How I Generated 513 Leads To My Startup By Commenting on Blogs

Blog commenting is a somewhat… controversial marketing tool. But, that’s mostly because of comments like this:

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And this:

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There’s no arguing that blog comment spam isn’t a problem…

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In fact, spam comments make up the vast majority of blog comments posted to the web. It sounds crazy, but the anti-blog-spam tool, Akismet, sees around 7.5 million of them every hour.

And there’s little mystery around why.

Once upon a time, blog commenting was actually an effective link-building strategy (here’s Loren Baker recommending it back in 2007). But that really was “once upon a time” (at least, in internet terms…).

Today, excessive blog commenting executed purely to gain links is officially frowned upon. According to Matt Cutts:

“If your primary link building strategy is to leave comments all over the web, to the degree that you have a huge fraction of your link portfolio comments, and no real people linking to you, then at some point that can be considered a link scheme. At a very high level we reserve the right to take action on any sort of deceptive or manipulative link schemes that we consider to be distorting your rankings.”

What’s more, even if manipulative blog commenting doesn’t land you a very lovely penalty, thanks to the “nofollow” attribute that’s commonly used today, any value you gain in terms of link equity is pretty much negligible anyway.

But, that doesn’t mean that blog commenting can’t be used as a legitimate mechanism for marketing your company and generating leads.

As part of my marketing for my recent ContentMarketer.io launch, I did just this with the primarily goal of generating leads.

After approximately 20 hours work, my blog commenting resulted in 2,494 visitors and 513 new trials of the tool – in other words, some pretty strong leads.

This activity may not be totally scalable, but my results equate to a 14% conversion rate. Not too shabby, if I don’t say so myself.

Of course, I didn’t just go and post anything – anywhere and everywhere. I created and followed a careful plan. Stay with me to find out what I did…

Step #1 – I searched for relevant articles

Since the goal of this strategy was to gain leads for a content marketing tool, I began by searching Google for terms like “content marketing tools” and “content marketing resources.”

Of course, I wasn’t interested in the actual tools themselves or resources pages, so I narrowed my search by adding the advanced search operator “inurl:blog.” This meant that my search results would be made up exclusively of articles, most of which I’d be able to comment on.

Just to clarify, this meant that the initial search terms I used were…

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“content marketing tools” inurl:blog

And…

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“content marketing resources” inurl:blog

I also tried entering these search terms both with, and without, the exact match quotes.

However, I wasn’t just going to hop from post-to-post blindly leaving a comment and a link to Content Marketer – being so disorganized would make it very difficult to track my success.

Instead, before I began commenting, I saved the URL of each post I planned to comment on in a spreadsheet (you might be able to save yourself some time by scraping Google’s results).

However, I didn’t comment on every post that came up, for two reasons…

  1. Not every site had a readership that matched my target audience.
  2. To quote Matt Cutts again, there was a chance (albeit a small chance) that if I over-used this technique “then at some point that might be considered a link scheme.”

Step #2 – I chose where to comment

Since I didn’t want to risk my nearly brand new site suffering a penalty, I had to be strategic about where I chose to comment.  

Articles that appeared on the first page of Google for my search terms were a good bet, since their prominent positioning (in Google) meant that they were (and are) likely to receive regular traffic.

Quick tip: Make sure to log yourself out of Google and go “incognito” (if you’re using Chrome, at least).

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This will prevent personalized search mechanisms from skewing the results you see in favor of sites you’ve recently visited or visit regularly.

In general, I also avoided posts on less industry specific sites (such as news sites), because I (probably rightly) assumed that the majority of visitors to those pages were unlikely to be in need of a tool like Content Marketer – and, consequently, were unlikely to convert.

I also made sure to filter out any low-quality sites – if there’s any real chance of a questionable footprint being left by blog commenting, it’s going to result from leaving comments on sites that are engaging in questionable practices themselves.

Here are a few quick tricks that can help you establish whether a site is worth your time or well worth avoiding.

Tip #1 – Use the free Moz Toolbar to find out the domain authority of the site in question.

On that note, I feel it’s worth mentioning pagerank. Pagerank (Google’s measure of the importance of a web page) used to be a reasonably solid way of establishing the authority of a site (and a specific page). However it hasn’t been updated (publicly, at least) since December 2013, so don’t rely on it as your only metric.

