5 simple steps to build blog traffic by writing comments

Previously I have introduced writing comments on relevant blog posts as a good strategy for building awareness of a brand-new blog. This article will explain further and give you 5 simple steps on how to start getting blog traffic today by writing comments on related blogs.

It is important to note that links in comments should not be seen as a way of building inbound links to improve your pagerank and search engine rankings. Search engines have devalued the importance and authority of links from the comment sections of blogs because of comment spam.

Also many bloggers have added nofollow to their blogs comment sections. Nofollow means that when Google sees the attribute (rel=”nofollow”) on links, they will not give any pagerank credit for those links. The nofollow link to your blog will not influence your blog negatively, it is just a way for search engines to make sure that spammers get no benefit from abusing blog comments.

This does not make links from blog comments useless for a new blog though. Blog comment links are different than a strategy for ranking well in search engines. Links from the comments section of other blogs should be seen as a traffic builder and a relationship builder. It is an opportunity to get traffic from sources other than the search engines.

Search engine rankings are a long-term project so in first few weeks/months you will most probably not be getting a lot of search engine traffic. So while you build your content and your inbound links for SEO purposes, you can write useful blog comments on related blogs to generate some initial traffic and blog awareness.

Here is a 5-step plan to follow after creating a new blog and after writing several original, useful and keyword-rich blog articles:

1. Find blogs related to your content. Use Blog Search or Technorati.
2. Subscribe to their RSS feed and have a look around their content.
3. Contribute to the conversation by sharing your thoughts. Write useful, thoughtful and knowledgeable responses to some of the most recent blog posts and discussions. Include your blog title and the URL in your comment. Always sign your comments in a consistent manner.
4. Stay connected to these blogs. Get involved in discussions multiple times, don’t just post one comment and never return. A profile of a blogger with 100 blog comments on 20 different blogs is going to be a lot stronger than the profile of a blogger with 100 blog comment links from 100 different blogs.
5. Brand your blog comments and make yourself easily recognizable with a globally recognized blog comment avatar from Gravatar. Also claim your comments at BackType to give your comments a home where they can be discovered, followed and shared.

These five simple steps will set you on the way to getting some initial blog traffic and will get you and your blog introduced to some of the more popular bloggers in your field. Not a bad way to start a brand-new blog. Now go do some commenting!