How 30 minutes a day can result in 250 inbound links
First, know that the 250 links will come over time – it’s not a one time event. It is actually a pretty simple strategy and will have more benefits than just getting inbound links. I am referring to the practice of strategically commenting on blogs. Sure, it’s been talked about, but the question is are you doing it? And if you are, are you doing it effectively? How do you know if it’s working for you or not?
It shouldn’t take you more than 30 mintues per day to find a new blog to post a comment on. I recommend starting in your niche with the goal of attracting similarly minded subscribers to your site or blog. In the process, you will learn of new blogs in your field, find complementary blogs closely related to your field, and get to know more bloggers in your niche, which could lead to guest blogging on their blogs. A great way to find bloggers in your niche is through StumbleUpon, and blogging guru extraordinaire, Darren Rowse (a.k.a. ProBlogger) just wrote a great article about this.
In your quest to comment, I suggest subscribing to a few blogs and really getting involved in the community aspect by becoming a top contributor as this can lead to others eventually subscribing to your blog (and that is one of your goals right?) Also, help promote those blogs by Stumbling, Digging, or whatever flavor of Social Media Marketing you utilize. As Darren points out, they will take notice.
And of course, who says you need to only post one comment per day? The more you comment, the faster you will see results. Try kicking it up to 4 a day and see what happens.
Of course, some bloggers will use the (evil) “no follow” tag which will reduce the effectiveness of this tactic, but it will still get your name out there and may even solicit a few clicks, especially if you use a unique name as opposed to “Mary”… you know, something like “Old School: 
I have made a goal to do this myself and in fact even have a spreadsheet where I am tracking it (what a geek!) so I can make sure that I meet my goals. In a year, I almost guarantee that you will make huge strides in the blogging community if you practice this daily.
That’s me for now, but stay tuned for more hot blogging tips!
More From Anthony Kirlew
- My 16 tips for becoming a blogger worth following
- How Many Ways Can You Get Traffic From Google?
- How to Effectively Comment on Blogs – Fueled Friday
Anthony Kirlew Recommends
- Blog Post SEO: How to Search Engine Optimize Content (StayOnSearch)
- How to Lower Your Bounce Rate Using Google Analytics (StayOnSearch)
- How Article Marketing can Help Your Blog (StayOnSearch)
People forget how easy it is to get links through blog comments…thanks for reminding folks.
Thanks Todd. We all need a reminder from time to time and going back to the basics, not just in business, but in other aspects of life (at least I do)
Great, now I’m wondering if you’ll think I have ulterior motives for commenting on this post
I’ve also had solid results from cross-commenting, not only for blog readership but getting to know and learn from great people in my industry. One of my 2008 resolutions is to do a better job of thanking those people, by participating more on Stumbleupon, etc.
Great Post, OldSchool!! Leaving comments is a wonderful way to get incoming links to your website or blog. Plus interacting with other people… isn’t that what social media is all about? Thanks for reminding us of that, OldSchool!!
Shana
@ Dr. Pete – Good point on remembering to thank people; it’s easy to forget one’s manners in the online world. So thanks for commenting and feel free to Stumble (for which I’ll thank you again)
[...] How 30 minutes a day can aftereffect in 250 inbound links, Old School seo [...]
Thanks Shana. After starting to get a few comments, I realized the irony that everyone who comments here gets a link which is inline with the post itself, so congrats on claiming yours.
[...] Fuente: Oldschoolseo [...]
How can you read this post and then NOT leave a comment with a linkback? Now the goal is to get on your blogroll
@ Arnie – Thanks for stopping by and picking up your link. Also thanks for mentioning the blogroll. If the folks on my blogroll don’t come by and comment it may open up a few slots
Following your wise advice, Arnie! –S
That sounds pretty good, more comments equals more links. How about actually spending money on advertising and promotion? It’s like everything has to be done free or something!
If you spent $100 today to pick up an extra $3/month from here on, would you do it? When I get that $100 I’ll give you the answer to that.
@ Get More Traffic – To answer your first comment, it’s not that everything has to be done for free, but this is one of many effective strategies to incoporate into an overall marketing plan.
To answer your second question – heck no. That would be a horrible return on investment. Basically, you would invest $100 so than in 33 months you could break even? Clearly not worth it. Now would I invest half hour a day to build my brand – absolutely (out of pocket cost = $0)
Great article, I now know how I am spending tomorrow.
Thanks!
Funnily enough, although I also try to leave comments as much as possible, I usually assume any links will be no-follow. I leave comments as the best way of building that sense of community. If I leave what I hope is an interesting or insightful comment, I hope people will be curious to follow the link, especially if they see me crop up more and more often.