Bonus tip: If you’re looking at a blog hosted on a subdomain such as .blogspot or .wordpress, ignore the domain authority reported, as it stems from the host site and, as such, is an irrelevant metric.

Alternatively, I’m also a big fan of SpiralDB. It’s not as well-rounded an SEO tool as the Moz Bar, but it beats it hands-down in terms of link risk analysis, pulling in data from Ahrefs, Semrush, and Majestic.

Tip #2 – Check for questionable-looking links.

Before you decide to post a comment on certain sites, take a look at their backlink profiles. You can gain some insight with a paid Moz account; however, tools such as Ahrefs and Majestic will allow you a sneak peek for free.

If you spot an overwhelming number of questionable-looking links, steer clear.

Tip #3 – Check out their social profiles.

A large following is a good sign, but is easy to manipulate. An active following is a better sign.

Tip #4 – Trust your instincts.

If a site looks like a quality site, it probably is. If it’s littered with spelling mistakes and just doesn’t look like a site you would want a link from, you’re probably right in thinking it’s one to avoid.

Last but not least, when choosing where to comment – and where not to comment – I avoided commenting on any site that I knew to be, or thought could be a potential competitor. It’s not likely to get me very far, and it’s just plain rude.

Step #3 – I added genuine value

It might sound obvious, but I feel the need to clarify that when I was blog commenting, I wasn’t just jumping from blog to blog leaving messages that said “Hey, come and look at this tool, it’s the most awesome tool ever” (or for that matter, anything to that effect).

It was critical to me that I wasn’t just going around leaving borderline-spam comments on every blog I could find. Just like commenting on a competitor’s site, it’s rude, and I have a reputation to uphold. Not to mention that genuinely useful comments were likely to (and did) result in far higher CTRs than comments that were practically pleading people to visit my site.

Naturally, this limited my reach slightly. I know a lot about this industry but I’m not qualified to comment on everything, and I don’t try to pretend that I am. It meant that, in order to ensure maximum ROI, I had to adapt my approach. At least a little…

Thankfully, a good chunk of the posts I chose to comment on were lists of useful marketing tools. It was easy to contribute to these discussions because I literally did have to say something along the lines of, “Hey, great post, I really liked (list my favorite points from the post). It’d be great if you could take a look at my new tool, ContentMarketer.io, as well.”

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Of course, not every post was quite so easy to add value to. Beyond “best of” lists, I looked at posts that spoke generally about content marketing.

On these posts, I would take the time to actually add to the discussion. I wasn’t spamming or anything; I was just finding points, ideas, or tips that I could add to or offer an alternative viewpoint on.

Lastly, there were posts that either:

  • I thought were so awesome there was nothing more to say, or
  • I didn’t feel qualified enough on the subject matter to justify adding anything

In these cases, I left a simple comment to show my appreciation for the post. I’d only include a link if there was an opportunity to have my name link to Content Marketer – I wouldn’t link from within the comment itself.

Did this last technique offer much of an ROI? Unsurprisingly, very little. However, it did drive some visits and the very odd lead. I’d put this down to someone recognizing my name and clicking through to see why that was.

I may be wrong there, but I know I don’t go around clicking on people’s names in blog comments unless I’ve been really impressed by what they had to say (and I don’t see what anyone would find enticing or impressive about the comment “Excellent post, really enjoyed it, thanks so much for sharing.”).

Step #4 – I carried on the discussion

It would be easy (really easy) to leave a comment on a post and click away, never to be seen again. But that would limit your reach and increase the chance of your comments being flagged by Google as an attempt at manipulative link-building.

I am, of course, making an educated guess here. It’s hardly ground-breaking news that Google frequently detects manipulative link-building by identifying unnatural patterns in a website’s backlink profile.

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It also (to me, at least) seems obvious that one blog comment link on 1,000 different sites just doesn’t look natural – because who reads (and comments on) 1,000 different blogs unless they have an ulterior motive?

So, my take on blog commenting for lead generation is that you should become genuinely involved in the discussions that are happening on the blogs you’re commenting on.

Don’t leave 300 comments on 300 different posts – leave 300 comments on 50 different posts. It may seem counterproductive, but my experience and the results I’ve been able to drive have shown me otherwise.

