Not all the comments are born equal, or how to respect your customer

Continuing a topic of using comments to increase you blog exposure, started in my previous post http://blogging4good.blogspot.com/2008/03/comments-as-source-of-free-traffic-to.html, I want to look on that from other side. Comments, left by your readers on your blog, are even more valuable than the comments you are leaving on other blogs. Why? Very simple. You leave comments to improve your blog exposure, to get more rating and referring links. All that to get more potential visitors. But, reader of your blog, leaving you a comment, has already came. And not just came, but also read your post and is willing to spend his valuable time, sharing his thoughts on the article or asking related question. What might be better than that? Show your respect and appreciation - respond ASAP, giving your feedback and encouraging further communication.

Yesterday, I visited a Web Site ReapMoneyOnline , presenting list of the free High Page Rank Non-reciprocal Directories (directories that do not require link exchanges for posting blogs). I left a comment, asking authors (Jennie and Bong) their opinion, if they recommend submitting a blog to all of 100 presented directories, or there is a minimum PR, where the time investment is justifiable. They feedback was instant and complete: "Webmasters have different views on PR. In fact, a lot will choose hundreds of inbound links over a high PR because they bring in real targeted traffic (we click on a link because we think we can use what we will find at the other end). Some were also able to rank high in the SERPs for their chosen keywords even with a low PR. These are directories, which people also use to find websites related to the information they need (like the SEs). If they provide us dofollow links then we get 2 birds with 1 stone.
However, directory submission is only part of our link-building strategy. But yes, we are trying to get RMO into as many as possible over a period of time (going at a rate of 15-30 directories per week). Unfortunately, we haven’t done any ROI study on our link-building efforts.
The “minimum” PR depends on us and our goals. Some webmasters who flip sites work to get them to PR4 before selling. Others sell at PR7, which definitely takes longer but also fetches a higher price. For us, the higher it is, the better, since we’re pushing RMO as our flagship blog". As you see, blog owners spent their time and attention to give a very thoughtful answer, converting me as accidental visitor to the devoted visitor. With this attitude, I will be back soon.

Let's highlight what we can learn from this example:

1. Site has a valuable information, encouraging visitors participation. This is, definitely, a core of the successful blog.
2. Blog has disabled the nofollow tag, so every comment will result in link to your blog, improving your blog rating. An additional reason for people to visit the blog, read it, and leave feedbacks.
3. Authors do not passively enjoy incoming traffic, but activity communicate with their visitors, giving informative and instant recommendations. I noticed, that this particular case is not an exception. Every comment receives immediate reply.

As customer support manager in a High Tech company, I know, that it is good to find a new customer, but it is more valuable, if the customer comes to you again and again. Blogging should follow the same marketing rules, where respect for the client will be always appreciated and paid back.

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Comments as source of a free traffic to your blog

In the course of investigation of the possible ways of bringing more traffic to the blog, leaving comments on other people blogs popped out as an acknowledged legitimate way of getting more exposure to your own blog ( http://blogging4good.blogspot.com/2008/01/6-advices-on-blog-posting-techniques.html)

In this post, I want to review the commenting features and commenting techniques to increase the possible benefits in more details.

