been reading my blog for a while, you may know that JV interviewed me a while back. I can always count on JV for quality posts and enjoy interacting with others on his blog. Moreover, his top commentors list gives me that great inbound link I was just discussing. I’m currently reading JV’s new eBook about Facebook advertising and hope to review it here in the coming week or so.
The image below shows one of my comments and also shows that I’m a top commentor on JohnChow.com. In the world of online marketing, JohnChow.com is a man who needs no introduction. I actually just reviewed John Chow’s Book and was also reviewed on John’s blog a while back. Like JV’s top commentor’s list, John’s also provides a quality inbound link.
Want to learn about more of the blogs which I frequently comment on? Make sure to check out my blogroll and also my post from a while back about PPC Ian’s favorite online marketing blogs.
Some Closing Thoughts
While my experiment is still in progress, I wanted to leave you with a few interesting closing thoughts. First, I must say that commenting requires time! Not too much for me at this point, but the commitment is definitely there. Longer term, I may decide to outsource some of the work if I further build out this strategy.
Second, I am already seeing some results. I’m getting direct traffic by participating in the discussions out there about online marketing. At the end of the day, that was my goal so I’m thrilled.
Third and most importantly, I wanted to call out the great fact that I’m learning. If you’re in the corporate PPC world like me, you’re probably laser focused on PPC all day long. That focus is a good thing because it creates a guru level mastery of PPC. At the same time, it leaves little room to learn other stuff. Most of my personal knowledge of SEO, email marketing, and now blogging has been self-taught. If you’re in the corporate world of online marketing, I highly recommend dabbling in a few side projects such as blogging. Your knowledge will skyrocket and will start paying dividends in your corporate career.
Images In This Post © JonathanVolk.com and JohnChow.com
Hey Ian,
Thanks for the mention! How is the commenting going for you? Are you noticing increases in traffic at all?
It’s funny that you have me beat by 1 comment on both of those pictures. Hope it is going well for you!
Jeremy
Jeremy,
Thanks for the comment! That is funny that I’m 1 comment above you in those pictures. 🙂 That probably won’t last for too long! The blog commenting is going well. I’m seeing an uptick in my traffic, especially from Johnathan Volk and John Chow’s blogs. It’s a great thing. One thing I have realized, however: I need to get a Top Commentors section on my sidebar to encourage more commenting and repeat visits on my own blog. It’s on the list and I have a long list of stuff I need to work on with my pals at Unique Blog Designs. Hoping to get some of that stuff done in the coming months. Thanks again!
All the best,
Ian
Oh look, There I am haha!
I too am experimenting with commenting. The bulk of my traffic comes direct and from referring sites. I’m also trying to build my links for the next PR update which is predicted to happen in July.
Hope all goes well!
Thanks for the comment d3so! As always, very much appreciated. That’s awesome, you’re in the screenshot, haha! PR update in July, nice to know!
All the best,
Ian
Hi Ian, Good to see you doing a good blogging. I love to read you blog.. however, the background of your blog seems eye pinching.. may be you can choose any eye soothing color… Thanks for your good post anyway..
Deepak,
Thanks for the comment! I really appreciate your honest feedback. It is something that I’ve been aware of. I wanted my design to have a very dark background and absolutely love the design. At the same time, I do realize that it can be tough on the eyes (especially on some monitors more than others). I may end up changing the background color of the posts to a shade of darker grey over time, it’s one of those things on my very long list of enhancements. Until then, I very much appreciate your persistence 🙂 and also wanted to offer my Full RSS Feed as an option as well. Thanks again Deepak, I appreciate your feedback very much!
All the best,
Ian
Great post Ian, woah am number 3 on jv’s blog. i agree with you i have been receiving some spike in traffic from Jonathan’s blog. its great.
Thanks Emmanuel,
I appreciate the comment, that’s great to hear the blog commenting strategy is working for you too! I have noticed you commenting on blogs for sure and am looking forward to checking out your blog. It’s an interesting strategy and one that has a lot of potential. Thanks again!
All the best,
Ian
I would suggest not outsourcing your commenting though because I believe part of why your strategy works is because when you comment you’re doing so as a person with years of experience in a specific field. If you turn that over to someone you pay in the Philippines $300 a month they will no doubt not have the same experiences as you and likely be adding much less to a conversation.
Don’t you think?
Hi Chris,
Thanks so much for the comment and for visiting my blog! 🙂 You bring up an excellent point. I do agree with you that there’s a big difference between a good comment coming from years of experience and a poor one that lacks substance. It’s those good comments that pique one’s interest and draw them to your blog. In sum, I must agree, especially in the context of a blog where it’s all about the author!