One comment on a popular blog post can easily get lost in a sea of other blog comments. If, however, you’re actually, actively involved in the discussion, your name will repeatedly pop up, and people are far more likely to pay attention to what you have to say.

Even if your comments themselves don’t include a clear URL or anchor text link to the site or content you’re trying to promote, the more familiar people become with your name and the more they come to respect what you have to say and add to the conversation, the more likely they’ll be to click on your name (which you’ve linked back to whatever you’re trying to promote) to find out more about you.

If you take the time to get truly involved in these discussions, this becomes a brand-building exercise in its own right. I’ll let you in on a little secret: I didn’t just generate 513 leads for Content Marketer through blog commenting; I actually made a number of new contacts, got my name in front of tons of new people, and even landed a couple of guest posting spots.

You wouldn’t ignore comments on your own blog (or I hope you wouldn’t, anyway) so why do it on anyone else’s blog?

Every time you post a comment to a blog, make sure you’re set-up to get notifications each time someone else comments, too. If that’s not practical (say the blog post is so busy you’d be inundated with notifications, or the functionality just isn’t available), then try to keep track of when and where you leave comments, and check back to those posts regularly so that you can follow up when needed.

Other benefits of blog commenting

Even if you’re not trying to promote anything in particular, there are still benefits to be gained from blog commenting. Let’s take a quick look at them…

Raising your profile

Blog commenting is an excellent way to get your name out there; however, just like blog commenting for lead generation, when you’re commenting to raise your profile you need to target the right sites in the right way.

Comment on popular blogs on (relatively) popular posts. A celebrity wanting to get snapped by the paparazzi wouldn’t head to a low-key hideaway – they’d go where “people go to see and be seen.”

If you want to be noticed online, the same rules apply. The bigger the readership, the bigger the potential for people to read your comments and take note of who you are.

That said, if a blog post is inundated with comments, your own comment is likely to get lost in a sea of noise. Stick with the big-name blogs, but try to pick posts that aren’t attracting floods of comments, but just enough for you join in and contribute to the conversation.

Add genuine value. Respect is earned: if you want to gain the respect of people in your industry, you need to demonstrate why you deserve it. Simply stating “Awesome post” and glossing over what you agree with just won’t cut it. You haven’t added anything to the conversation, so why would anyone pay attention to what you have to say? Short answer: they won’t.

Instead, take the time to expand on what the writer has already explored, offer complementary information, or even – if appropriate – a contradictory point of view.

Use gravatar. Gravatar links an image of you with your name, so that your image follows you from site to site appearing beside your name. This is critical if you want people to remember you – it’s widely known that we can recall faces far better than names.

Building relationships

While you’re busy building your profile on some of the big-name blogs in your industry, it’ll come naturally to build relationships, too.

If you’re regularly visiting and commenting on the same sites, you’ll likely build a relationship with the owner of that site. This does, of course, depend on a couple of factors:

Who’s writing the posts on these sites?

If you’re commenting on a big, big site (say, Entrepreneur) chances are, each post you’re commenting on has been penned by a different author. This lack of consistency will make it difficult to build a relationship of significance with anyone.

On the plus side, it’s pretty easy to get around this predicament. You can always follow a particular author on a particular site, or, simply comment on sites that are manned (primarily) by a single person.

Are you actually getting involved in the conversation?

This brings me back, once again, to the point of actually adding value to the conversation. There’s nothing wrong with complimenting the author if you like the post (hey, I won’t lie – I love it when people praise me in my blog comments). But… in terms of actually building a relationship with that author, purely praising them won’t get you very far.

It’s the difference between complimenting a stranger and actually engaging them in a conversation. The first might make them smile, but they’re unlikely to remember you for very long. Speak to them for a few minutes, however, and chances are you and your exchange with them will stick in their mind. At least for a while.

Gaining ideas for posts

No single blog post is ever going to say everything there is to say about a given topic; instead, the conversation will likely continue into the comments. These conversations can be blog-post inspiration gold.

Just take a look at the comments in this TopRank post that I commented on. Within those comments alone, there’s enough suggestions for tools to fill a short follow-up post or even a series of posts.