1. Leaving informative comments. Comments leaving technique brings the best outcomes when your comments are informative. Do not simply say “Good post” unless you have nothing else to say and yet you want to complement and encourage the author for the post. Avoid posting unrelated comments, targeting just your own exposure appearance, as it might give you more harm than profit. A thought provoking bloggers reaction or at least a meaningful quality comment only will get you good traffic. However, your controversial post should be justified and expressed politely, like in every intelligent interpersonal communication.
2. Leaving comments on the blogs with content that is related to your own blog topic of discussion. It is recommended to invest your time in the blog that are related to your own blogs in terms of the placement niche, topics of discussion, or somehow logically connected to your own posts. The reader, impressed be your post in the politics, might want to check your blog for more information about your views and bout yourselves as a person. He follows your link and gets to the blog, related to football. If the visitor is not a football fan, he will leave immediately, and will not be able to enjoy your thoughtful posts, just because he is not interested in football.
3. Your brand name and popularity. The blogging world is big, but there are popular blogs, popular names, you meet again and again in the blogosphere. Active participation brings your name higher on the reader’s perception lists, definitely, if you post quality, informative, and interesting comments. You get more popularity and your blogs get it too. Eventually, you build the constantly increasing group of followers that are waiting for your posts and when seeing your comment on their own or other blogs, they are drawing to read them just because they see your signature. Popularity does not come overnight, it is result of long, time-consuming, brand marketing strategy, so do not expect immediate returns, applying it.
4. Direct traffic to your blog. Blogging experts found a direct relationship between amounts of the valuable posts you make on other blogs with numbers of the received comments on your own blogs. So, the simple recommendation is - do invest your time in the commenting marketing technique and you will see immediate return on investment (ROI) through increased traffic you get.
5. Backlinks. Following straightforward backlinks targeting approach might be considered as artificial by some experts. But, it is fully legitimate and, as you following the appropriate, quality content submission guidelines, it will give you the guarantied automatic traffic. Look through the database of the blogs having the “no follow” link disabled from the comments, which means that if you comment on these sites, you will get an actual link. Excellent D-list with more than 200 applicable blogs can be found through the link: http://courtneytuttle.com/blogs-that-follow/. If you prefer posting your comments strictly on high page rank pages from these blogs, go in Google and type there: site:URL of blog from the list and choose high page rank pages on which you can leave comments.
6. Virtual personal relationship. By commenting on the blogs, you can create informal virtual personal relationship with the author of the blog. Leaving your comments regularly in famous blogs, you can even form good relationship with the top bloggers. It is not easy to get accepted to the top bloggers circle, but who said that your posts are not worth to be on the top?

Additional Reading:
http://www.bloggingtune.com/what-everybody-ought-to-know-about-blog-commenting/
http://www.bloggingtune.com/4-things-which-determine-the-traffic-you-will-get-from-comments/
http://roberteilers.com/2007/10/24/writing-blog-comments-equals-free-targeted-traffic/
http://www.earnexperience.com/archives/black-hat-blogging-techniques/

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Advanced Trackbacks, Comments, and Rating with Haloscan

One of the limitations of the Blogger platform is inability to send trackbacks when you make a post. A trackback is a simple acknowledgment, sent via a network signal (ping) from the originating site to the receiving site. Trackback requires both sites to be trackback enabled in order to establish this communication. A free service from Haloscan allows a blogger to send trackbacks to other blogs, and also display the trackbacks which have been sent to the blog. Haloscan also puts comments features on the higher level, allowing advanced comments management and enhanced performance. And, finally it offers blog visitors to rate blog entries, merchandise items, services, pictures, or any other objects on the site, based on a 5-star rating scheme.

Membership is absolutely free. Sign in: http://www.haloscan.com/

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Seven myths about making money from a blog

I rarely repost article. Just in the cases, when I strongly agree, or strongly disagree. In this case, author expressed nicely all my perception of the Art of Blogging. Yes, it should not be all about money. However, creative, artistic, devoted attitude will bring the fruits eventually for those who are patient , dedicated, and hard-working

Friday, February 01, 2008

By Hendry Lee

Reprinted from Here

More and more business people are realizing that a blog can be a viable marketing tool in building readership, attracting traffic and prospects to their websites. But there is a simpler use for blogs: to build and manage standalone and content rich websites.
Marketers call them niche blogging - and using blogs in this way has become very popular in the last year. The business model and purpose behind this blogging application is quite different compared to other blogging applications. For instance, instead of supporting your product or service, you use a blog to generate enough content and interest on a continual basis to get traffic.
And the great thing is that of course, you can do anything you want with the traffic, including monetizing it.
And that’s where this article comes in as we look at Seven Myths regarding making money from a blog, and which will continue next week in an article on how to get started in niche blogging:

1. Blogging is the shortcut to website traffic

I can dump any content I wish to the blog and get some immediate traffic. Ok, I am exaggerating a bit here, but really, people are expecting a shortcut to website traffic as a result from blogging.
The fact is, building readership is a gradual process just like a conventional website. Blogging takes some aspects of them, like syndication, remote notification, interactivity into an easy or almost seamless process.
There are some advantages of using a blog - as we have covered in previous articles - but still the whole process takes time.

