Blog Commenting Etiquette – 5 Tips To Get Your Comments Approved Everytime
Blog commenting is one of the well known way to drive traffic and build backlinks. Is blog commenting still effective and bring traffic to your site? This is a question you should ask yourself. How do you make sure every single of your comment get accepted and published? I understand there is no guaranteed that your comment will be accepted because ultimately it is up to the blog owner and you just have no control on it.
From a blogger point of view, he/she would love to accept every single comment as long as it provides value, despite some of them might be of contradictory view to the blog post itself.
In this blog, I will only delete the blog comments that look like spam (and it is) and do not provide value. Some of the classical examples will be “thanks you”, “Great post”, “ok”, “a sentence that is totally not relevant to my post”, etc…and with a keyword like”iphone”, “make money online” in the name field without putting a “real name”. I don’t mean by saying thank you to my post is spam, just that it doesn’t provide any value to the post. It is also more appropriate to put in your “real name” in the name field instead of stuffing a keyword. This is just basic blog commenting etiquette. It just makes the blog owner easier to address you with your name rather call you “Hi Iphone 5″ or “Hi Make Money Online”.
I understand that people who take time to comment on a blog would also hope to get something in return, which is a backlink and some direct traffic if possible. So, I will run through some of the fundamental blog commenting etiquette and tips below that will help to get your comment approved most of the time.
Blog Commenting Etiquette
1. Name
Since it is a name box, why not just fill up your name? If you would like to gain a backlink with your anchored text, you can at least put in your name such as “Smith@make money online” where “make money online” is your keyword. In some of the blogs, you might notice there is keywordluv or commentluv+ plugins installed. In this case, you can put in exactly “YourName@Keyword” in the name field and you will get your desired keyword as anchored backlink. Take a look at an example below:
In the name field, I put in Ming Jong Tey@seo link building and that is what it will become after your comment was approved. This case, people know my name and I also get an anchored backlink.
2. Email and Website
Obviously, you need to put in at least your email to comment on a blog. If you have a website, you can take the advantage to build anchored backlink to your site. If the post you commented is about SEO, you can find a relevant posts (i.e. YourDomain.com/RelevantPost) on your own blog and put that as your website instead of your main domain all the time. Of course, when you put in your post/page URL instead of your home domain, you should adjust the keyword in the name field accordingly to tap on the advantage of anchored backlink.
If you look at the example above, “seo link building” actually links to one of my post, not my home domain.
3. Comment Content
Ok, here comes the important part. The key to get your comment approved is to provide some value. It does not necessary to be sophisticated or earth shattering, and it can be solely your own opinion. A general rule of thumb will be to greet the people and then to spell out your opinion. Thanks the owner for the post and follow by your name. If you are lazy, you of course skip the greeting/thank you parts.
What if I don’t have any opinion to add? Ok, I hear you. You might not be familiar with every aspects and voice up your opinion. You can at least paraphrase 1 point that you love or agree the most in the post and elaborate from there. If you have done this, the owner will at least know that you have read through the post, and the comment is not done by spammer who just copy and paste a generic statement. Take a look at one of my comment below:
I started by greeting the author, thank him for providing the resources and then spell out what I normally do for searching images. I also raised up that I love one of the resources mentioned in this post. Eventually, I signed off with my first name. This is not a lengthy and comprehensive comment but certainly it does not look like spam.
4. Gravatar Picture
Did you see my picture shown on the right hand side in the extracted comment above? This is a Gravatar picture, which is linked to your email address. It is a great way to make your comment stand out (comparing to the default Gravatar). Also, spammers generally do not have Gravatar (some of them do). You can use your picture or your company logo or favicon icon as the Gravatar picture.
Get yourself a free Gravatar account here.
5. Commentluv link
If the blog (such as mine) is powered by Commentluv, you will be able to leave extra post link at the end of your comment, give you extra backlink and exposure of posts to the readers. All you need to do is to check the Commentluv button and it will display the last 10 posts or the latest post (depending on the version of Commentluv). So, just select the post you would like to display (best to choose a post relevant to the post topic to attract clicks) and there you have it, extra backlink!
Your Voice
That’s all for the blog commenting etiquette. What’s your view on this? Love to hear your thoughts. Leave me a comment below and I’ll know, lol.
To Your Success,
Ming Jong Tey
Filed under Blogging by on Nov 18th, 2011. Comment. 
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Comments on Blog Commenting Etiquette – 5 Tips To Get Your Comments Approved Everytime
hi friend you are absolutely right we have to comment on blog exactly you way but in term of seo we need the link of that particular url and want to promote our keyword then how can we drop our link and the benefit of blog commenting we make a backlink for that destination pages.