This comment here is step 1 to get into the blogging community.
step1 complete, comment has been made.
Thanks, there’s some good advise there. Sometimes when you are busy it’s easy to miss the wood for the trees.
I was pleasently refreshed when I read your post and saw it not to be an automated black hat link gathering tools, but I think you’ve got to be careful with blog comments, particularly when linking.
I think, and what I imagine you meant, is the benefit of users visiting your blog or website as a result of reading your comments. Surely, and correct me if I’m wrong, but people (and customers) are not going to respect you if you do not demonstrate an authority in how you communicate. Simply posting ‘short’ replies with an URL on a blog post is hardly going to add value?
How many comments do you imagine you will attract that are simply after a link as opposed to actually wishing to comment or contribute to the argument?
I am all for networking, both offline and on – but it takes me back to something my mum would have said to me “if you’ve got nothing nice to say… don’t say anything at all’.
Simon Dance
Great post Anthony!
I tried to Stumble it through your bookmarkers but I received a 404 message. You may want to check that out.
Mark Dykeman just went through the same hassle a day or two ago because he moved his site.
It’s Sphunn though!
It Works!
I came across this strategy late last year and contributed to a few industry related blogs. I saw an immediate result in my in-bound links from the log files on my server, it can only have positive results and good Karma for your SE listings.
You make a great point with this…Thanks
“Of course, some bloggers will use the (evil) “no follow†tag”
@oldschool http://www.semiologic.com/software/wp-fixes/dofollow/
( Hint Hint )
This is a very alluring post – makes you have to leave a comment.
And your name can not only be interesting it can be good anchor text, right?
@ takeabreak – all you need is a half hour, but more is always better. I think I did about 10 yesterday myself.
@ kimota – I am not sure what the percentage of no-follow vs. do-follows are out there buy as SEO Rob pointed out, I myself, failed to implement the dofollow tag. I am humble enough to admit, I don’t know it all.
@ Eish_dude – Your link will follow
@ Caravan – I’ts also easy to miss the simple things like adding the do-follow plug in to your blog.
@ Simon Dance – no black hat here and I agree with your mum – words from the wise.
@ SpostareDuro – thanks for the info on the Sociable links. I will check into that.
@ Gripper – good karma = good links?
@ SEO Rob – you get the award for making realize that I failed to implement the do-follow plug in on this blog. You are the man, and I will update this as soon as I get out this meeting, where people think I am taking notes, but I am really updating my blog
@ Free Music – yes on the anchor text, and I was pleasantly surprised when I visited your site. I guess I thought I would end up at a “made for adsense” page with free music info and AdSense links. So, I guess it can work against you too, depending on the anchor text used.
@ everyone – I have updated the site with the dofollow tag and again, thanks to SEO Rob for pointing that out before it made national headlines
Thanks for the advice. Just one question . Will the link will have enough juice to help SERPs. ? I think G can easily identify the links coming from comments. So its not a link one getting from other webmaster.
I will highly appreciate your answer
Excellent reminder of best practices and comment chum!
Thanks for the post and helpful advice.
I created eTaildTail almost a year ago to help small to mid sized online merchants with their marketing needs and helping them with their data feeds to shopping comparison sites. I am also co-founder of http://www.MerchantAdvantage.com which helps companies with data feed management tools, check us out and maybe we can help.
Have a great 2008!
Chip Arndt
Co-Founder of http://www.MerchantAdvantage.com
Author of http://www.eTaildTail.com
Thanks for the reminder. BTW, how can you tell if the blog you are commenting uses “no follows”?
Larry
I comment alot and write even more but just haven’t seen that kind of result. I have started to cite other articles on my blog out of frustration. I often end a comment with a “check me out @” and leave my url, this works sometimes. I think I may need some blogging science dropped on me?…
[...] and tips on how to attract tons of in-bound links from other blogs. The article is called: How 30 minutes a day can result in 250 inbound links “It shouldn’t take you more than 30 minutes per day to find a new blog to post a comment on. I [...]
Awesome! I agree… there is so much benefit it blog commenting, and it gets a bad rap among my seo “expert” friends.Nothing is worse then recommending a blo commenting in a seo strategy meeting and everyone become akwardly quiet as if i just yelled “black hat tactics”… its outright silly its legit, as long as you are particpating in the convo and not spamming the comment section… Anyways wanted to show you some love- nice that there is a conscious minority — and blog linking is underrated yet effective within a diverse link strategy
A great tip indeed. I’ll be featuring it on the next episode of my geek culture podcast. thanks!