I think there might be one case where I’d still consider outsourcing blog comments: On some of my more generic websites. I could have my content writer assist with blog commenting as a test there (my content writer is an expert on the topics).
Chris, thanks once again! I enjoyed reading your interview over on Jonathan Volk’s blog recently and looking forward to learning all about Amazon.com’s affiliate program from you blog, in addition to other money-making strategies!
All the best,
Ian
great post! I have been implimenting this for my photoblog but I have been doing it on facebook… I’m looking to get more posts though in other photo forums, and sites! thanks for info! it gave me a few new ideas!
Kanoa,
Thanks so much for the comment, I very much appreciate it. I just checked out your blog, it’s great! Looking forward to learning more about your online marketing tests.
All the best,
Ian
I got my employee dropping links and comments to my blog on other blogs… my subscription is growing about 200 – 400% faster than when I would just post a few things here and there.
For serious though, fug the super big blogs like noobmoney and johnchou… unless you are one of the first 2-3 commenters there, nobody actually reads that.
Comment the smallest blogs – medium sized ones with under a few thousand subscribers.. = money and comments and all sorts of shiat yo.
Justin,
Thanks so much for the comment and for visiting my blog! You bring up a great point. Many of the up-and-coming smaller blogs have less commenting competition, really amazing posts, and very loyal audiences. In short, your strategy is a great one. I must also say there’s something undeniably powerful about being a top commentor on the big blogs as well!
All the best,
Ian
PS – I enjoyed your interview over on JonathanVolk.com and looking forward to checking out your blog!
Blog commenting is an asset that can’t be overlooked. While I feel it serves less of a purpose as time goes on, it is great for beginning websites or lesser known ones to get some targeted readers
Epic Traffic Systems,
You bring up a great point. While blog commenting could help any website, it really makes a big impact on newer ones like mine. It’s a great way to get the word out there. Put another way: You don’t see John Chow and Shoemoney commenting on all the blogs out there because they get more leverage focusing internally on their own blogs. However, I know from reading John Chow’s book that he focused more on these types of activities when starting out. Thanks again for your comment!
All the best,
Ian
very useful post.
Kelly,
Thanks so much for visiting PPC Ian and for the kind words! I very much appreciate it.
All the best,
Ian
Commenting is a very useful way to get any site in any niche market going. Although I do actually like reading many of the blogs. So commenting is much easier for those who do actually read the blog. I also found I have had to put up spam blockers on several sites of mine. Which if I hadnt it would have taken me a few hours to weed through all the crap spam post. Not to mention all the sex related posters that started coming in there. Thanks to the asket plugin now it filters out most of the comments for me. Thanks for all your info too I enjoyed reading your post about commenting on blogs.
Garden Solar Light,
Thanks so much for visiting my blog and for the comment! You are very correct, it’s important to leverage tools like Akismet to protect against fake blog comments.
All the best,
Ian
I thank you for this useful and complete post, I was looking for post like this. I like your blog.
Great site, feel like a king.
yap. I always doing blog commenting. Its good and i can get many traffic and backlink using that method. I know it take time. But it was effective way to me right now.
Comments are not only good for the link juice, they get you new readers too (that’s how I found this site). Another thing commenting does, for me at least, is give me ideas for posts on my own sites. I will often spin a poignant comment into a post.
Hotdogman,
Awesome points! 🙂 Thanks so much for the comment. I couldn’t agree with you more.
All the best,
Ian
Sup Ian,
I’m with you man. Blog commenting works and is very fun at the same time. I just started this method of marketing and already see my traffic growing. I try to post most of my comments on blogs that are not only really popular but ones that already have multiple comments attached. That seems to work best for me. My next goal is to make a top commentator spot. Great blog!
Dexter,
Thanks so much for the comment! Glad to hear blog commenting is working great for you too. Even though I originally wrote that post over a year ago, I’m still going super strong with my blog commentating (and it continues to work). Thanks again!
All the best,
Ian
johnchow doesnt have a top commentor widget …
Hi Cars,
He doesn’t anymore, although he used to when I wrote this post (and until quite recently). He recently did a site reorg and removed the top commentators widget.
Best,
Ian
Great help from this blog! Thanks a lot for the information I needed
Thanks, Blair!
Hey-oo Ian,
Great post!
I found your blog linked from affposts (what a hot concept!). My area of expertise is social media marketing. And I am based in San Francisco.
Take care, Peter
Hey Peter,
Thanks so much for stopping by and for the comment! Looking forward to checking out your blog as well. Have a great weekend.
All the best,
Ian
Great share which i normally engage myself with top bloggers and be active to comment on there post once its published because which generates me more traffic and clicks and between got some hints from your share