“What if I don’t have any opinion to add? ” Then move on and comment where you do. Don’t waste time trying to say something just to hear your own voice. There are so many blog posts, so many blogs, so many bloggers – pick a post that interests you to comment on. If the same blogger repeatedly publishes posts that are of no interest to you, then that simply is not a place you should be commenting on.
@Ajit singh: Hi Ajit, I have explained in Point 1 in detailed above. If there is keywordluv or commentluv installed, you can easily stick your keyword in, else just put a “@”, “-” beside your name and add in your keyword.
Ming Jong recently posted..Free List Building Plugin That Will Increase CTR And Opt In Rate
@David Leonhardt: lol. Well said David. There are always plenty of choices out there.
Just in case if you definitely want to express your appreciation (because that post widen your view) and get to know the author, you can still refer to some points mentioned in the post and elaborate from there.
Ming Jong recently posted..SEO Link Building On Steroid – Ways to Maximize Your Backlinks
@Ming Jong: Yes, very true. If that is the case, it should not be hard to find something to say, something you really want to say. But I agree with your approach to be very specific, because just saying, “Wow. I loved your post!” looks like spam.
David Leonhardt recently posted..Delegate Social Media Tasks? Ouch!
Good tips. I’ve found that taking the time to leave good comments means taking the time to read the post and learn more, which provides a benefit for me as well. So done correctly everyone benefits.
Thanks, Ming Jong for giving me some tools to work with when I post a comment. I do make the comment relevant to the post, but I don’t always say thank you or sign off with my name on the inside. I am also not sure how to use my name at the top of the comment for added exposure. I like Comment Luv, but my team leader is leery of it. He doesn’t want us associated with something we would be sorry about. It makes me happy to see it for my comments since I would never even have thought to do what my leader suggested–Ann Mullen
Ann recently posted..15 Causes of Poor Communications
That must be why my comment rarely got approved! I recently had started to look into blog for SEO and Google ranking information. Always so hasty to leave comment and not using my real name. Thank you Ming Jong. Two things I had learned from your blog today. 1. Don’t be too obsessed about PR. 2. Don’t comment like a SEO Spammer.
Some great reminders about commenting and I don’t think these things can be said enough. I have a question for you though. What do you do when you get a comment from someone that you can tell has read the post but you know they are only there for the backlink? I have several people that comment on my blog regularly. They make good comments but their anchor has nothing to do with my blog niche. Now, do you just keep letting them comment? I delete the anchors if it seems somewhat offensive (gambling, casinos, weight loss pill) but so far I haven’t been deleting the comments. What do you think? Curious to hear what you have to say.
Danielle McGaw@professional freelance writer recently posted..Who Wants More Backlinks? I do, I do!!!
@David Leonhardt: Absolutely David. It is not that hard to come out with something that you would want to say…I must admit that we all would love to get a backlink from a site when we take the time to comment. It is a win-win for both. Just take some time to show respect to the blog owner (ultimate the property belongs to others) and readers.
Ming Jong recently posted..Why Interact With People In Your Online Business
@Melanie from Call Center: Totally agree Melanie. Great to see that keywordluv is working
Like I mentioned before, it is a win-win for both. Thanks for dropping by 
Ming Jong recently posted..Optimize Sales Funnel
@Ann: Hi Ann, thanks for stopping by. Greeting is always optional, is just personal preference. The name field is what linked back to your website. So, that’s how you can build anchored backlink.
I think commentluv is awesome! I can’t think of negative effect using commentluv. It only provides you more exposure and extra backlinks.
Ming Jong recently posted..Instant Traffic To Your Sales Funnel
@Wilee from Pinjaman: Selamat datang Wilee
Great to see you put in your name. The name field is supposed to be filled with a name (either a real name or pen name). I notice some blogs do have commenting policy that you must fill in your name (not keyword) else your comment will never be approved.
Great take away
Blog commenting is only 1 of the ways of SEO.
Ming Jong recently posted..Watch Out If You Are Using All In One SEO & Why I Use WordPress SEO
@Danielle McGaw from professional freelance writer: Hi Danielle, I will always approve the comment as long as they provide value to the post or at least show some engagement to the post. I noticed that there are some people building backlinks to their niche site, which is totally not relevant to my blog niche. Still, I’m happy to let them leave a backlink as long as they are not pill, pharma, gambling, xxx, etc…just to keep my blog clean.
My opinion is that since people take the time to read and provide legitimate comment, they deserve a backlink (as long as they are clean). Just my 2 cents.
Ming Jong recently posted..Google Page Rank Update November 2011
Ming,
Glad you included the Gravatar. This is a pet peeve of mine. I will publish comments without them if I think they are real, but Gravatar makes me far more likely to believe that there’s a real person behind the, rather than somebody cutting and pasting comments or a machine doing it for them.
