Commenting on Blogs – How to Effectively Increase Traffic
Commenting on Blogs – How to Effectively Increase Traffic
HandmadeMarketing.org recently came across an article by Brian Clark, founder of Copyblogger and co-founder of DIY Themes, and creator of the innovative Thesis Theme for WordPress. In the article, Clark answers a question that effects many handmade sellers: “Is Commenting on Blogs a Smart Traffic Strategy?”
“If one of your primary traffic strategies is to leave fast comments on the posts of larger blogs in your niche just to get a few clicks from the passing traffic, stop,” Brian Clark writes. He claims that a handmade seller, or anyone looking for traffic for that matter, can get more traffic from a well-written piece of content than months of that type of comment strategy.
Clark makes a logical, but often missed point. “Without good content, there’s no reason to attract a few “curiosity clicks” anyway. What’s going to make them stick around after the click if your content sucks? Nothing.”
In addition, the motivation for those curiosity clicks that a seller may snag is often bad to begin with. He explains that some bloggers will try to be the first comment on the post of a larger blog.
“They do this because those positions in the comment stream get the most click-throughs, all other things being equal,” he writes. “The problem is, in the rush for “first,” the resulting comments are often incoherent and banal. Sometimes it’s quite clear the commenter didn’t read the post, or missed the entire point in the hurry for top position.”
Although harsh, Clark explains why the first to comment gets the curosity click. “They are usually motivated by “I wonder just how bad this bozo’s blog is going to be?” It’s true… lame blogs are entertainment for the rest of us,” he writes. Because these curosity clicks will have a high bounce rate, they are not quality hits for your blog or website. For more information about how to determine your website’s bounce rate, take a look at how to read a Google Analytics report.
So, is commenting on blogs worthless for handmade sellers? Clark says commenting on blogs is not worthless. “In fact, you can actually attract that traffic you want via a smart commenting strategy,” he writes. For more ideas about how to leverage blog comments, check out an article by Etsy seller Tara Gentile from HandmadeinPA.net about why blog comments matter.
Beyond great content on your blog (Clark’s #1 rule), he suggests to focus your blog comments on establishing relationships.
“Think about it,” he writes. “It’s no secret that many of the people who comment on blogs are also bloggers. They simply have more motivation to take the time to comment. So when you meaningfully participate in the community aspect of a blog, you’re creating meaningful relationships with people who can send you significant traffic-bloggers and other active social media users.”
Tara Gentile agrees with this idea. “Just as in life, the more you give, the more you get,” Tara tells HandmadeMarketing.org in her recent blog comment focused article. “Think about the blogs you visit regularly. Are you giving them the comments that you’d like to get? Leave a comment. Start a discussion. Point out something specific from the post you found helpful, eye-catching, or interesting.”
All handmade sellers utilizing the Internet to attract sales know snagging links, getting Twitter followers to re-tweet, having your site “dugg”, etc. all help your content (and handmade products) to spread to large audiences. Clark suggests that creating a network that provides the payoff for all the effort you’ve put into your content is the way to optimize the number of potential buyers you reach each day.
“It takes time, but at least it actually works,” he writes. “I find that the higher level of singular focus I place on content development, the better the content turns out.”
How do you take time to establish relationships with other handmade sellers on the Internet? Do you receive traffic to your site from blogs you comment on? Why do you think social media is importatnt for handmade sellers?
Share your thoughts! Comment on this article or send us more detail about how to sell handmade online by clicking on our “Join” tab. If we publish your tips submitted to us in an article, we’ll link to your handmade shop, blog, or site as the source!
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10 Responses to “Commenting on Blogs – How to Effectively Increase Traffic”
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Great article!! Though my problem still seems to be how to have interesting content. I find myself just posting collections of images because I’m not so good with words.
I found myself starting to write comments on blogs I found that had lots of followers just for that very reason, but I had to stop myself – it’s so fake. Now I only comment when I’m really genuinely interested in a post, and I make a point to do so if I am as there’s nothing nicer than someone showing real interest in your work.
I agree with this article. I also think it is not only related to the handmade society. Commenting on not related blogs brings up a lot of attention as well to you as a person, which may show you in wide spectrum and will leave a room for discussion. I dont have my own blog, but leave comments on the blogs I am interested in. I have recently several ppl that found me later on Twitter after I left a comment on their blog to proceed with the discussion and of course they have discovered my etsy boutique.
This is timely. One thing that has helped my thinking is that to make an interesting comment you have to actually be interested. There are so many blogs out there deciding which to follow and be engaged in is like trying to drink from a fire hose. There are a lot of blogs which are big/popular, but the posts are actually kind of banal. Rather trying to get myself ingratiated into popular blogs, I’m going to try and focus on the ones I actually like (again, metaphors abound.) An easy litmus test is when you can’t refrain from commenting as opposed to trying to strain and struggle to find something interesting/relevant to say. I personally am also going to find 10-12 to focus on, I don’t know about you guys, but there’s so much out there you could make a career out of reading and posting on blogs!
THANK Y O U for sharing.
Few days ago i have posted in my blog about TEAMWORK OR TEAM WORK (however you want to call that)
It is great to share you art with someone.
when you have a chance you can visit my blog.
made with LOVE,
SimaG
I think this is a brilliant point to raise on the quest for traffic. I’m a firm believer in that quality mantra “what you give out you get back”, so I find it hard to understand why a person would expect anyone to even consider clicks on their comment posts if they blatently haven’t shown a genuine interest into the place they’ve left it. I havent been blessed with comments on my blog yet but I know that is because I lack a lot of time to go out of my way to read a tonne of blogs a day, on top of mum duties, other marketing strategies and my work to make my presence known to the world. However if I do read something incredible, normally I like to pass it along for other people to admire and share as they please. I know if people came to me on my blog or my etsy store, how thrilled I would be to have my input shared globally just because a person finds it that interesting or whatever! Commenting is something I generally lack the time for unless I think it’s particularly worth a few extra minutes, and that is the reason I wouldn’t throw in something short and meaningless! I think the only place this is difficult to implement is twitter if you are self promoting as apparently too much of that can turn people away. I guess moderation in that respect would apply there! I’m still trying to work on making that one more personal! Anyway! I’ll definitely make a point of remembering this now that it’s part of my awareness. Thanks!
Fab article again! x
Thank you for thsi article it was clear and succinct. I better understand the purpose of leaving comments on blogs now and how powerful they can be.
my question would be can you do the same for a similar field that is not excatly what you are blogging about..like if i frequent mommy blogs versus jewelry blogs would that be helpful in garnering traffic to my blog?
Interesting points. It seems like common sense that if you leave a meaningful comment, you might get a click and if it’s banal and mundane, it will be ignored. I don’t have a blog and have not really got into commenting much (can be very time consuming) but will leave a comment when I have something relevant to share.
Thanks so much for this article. It’s so easy to fall into the habit of leaving short meaningless comments. I’ve been working on my own “blog commenting” lately, as Tara said, leave comments that you would appreciate getting on your own blog!
It’s a good “do unto others as you would have them do to you” strategy.
Thanks again for the great reminder!
Wow, with thanks a bunch m8