
Now you know that your blog comments have to be relevant, topical, and thoughtful in order to get the benefits of your outreach campaign.
I will now share a few ways you can find blogs in your target market on which to comment in order to get the attention of influencers in your market, including experts in the field and blog publishers who will help – indirectly and directly – get you more traffic and authority for yourself.
The first way is simple and almost too obvious to notice. Undoubtedly, you visit blogs right now that are related to your niche or industry. Simply begin commenting on them!
Well, duh…
Method #1
Seriously, pick out 3-5 blogs that you really like, ones that strike a chord with you. Something that resonates. Read them, every day. Add them to your feedreader or bookmark them and make sure you get notifications whenever new posts have been published or at least check back often so you don't miss anything.
If anything in particular inspires a comment, just do it – make that relevant, topical, thoughtful comment. Be totally sincere, succinct, and selfless. Add value to the conversation! Make sure you fill out the commenting form with your URL. That may get you some clicks.
But the main point is that the publishers you follow might take notice and respond to your comment. They may even reach out to you; you never know (but don't hold your breath – at the outset, that is not what you're looking for).
Now, there is no set limit and nothing is etched in stone, so take this with a grain of salt and use your “real-world experience” to dictate what you do next and when. It's sort of like courting a boy- or girlfriend – you just gotta go with your gut, keeping in mind what's worked and what hasn't from your past experiences.
Keep interacting, engaging, discussing. Obviously, don't beat a dead horse and always remember you're in their house (i.e., on their blog) so don't pee all over their living room, if you know what I mean.
Watch to see if you get any traffic back to your own site from your commenting efforts – sometimes you will and sometimes you won't. But make absolutely sure that you keep an eye on this stuff.
Eventually, you will have built up some “street cred” on those sites you routinely comment at and then you can ask for an opportunity to write a guest blog. You now know what the audience wants, what they like, how they engage. This process can take some time. Surely there have been others who made all this happen over night.
But I'm not like that and I'm sure many others aren't either. Remember – that tortoise won the race.
Take you time but do it!
So that's method #1.
Method #2
Method #2 requires you to do a bit of research – but in all cases, the process is the same:
- Find blogs to comment on.
- Engage and learn what the audience likes and wants.
- Always add value.
- Offer to write a post for the blog. Publishers often run out of time and appreciate well-written posts and will most likely approve of your offer, especially now that they “know you”.
That's how you get all the benefits of blog commenting for outreach purposes!
Here's how you can find blogs to comment on:
- Search Google or Bing (or both) to find blogs related to yours.
- See if they have commenting enabled. If they do, at the end of each post you will see a form to fill out with your comment
- There are some search strings you can use that will help you search more efficiently.
For example, if you use this search in Google, you will find blogs in the field of SEO that have the “CommentLuv” plugin enabled:
google: [your keyword phrase] “commentluv enabled”
Caveat: You will undoubtedly find other websites, too, that may not be CommentLuv-enabled by using this search string, but I assure you that you will find some blogs that you can comment on.
Method #3
You can use my very own Backlink Search Tool! You need to use the Google Chrome browser and then go here to add it.
If you have any questions, leave a comment and I'll answer it.
Hi Bill,
I’m a huge fan of Chrome extensions and apps, so I installed your’s right away. Very nice and I’ll be sure to give it a good rating in the Chrome Store.
I’m always commenting on blogs so this is a very handy post.
Happy 2014!
Thank you so much, Ileane! I appreciate it. You have a really nice web site, by the way. I’ll be gobbling up your content 🙂 GREAT stuff.