About 2 weeks ago, I wrote about marketing without spamming. One of my points was that networking is an essential part of marketing. If you don’t have a relationship with the bloggers you’re marketing to, then you could be classified as a spammer. For example, if you promote your content to a blogger out of the blue, they might wonder, “Who are you?” and “Why are you spamming me?”
Blog commenting is a great way to presell yourself and your content while also building friendships with other bloggers. Here are a couple tips to consider.
Comment early. Try one of the first 5 to comment on a post because those commenters get noticed more than the later commenters. You’ll get more traffic to your blog. The blogger will notice you over the other commenters if he receives many comments per post.
Leave an insightful comment. Too many comments are short and don’t add much value. It’s okay to leave a comment like “Awesome post. Thanks for sharing.” However, most of your comments should add value to the post and directly engage the post in an insightful way. By leaving good comments, you will brand yourself as someone who knows what he’s talking about.
Pick a blog that you enjoy reading. It will a lot easier to leave good comments if you comment on a blog that you enjoy reading.
Comment on posts that are closely related to your blog. If you have a Ford Mustang blog and want to comment on a general car blog, leave comments especially on the Mustang related posts. Also, other Mustang car blogs like this one are great places to leave comments.
Watch your stats. If you’re not getting a lot of traffic from your comments, it may be time to target another blog. Don’t just look at unique visitors. Check out the bounce rate and pageviews, too. Blog A may send less visitors than blog B. However, blog A’s visitors may actually be visiting more pages than blog B’s visitors. More pageviews can translate into subscribers and a higher conversion rate.
After a couple insightful comments especially if the blogger responded to them, feel free to contact the blogger directly and promote your best content. Make sure your content actually relates to his blog. Also, link out a couple times to the blogger to increase your success rate of getting a link and a positive mention.
Which blogs should you comment on? Our blog directory can help you with this. We have a lot of blogs and they’re ranked by 3 metrics: overall, strength, and momentum. For more information about these three metrics, check out our about page.
I personally like using the momentum metric, because you can find blogs that don’t have a huge readership base yet they are growing quickly. The problem with networking with bloggers who have big audiences is they are often hard to befriend because of their fame. It’s hard to get noticed in midst of their many comments and emails. However, blogs with a high momentum metric are often times smaller blogs that are on the rise. What better time to network with a blogger than when they have a relatively small audience, but at the same time, are growing their readership very quickly?
For example, if you are a celebrity blogger, check out the top momentum celeb blogs. Then, pick one like Pop Crunch and begin leaving comments. If you are a tech blogger, check out the top momentum tech blogs. You can then scan the blogs on the list and pick a blog to target like The Techdirt Blog.
Also, don’t forget to submit your blog if you haven’t already. Other bloggers are browsing the directory for other blogs in their niche. If you haven’t submitted your blog, those bloggers won’t be able to find you.
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