This is a story about how I generated $25,000 with 249 comments on my blog. The key to success in marketing and blogging is implementing the right strategy at the right time. To succeed today, you need to constantly experiment – attempting new plans until they are proven winners or failures- to build up your arsenal of knowledge that will get you closer to that next big idea. It’s no secret that leaving comments on other people’s blogs may help you get more visitors. But, more importantly, are you genuinely using this strategy? Most likely, you aren’t. So, to demonstrate the value of posting comments on other blogs, I conducted a test where I left 249 comments on other people’s blogs in October. Three thousand nine hundred seventy-three visits and six consultancy leads emerged from the 249 comments. Even though I don’t do much consulting, one of those leads turned into a $25,000 corporate speaking engagement. Now, before you run out and post hundreds of comments, I’d want to share with you some of the lessons I gained from my experiment:
A few simple figures.
The majority of comments on the internet are spam. Every hour, Akismet, a service that helps prevent spam comments, sees around 7.5 million spam comments. Essential comments, in which the user says “thanks” or “great blog article,” are the second primary remark. I used the “URL field” to enter a custom URL to measure the number of hits and leads I was getting, and my experiment proved that leaving either of those sorts of comments would not benefit you. The first 25 of the 249 comments I posted were simple. I merely typed a few phrases or sentences like this:
They didn’t bring anything to the discourse and only brought in 82 people. In other words, I was bringing in 3.2 visitors for each comment. The remaining 224 comments drew 3,891 people to the site. These comments ranged in length from four to seventeen sentences. They contributed value to the discussion and only took 1 to 2 minutes to create.
The average number of visits per comment was 17.4. So, if you’re going to leave a comment, read the blog article first and take your time crafting a sensible response.
Expect your ranks to remain stable.
Even though I conducted this experiment in October, I’ve been commenting on other marketing blogs for years. When you comment on these blogs, the link to your website is ‘followed.’ These blogs inform search engines like Google that the association should not be considered for ranking your website. This has been my experience. You will not notice a boost in your rating if you leave comments on other people’s blogs. Or at least, that’s how I’ve found it with all of my blogs. So, when it comes to commenting, please don’t do it for better ranks. Instead, use it to increase traffic, brand awareness, and conversions.
It would help if you were cautious about the blogs you comment on.
If you’re like me and want to increase your traffic and business, don’t simply comment on any site. It didn’t help much when I commented on marketing-related topics on big sites like Huffington Post. It attracted visitors but did not result in conversions. Why? These popular blogs cover every subject under the sun, yet their users aren’t nearly as engaged in any one issue as niche blog readers are. Aside from commenting on generic mainstream sites, it would help if you refrained from commenting on rival blogs as a matter of respect. Sure, there are times when it’s OK to leave comments on competitor blogs, but in general, you should avoid it. So, on which blogs should you leave a comment?
Not all blogs provide the same outcomes.
As I previously said, 25 of the 249 comments I posted were simple… So there are 224 comments left. The 224 comments were published in the following places:
As you can see, I left 52 comments on significant sites like Huffington Post, 100 words on business blogs, and 72 comments on guest pieces that I produced and published all over the internet. Each of those channels attracted from 6 to 59 people per comment in terms of traffic. I discovered that if I left a remark during the first hour of the post’s publication and it was higher on the page, it brought more traffic. All of the leads were generated by leaving comments on guest pieces that I had written.
So, is it even worth commenting on?
Every month, I contribute to Entrepreneur Magazine, Hubspot, Forbes, Inc Magazine, and a few more websites as a guest blogger. So I wanted to see how many leads came from the guest blogs that I wasn’t commenting on, which turned out to be the vast majority. Surprisingly, it was nothing! That’s accurate, and I usually get no leads when I submit a guest article and don’t react to comments. Sure, I got some traffic and maybe a few backlinks, but I didn’t get any leads. However, by commenting on my guest blogs, I created seven charges. One of the leads generated $25,000 in sales, so this is a significant difference. Commenting is worthwhile from a branding standpoint. Two individuals have told me that they’ve seen my name appearing more often on industry blogs. Your comments can help you generate traffic, market your firm, and establish yourself as an industry expert. If you publish guest pieces, reply to comments since this will generate leads and loyalty.
Conclusion
Whether or not you guest post, you should consider leaving comments on blogs in your sector. You don’t have to do it in the same quantity as I did, but even on a lesser scale, it may assist with branding. I’m sure I’ll keep commenting. And, if at all feasible, I’ll make more comments on the guest blogs I publish since the early results seem to be promising. So, will you start leaving comments on other people’s blogs now? P.S. If you want to understand how producing words on your blog influences search traffic, see this blog article.