Steve@Affiliate Marketing Tips recently posted..10 Key Things I’ve Learned From 6 Months of Building Niche Sites
Great post, Ming! You are so right about the need to comment in the right way. When I was more green in the blogosphere, I approved just about anything that seemed relevant, but I’ve become more discerning since. I think one key is also remembering to directly engage the blogger. I know that when I’m on the fence one way or another, if someone actually uses my name, I’m much more apt to approve the comment. This way, it seems a lot less generic than some of the other borderline comments I’ve seen.
Steve Nicholas recently posted..Stand in Your Truth
@Steve from Affiliate Marketing Tips: Steve, I love Gravatar! Having a Gravatar definitely eliminate some spam score, but still I did catch a few spams having a Gravatar (truly spam with a URL not relevant to the content within the comment). Slowly I guess Gravatar might become a standard practice for everyone, including spammers, lol
Ming Jong recently posted..Financial Freedom – Your Dream Come True?
@Steve Nicholas: Hi Steve, absolutely agree. I guess a typical blogger would not mind to have more comments on his/her blog, as long as they are legitimate comments. So, just by spending a few more seconds to polish up the comments (directly engage), the comment will be most likely to get approved. Thanks for stopping by and nice to meet you!
Ming Jong recently posted..5 Proven Tactics To Drive Traffic Using Forum Marketing
Agree with these 5 tips!! really workable and effective points !!
Nora Reed recently posted..Funny Evolutions of 10 Famous Logos – Crazy Origins!
@Nora Reed: Glad you like them, Nora.
Ming Jong recently posted..Free List Building Plugin That Will Increase CTR And Opt In Rate
Really interesting article and so helpful..blog commenting is a good technic to build backlink.Use that with ethic..don’t spam..thanks Ming Jong,for your 5 great tips.
@mark84@cheap acuvue contact lenses: Blog Commenting in a right way can seriously bring in traffic to your website on top of the backlinks gained.
Ming Jong recently posted..Yahoo Site Explorer Gone – What’s Next Alternative?
You said almost all the important things Ming. Just to add one more.
If you’re using blog commenting to try to grow your blog, you need to set a plan to really see the effect on the growth of your blog. You will have to comment regularly, so set a goal. How will you find the blogs? How many blogs will you comment on daily? and so on.
Karo Itoje recently posted..Blog Commenting Marketing Strategy – Best Practices That Guaranty Best Results
@Ming Jong:
But if people are commenting on blogs that are not relevant to their niche, don’t they know they are reducing the values of those links? And don’t they also know that they are greatly reducing the benefits they get from commenting? I mean commenting has far more benefits than just getting backlinks. If you comment on related niche sites it gives the backlink more boost, but even more it presents you as an expert in your niche to the right audience, readers of the blog including blog owners, and since they add value to the post, people are likely to visit their blogs. But if people do visit their blog only to find off-topic, where is the benefit in leaving their link?
Why will someone want to sacrifice these benefits? All to get a very low backlink?
Karo Itoje recently posted..Blog Commenting Marketing Strategy – Best Practices That Guaranty Best Results
@Karo Itoje: Absolutely Kara. Setting goal is important. I usually just visit some blog bookmarking sites to check out some new posts and pick a few to comment. Else, using google reader to check for blog updates are handy as well.
Ming Jong recently posted..Increase Traffic Via Video Marketing
@Karo Itoje: Totally agree Karo. Commenting generally has 2 fold of benefit, direct traffic and SEO backlink. Some of the people tend to focus on building backlinks and most of their comments end up getting deleted. Else, they will never get any direct traffic due to off topic link.
There are many ways to get backlinks and blog commenting is only 1 of them and this type of backlink is not the best type. Yet, I see people doing blog commenting for backlinking purpose only…
Ming Jong recently posted..YouTube SEO – Rank Your Videos On Google With These 6 Simple Techniques
Your article for getting comment approved everytime is excellent. I’m a initial blogger now as well as i’m an civil engineering student. Dear admin, i would like to ask one question. Event though my articles are getting indexed within a minute in google, i do not have any page rank. I tried building backlinks but i always found my site page rank zero. What i have to do ?
@Anand: Actually, what’s your intent to get high page rank for your blog? To me, it does not matter as long as you are getting traffic to your site. Google generally update the page rank every 3 months. If you would like to see some move of your page rank, you should build some quality links to your site. Refer to my posts below for backlinking:
1. 21 High Traffic Sites To Promote Your Blog
2. 12 Off Page SEO Techniques To Build Backlinks To Your Website
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It is very Important to get approve comment by Site owners or blog owners.
@michael fletcher: That’s the whole point of blog commenting. No matter how awesome your comment is, it is useless if it never get approved and published.