You’ll also often see commenters asking questions; some of which could require a follow-up post to answer properly.

Bonus tip: If you do base a blog post on content you’ve acquired through a comments section, seek the buy-in of the original post’s author and encourage them to share your post once it’s finished. Better yet, ask the original author whether they’d like to host your follow-up as a guest piece on their site to help the piece get more question.

And last but not least…

Learning

If you tend to skip over comments sections unless you’ve got something to say yourself, stop, sit back, and take a moment to smell the roses.

As above, a single blog post never tells a complete story – you can often learn a lot by sticking around to read the comments and see what else people have to say on the topic.

Naturally, some blogs are better than others when it comes to added value. Personally, I always like to stick around for the comments on the Moz blog. Yeah, you get a fair share of people that are just commending the author on a job well done, but there are also some really smart minds jumping in and out to offer some really useful, additional info.

So stick it out. Check out the comments sections of blogs in your industry, whether you comment or not. The results, in terms of lead generation, education, inspiration and more will be well worth it.

Do you use blog commenting as a marketing or lead generation tool? If you do, don’t stop now – let me know how you’re utilizing it and what sort of results you’re seeing in the comments below:

Entrepreneur & Digital Marketing Strategist

I build and grow SaaS companies.

“When it comes to marketing, Sujan is the best. I’ve never met someone with such creative tactics and deep domain knowledge not just in one channel, but in every flavor of marketing. From content, to scrappy guerrilla tactics, to PR, Sujan always blows my mind with what he comes up with.”

RYAN FARLEY Co-Founder of Lawn Starter

Comment (70) - Cancel Reply

Devesh Khanal 111 months ago

This is clever Sujan. Instead of commenting for backlinks like it’s 2004…commenting extremely strategically with most of the work done upfront for extremely targeted referral traffic.

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Sujan Patel 111 months ago

Thanks Devesh! Btw you should write a guest post for my site on all the ninja conversion stuff we talk about during your engagement at When I Work. I know my audience would love it!

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Tiffany 111 months ago

Well summarized! Especially with the 2004 reference. lol.

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Kelly Kuhn-Wallace 111 months ago

Sujan, thanks for dispelling the myth that blog commenting is a “bad” strategy! I, too, have seen great results for my startup clients with a strategically implemented blog commenting strategy. One more thing that you can do to add value (and mitigate risk) is to use a link in your comment that points to relevant content — not your home page.

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Priya Florence Shah★ (@PriyaFlorence) 111 months ago

Hi Sujan,

I tried entering the link to this blog post in https://contentmarketer.io but it refused to give me your email 😉 Was that deliberate?

I am enjoying using this amazing tool you’ve created for influencer outreach and would love to write a review of it or interview you for my blog. Are you up for that?

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Dale 111 months ago

Sujan, I’d love to hear the conversion rate on the 513 leads when the trials expire.

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Sujan Patel 111 months ago

Dale,

They converted at around 3-3.5% (Trial to paid) which seems bad but the quality of the trials wasn’t the issue, the onboarding and UX was the issue at the time as our other traffic sources converted at the same rate. We’re now at almost double that conversion rate now and plan on scaling this strategy. I’ll report back if at scale that works better. I can tell you from working with other companies that this strategy works at scale in some industries 🙂

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Yordi van Dijk 111 months ago

Thank you Sujan,

Such a great detailed post! I am totally agree with you! Strategic blog commenting and involving into the discussion does bring a great amount of targeted traffic!

Cheers,

Yordi

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Clement Lim 111 months ago

Hi Sujan

Thanks for demonstrating that leaving genuine blog comments on quality sites is a safe and productive marketing strategy.

I ranked a website in the past and generated several hundred visitors a day with nothing but blog comments. I stayed away from blog commenting for a while due to the fear of being penalised.

However the testimony of respected marketers like yourself has given me the confidence to return to blog commenting.

Your Content Marketing Playbook is great by the way.

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William 111 months ago

Wow – you nailed it. Marketing is becoming less about “spamming” and more about providing value. Content marketing – using crappy blog posts – is gone. Link spamming is gone, comment spam is gone – search engines are becoming smarter to avoid junk like this. But if you market to human beings – you can gain followers, influence, trials, customers and so much more.