As the others have said, great post. Always nice to have a reminder to concentrate on the basics.
Old School-Thank you for the post and the opportunity to leave a comment it is much appreciated. It is amazing what happens when you simply keep applying the basics of SEO and linking practices.
@ Ahead Directory – Any link from a trusted site feeds into the inbound link equation. There are different levels of trust and link value, however. For example, a link from my site is not as valuable as a link from Yahoo (yet)
@ Tpapi – Thanks for stopping by and commenting.
@ Chip – Thanks for the commercial
Sorry, I couldn’t resist, but I was in a good mood, so I left it as is, well, I did change it to open your URL’s in a new window. Don’t anyone else get any crazy ideas. But really, thanks for your comments, I will check out your sites.
@ Larry – I linked to Jennifer Laycock’s post where she discussed this, but also SEO Rob mentioned you can use the SEO for Firefox plugin and it will highlight them. One quick way is to view the source code and search for “rel=nofollow” in the code as Jennifer points out.
@ Mike Munz – I suggest checking the sites you are commenting on to see if they are no-follow. They may not even know it and you may be able to shed some light. Other than that, keep on doing it, it works.
@ Wailea – It is scary when people are put in charge of SEO or asked to play a role in discussion that are CLUELESS about the subject. It is frustrating, in my in-house SEO roles, I have sometimes had to back up my recommendations with documentation from others to prove a point. I am humble enough to do it and it usually gets my point across, and proves that I knew what I was talking about.
@ The Geek – Thanks in advance for featuring this. I will look for the trackback.
@ ATX – Thanks for visitng and commenting.
@ Oneunder – Amen!
SEM Basics rule. Thanks for the post.
j. Bruce
Advertise on Google, Yahoo and MSN now. All budget sizes welcome. (link removed)
Irresistible! A most useful reminder. BTW do you have an Old School Tie. In my younger days that was the quick way of spotting whether someone was from the old school.
@ J Bruce – Thanks for visiting and commenting.
@ Barry – Do you mean the really thin ties? I used to, but I got rid of my 80′s attire, although I wish I still had my high school jean jacket… did those come back? Thanks for visiting.
This is great, but it adds to the challenge of sorting out the wheat from the chaff. If you have to read through dozens (hundreds?) of comments to find the one or two that have something real to say, instead of doing what many folks have done here — posting for the sake of posting and hopefully getting links — the Web loses much of its value.
I think the next big step is when the Internet becomes the “Infonet” — when a Google equivalent can automatically sort out the real, new, original content from the repetitions and cross-links for the sake of cross-links.
@ Tema – That’s what comment moderation is for. Many bloggers will not post useless posts in the spirit of providing good content. This blog post is unique however in that the topic is commenting on blogs, so all have been allowed.
What NO follow plug-in did you decide to use? I use LinkLove and it works well. Just wondering if there is another good choice out there.
@ Arnie – I used this one sent to me by SEO Rob
http://www.semiologic.com/software/wp-fixes/dofollow/
I am a firm believer in practicing the Golden Rule. If I find a blog that I really like or I know the blogger I try to make it back to their blog as often as possible to see what is going on and if they have anything that I should lend something of value to the conversation. I don’t get huge comments on my blog but I do get the hits. I know that if I were to implement this strategy that I would get more traffic over time and also more comments, I am however pleased with the hits at the moment and will just continue to implement traffic building techniques as time goes on.
Thank you for a great article I will be subscribing to your blog. I will also spread it around in the social network sites I belong too as well.
Good point!
I have been using this tactic for over a year, and it has worked wonders for me.
I do, however, agree with some comments that have stated you must post GOOD-QUALITY content; such as the ones in this blog!
If you make the mistake of posting short (or useless) comments you might be seen as a spammer, and your link loses value.
Good advice, and something I’ve been meaning to do more of! Thanks for the reminder.
@ Joe Cheray – The Golden Rule is the only rule. I’ll now put you higher up on my “to contact” list.
@ Good Quality. Overall I am pleased with the sincerity of the comments here. Haven.t had any spammer even.
@ Sean – You are welcome. Keep us posted on how you make progress.
Well, since you’re threatening those of us on your blogroll with removal if we don’t post
@ Simon Heseltine – I couldn’t live with myself if I took you off my Blogroll, you are probably the one who motivated me to start this blog more than anyone else (without even saying to do it). And then there was that glowing reference for my current job… and let’s not forget the SEM Analyst Job you hired me for previously..
I guess my next goal is to convince you to add that email subscription so I can subscribe to your blog (now the whole group will be watching for that).
[...] How 30 minutes a day can result in 250 inbound links, Old School SEO [...]