Ming Jong recently posted..Where To Get Royalty Free Images – Things You Must Know Before You Use Them
Interesting article..I think u should never comment on blogs just to build backlinks and if u do so, every moderator will ignore your comment. I never comment on blogs without reading the post. As we are talking about buliding backlinks through blog commenting, I would like to tell you that I have created a search engine with Google Custom Search to find “do follow” blogs for commenting, you can check it out on the link http://letsdofollow.blogspot.com. I find this tool very handy..
@Bijit Sharma: I find it more feasible to get direct traffic from blog commenting and backlinks are just bonus. The only ways I use blog comments for link building purpose is to get .gov or .edu backlinks as these are valuable and trusted backlinks in the eye of Google.
I have a handy tool to find sites in various platform (i.e. keywordluv, commentluv, wordpress, blogengine, forum, etc…) and extension like .edu, .gov, .com, etc…
Feel free to use it (it is free)
http://www.mingjongtey.com/free-backlinks/
Ming Jong recently posted..Build High Page Rank Backlinks Easily With This Free Backlink Tool
Thanks Ming..the tool is great.. I liked the feature of choosing between domain extensions. and I completely agree with you that the link juice blogs get from .edu and .gov sites are amazing…
Bijit Sharma recently posted..How to make your name appear in Google Search
@Bijit Sharma: Welcome Bijit. A handy tool to save you remembering the google search string.
Ming Jong recently posted..Blogging Traffic – Convert Your Blog Traffic
Yet another great piece for Ming Jong Tey. Blog commenting is one very effective way to gaining free quality backlinks but a lot of people fail in this aspect. Like you pointed out, a lot of people usually leave irrelevant comment on some blog and many of them like to spam. Blog commenting is supposed to be a way to share your own perspective to the post, add or share new ideas not included in the post or ask relevant questions if one is not so clear about the post topic. I wounder why people just hide identities when they want to promote their site or brand blog spamming blog comments. Well, as for commenting on .gov site, I found an article on that on pingler and they explained how important it is to focus on that. I think I’d also have to give a rethink to that.
Ivan Aliku recently posted..4 Tips to Attracting More Visitors and Making Them Return to Your Blog
@Ivan Aliku: Hi Ivan. You become the top commentor in this blog within weeks! Thanks for stopping by to leave your valuable opinion
One end I am amazed the power of the automated tool that can fill in the captcha and tick the checkbox that prevent spammer, etc…Another end, I am quite fed up to delete both bot and human spam for my blog, err…everyday…
Gov and edu sites are trusted sources in the eye of Google because they are rare and normal people like you and me can’t really buy a gov or edu domain. So, it does help a lot in passing the trust to our site (of course, from the sites / pages that are moderated).
In Fiverr, it is easy to get the guys to build you 50-100 edu links but those pages have been heavily spammed and I will stay away from those… Moderated pages is a lot harder to leave a link but it will be worth our time.
Ming Jong recently posted..How I Started My Online Business Plus Lessons Learned
Thanks for the advice Ming. I will surely add .gov and .edu sites to my backlink building lists. You’re a great writer and motivator to online bloggers. Thanks
Ivan Aliku recently posted..4 Tips to Attracting More Visitors and Making Them Return to Your Blog
@Ivan Aliku: You are welcomed Ivan. I really appreciate your comments and tips you provide for numerous of my posts. Cool people like you is one of the main reasons for me to provide awesome content for this blog
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Hey Jong, this is a great post. Bloggers need to practice etiquette when commenting because it is a great way of earning them backlinks and for their comments to be approved
@Peter Mutiso: Thanks Peter. Without proper etiquette, blog owner can simply delete it and it is entirely reasonable because owner has the ultimate right to do it.
Blog commenting can be a great way to build good relationship with the blog owner when do it properly.
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Do you find that you still get much traffic from a backlink in a comment? I usually leave one when I comment, but I don’t find that they necessarily act as a source of traffic. Tips on that?
@Adam: Do you mean the backlink from the name field or just a URL inside the comment box?
Either way, it is related to the content provided. If the comment provides valuable information, it will attract traffic.
You can also reply on comments by other people and that will actually create a conversation, which will attract more view and interaction from the readers (if the conversation provides value).
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New lessons learnt. A question- what is your view on comment moderation?
@ghanaianemprezz: It is essential to moderate the comments to minimize spam.
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hi friend you are absolutely right we have to comment on blog exactly you way but in term of seo we need the link of that particular url and want to promote our keyword then how can we drop our link and the benefit of blog commenting we make a backlink for that destination pages.
thanx for this article
@kiran patel: You can do it in the similar format as what I demonstrated in Item 3 in my blog post. Else you can put your_name@keyword in the name field to get the most out from the SEO point of view.
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