2. Making money from blogging is easy
This is another myth popularized by aggressive marketers. Usually they are trying to sell their product to a group of clueless individuals.
It’s true, if you have a lot of time and own some knowledge about researching keywords, building link popularity, do joint venture, and other marketing stuff, you can use a blog to drive traffic to your blog faster, but still it takes some effort. This is true especially if you are building a long term business, not just a blog that will be banned by search engines because of low quality content (spamming).

3. Building a blog is fast
Fast, easy, simple, instant. All of them are strong words that can hypnotize you to buy a product. Don’t expect your weblog to be an instant hit. Most popular blogs have been there actively building content for at least a year. Even those who get a lot buzz usually have a head start, either by the readership they’ve already owned or through some other marketing methods.

4. Blogging requires little to no work
Automatic blog and ping program earns you a million even if you can’t type. Does that sound familiar?
Blog and ping is a critical part of every blog, but only if you have great content that your ping notification won’t be considered spam. Sploggers are harassing the blog infrastructure and giving business a bad name. And remember, blog search engines visitors are turned off by crappy search results, making the whole thing less useful.
Another form of automation: getting as many inbound links as possible with automated programs that defeat blog commenting systems. Many blogs are still using little to no comment spam protection, so it is easy to spam them and build link popularity without effort. Unfortunately many people don’t understand how automatic link popularity builders for blogs work - and they think it is ethically useful. Something that most bloggers would strongly disagree with.

5. Search engines prefer blog posts to other web pages
Wrong. A blog post is simply another web page. The fact that a quality blog post usually invites more inbound links may make it rank higher in SERPs. But remember, a properly promoted web page can exceed a blog post.

6. You don’t need to be able to write
There is tons of content available on the Web ready
for you to use. Which is great, if you can find public domain information, free articles and reprint them on your blog, this can then boost your content. But if you depend just on those without original or well researched content, you can’t expect too many repeat visitors. As your readers gain more expertise, they want to hear what you have to say, or they will run to your competitors who may be providing their own insights.

7. Quantity is what matters
This myth is based on the fact that if you can get thousands of keyword related pages up, some of them hopefully will rank high enough in search engines to get traffic to your blog. That’s why they say the more content you have, the more traffic you’ll get. It’s true to some extent, but again if you want to build a business, this is not the way you can get long term and repeated traffic. I’ve seen Top 100,000 Alexa web site with less than 300 pages of content. Quality drives visitors from search engines, which in turn will stay with you for years to come.

Why all these myths?

Savvy (or should we say unethical ?) marketers take advantage of technology by creating a bunch of blogs in different industries, hoping to secure a group of rabid readers who are interested in products they offer or simply click on contextual advertising to cash in money.
As a side effect, other groups of marketers try to offer products or services that claim to ease the process of creating tens, if not hundreds of niche specific blogs, churning out duplicate content taken from other sites, or worse, spamming the search engines with virtually useless content.
At one time, this tactic worked like champ. But now, I notice it is less effective, largely due to changes in search engine algorithms. Saying all this, it is true that sploggers and spammers in general will find a way to make money - but if you can’t stand jumping from one opportunity to another, may be this is not for you (Note: I’m not supporting splogging and spamming).
So is it still possible to make money from niche blogging? It is, especially as the Web and blogs are here to stay for the long haul. But I’d argue that if you still want to reap benefits from blogging, you should consider seeing it as a business instead of a money maker.

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