3 Reasons Blog Commenting Is Still Important Today
What are your thoughts about trends and predictions?
Are you one of those people who start reading up on what some of the authority bloggers predict? Do you hang on their every word and believe everything they say?
Blog commenting has always been a pretty important topic due to just how powerful blogs are for us as business owners.
Remember when Copyblogger announced on March 24, 2014 that they were closing their comments? They made such a big deal about taking the conversations to social media instead.
Oh they had other reasons for it too like way too much spam and so many comments that they had to hire someone full-time just to moderate them. Oh how we all would love to have that problem right!
Well did you also hear that on January 11th they announced that comments were back? They missed the interaction after someone read their content and the feedback that they would get. I can only assume they weren’t getting that the way they had hoped by taking the conversations to social media.
People thought comments would die when blogs like Copyblogger or Chris Brogan closed their comments but I see them just as strong as ever.
Let’s Talk About Blogging For A Minute
How many years have they been saying that blogging is dead?
Things will change though as how people prefer to absorb their content.
Some people prefer to watch videos to learn or they just prefer watching someone deliver their content in this way. Then you have podcasts for those who may be on the run a lot and only have time to listen while they’re in the car.
Me personally, I prefer the written word unless I want to learn how something is done then I prefer videos. We’re all different in the way we want our content delivered.
With the way that things are changing we may begin to notice some changes when it comes to blog commenting as well.
Things will always progress, evolve and change online. That’s part of the process so we just need to be aware and educated so that when things do start to change drastically we can change right along with them.
Do you see blog comments slacking off at your blog?
What are your thoughts about the future of blog commenting?
I certainly have my thoughts which I intend to share with you right now.
3 Reasons Blog Commenting Still Rocks
Still to this day we do not want to discard the power of the search engines right! Here are a few things you should think about.
So why do people create a blog to begin with?
Because the search engines love fresh, informative, new, quality content on a regular basis.
What are people searching for online today?
Information that will help them solve their problems.
As long as people are searching for that type of information then I believe content will never die.
So we know why blogs are still important for our businesses, especially today right!
It’s up to us to make sure that those who are in need of our information find it. We can’t do that if we aren’t consistently sharing content.
Granted now content can be spread across the various platforms such as Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. and people are going to go where they hang out the most.
As the old saying has always gone, “don’t build your house on rented land.”
Some people are caving to that because social media is so powerful and sites like Facebook and LinkedIn don’t want to take their audiences off those sites. So if you want the people who hang out on those sites to see what you share then you need to share it on their platforms.
While I agree with that to an extent, I still strongly believe that you should never fully rely on having your content only on their platforms. At any given moment they could delete your account without any warning so having your own valuable property is still the most important thing you could do.
So just how important is blog commenting for our blogs today!
Backlinks
I hear it ALL the time, I’m not getting enough traffic to my blog.
Love them or hate them you can’t ignore just how powerful the search engines are. If you have a new blog then you have to build up that authority with the various search engines.
Should you just rely on the search engines? Absolutely not but you should never ignore them either.
Commenting on blogs is a great way to create backlinks although those links are usually nofollow links and they certainly don’t carry the value that they once did.
The more you comment on other people’s posts then that helps your blog get indexed faster.
Although I’m a big believe that you should comment because you have something to add to the conversation, you can’t deny why commenting is SO popular for a lot of bloggers.
The search engines LOVE those backlinks now.
Good Old Traffic
I was personally taught to start blog commenting in order to drive traffic to my site. It had to do with the backlinks but it also had to do with people paying attention to what you said.
As most of you are aware, blog commenting can help drive quality targeted traffic to your blogs. Now when you leave generic type comments like “great post” or “I learned so much”, well those are just a huge waste of everyone’s time.
What do comments like that say about the author?
Always, and I mean always, remember that this is your reputation you’re building online, this is your brand. How do you want to be seen!
You need to stand out, you want to be heard, you want to add to the conversation and you can do that by continuing to ask questions as well as answer some that others may have asked. Don’t be rude though and completely take over the comment section but always remember to be helpful.
Now you always want to have your Gravatar set up because this is a people business and who wants to chat with a faceless person! You definitely won’t see any of them on this blog.
Now whether I agree with this or not, blog commenting is still important for SEO purposes.
Look at it this way… If you do it for the right reasons which is being helpful and making those connections as well as remembering to add your specific keywords to the comment, then it’s the best of all worlds.
Of course commenting on a dofollow blog will benefit you so much more in terms of backlinks and traffic but being seen and heard of course will benefit you just as much. Is that not a win/win situation or not!
Never ever ever comment for the sake of commenting though. You always and I mean always need to add value to the conversation.
Building Relationships With Other Bloggers
Although I have this one listed last, in my mind it’s the most important one.
Hands down, this is one of the best ways ever to connect with another blogger.
Now building relationships takes time and so many people are in such a hurry to get started and build something quickly, making those valuable connections is what will take you the farthest.
Let’s say Google does yet another update to their algorithms in six months and your blog gets slapped. You’ve still got your relationships though who will continue to support you and get the word out so you are WAY ahead of everyone else.
Building connections with the blog owners and commenters is powerful. It’s how you meet people by showing up and adding to the conversation.
Be genuine, ask questions, respond to questions, share your experiences, point something out that you really learned or perhaps share something that you had done by the suggestions they had shared and it worked.
Commenting is the best way to grab people’s attention and make you stand out. Always always always respond to all comments left on your blog.
There might be blogs in the future that turn comments off or perhaps don’t respond to them like they should but remember that there are just as many that do.
Get in front of an audience that caters to your audience and start being a regular. Share your thoughts and make a genuine connection with the blog owner. You never know where that relationship can lead either and you just might be surprised with some of the pluses that can come from this experience as well.
Blog Commenting Is Still Alive
I threw some questions at you all throughout this post because I want to know your thoughts about this as well so be sure to share those in the comments below.
Are you as worried as Susan is on the future of blog commenting? Do you still see why blog commenting is still so relevant today?
Have you had success with blog commenting? Are you unsure where or how to even get started with blog commenting?