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Tiffany 111 months ago

One thing I appreciate about your blog is that nearly every post I’ve read somehow leads back to the importance of relationship building, and also the slow, steady development of a business. I’m relatively young (just turned 30), and having spent much of my life on the internet, I tend to take speed for granted. I’m just now having it drilled into my head that while quick conversions are great, there is something to be said for slow and steady. Thanks for covering blog commenting as a marketing method. I had all but passed it off as extinct, but you’ve shown that it’s still viable as long as one is adding something of value to the conversation.

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Sujan Patel 111 months ago

Thanks Tiffany. I’m glad I could open your eyes about the importance of relationship building.

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Babs 111 months ago

Hi Sujan,

Great post. Sure blog commenting does a lot for someone who knows his way around it. Have tried some of these in the past and i ain’t gonna lie. Got some thumbs down and a bit of thumbs up.

To wrap it up i should be trying some of these your techniques for my new blog http://babsreviews.com

Be back to give you the feedback. Thanks for sharing with us.

~Babs.

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Philip Verghese Ariel 111 months ago

Hi Sujan,

I just read your wonderful post via notification of kingged.com a content marketing, social site which curate the pages of trending subjects. wherein Ann P V shared this post.

Nice meeting you, via kingged, in fact, I can say lot of experiences about my commenting strategy., but i want to say few things. I started my online journey by just commenting on others blog pages. This I started doing even before having a blog of my own, seeing my comments some of my readers inquired about my own blog page for which I could not give a proper answer and at a later stage I started one blog on blogger dot com, in fact that was the beginning of my blogging. This art I picked from my very young age by writing letters to the local dailies and magazines and weeklies in the Malayalam language, and I got several prizes for this act and when entered into the internet world that experience pushed me to go ahead with my activities, in the recent times cringed dot com too were giving much importance to comments and they even conducted several contests on comment writing.

Here again, I learned a lot about comments and its seriousness or value. And the same journey is going on with more vigor and tempo!

Nice to get such a lot of information on this subject. Indeed, this is a guide on this subject.

Keep sharing.

Best Regards
~ Philip

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Freddy Gandarilla 111 months ago

Hii Sujan!

What a great post and case study!

I think blog commenting is a great way to gain more exposure, maybe some backlinks, and get some free traffic to your blog.

You just have to do it right, as you also mentioned. You can’t just blindly implement a traffic generation strategy. We must track everything and pay close attention to all the steps.

Once we know what is working best, that is when the fun times come!

We do more, in order to get more!

I do a little bit of blog commenting myself – but have not done it a lot, not yet.

I think I’m going to put in an action plan and make my own case study soon.

Thanks for the inspiration and the knowledge man!

i really appreciate it!

Keep up the great work!

Have a fantastic week! 😀

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Sunday 111 months ago

Blog commenting is an awesome experience for leads and conversions if done well.

All that is needed to be done is that the marketer would need to engage in good comments that provide value and build relationship.

Generating leads through blog commenting is possible if there is always value in the conversation!
I left the above comment in kingged.com as well

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Doug Crowe 111 months ago

I recently unsubscribed from over 80 newsletters to clear out my mail volume. There were a few exceptions…

Your blog remains not only in my MUST reads, but I routinely print, share and (shockingly) DO much of what you suggest.

Your content and unbridled sharing of value is greatly appreciated. Thank you!

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Sujan Patel 111 months ago

Thanks Doug! I’m honored to be your MUST read blog 🙂

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Michael Kawula 111 months ago

This was definitely interesting Sujan and I’m glad I saw it on GrwothHackers.

I’ve never been one to leave links in my comments because i know I typically don’t allow the comment on my site if it has a link, but I get why you do and if it’s a valuable comment I guess most bloggers will allow the comment.

Did you track how many comments you left with a link and how many got published? Just curious.

This is something I’ll definitely consider doing for our startup. Love how you shared your conversion numbers from trial to paid. Best of luck ~ Mike

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Sujan Patel 111 months ago

Michael,

I did about 25-30 comments. To be clear not all of my comments linked back to my homepage..Some linked backed to relevant blog posts or other sites. But the website field always said my company website.

I used a simple spreadsheet to track which urls I commented on. I went back and checked a few weeks later. At the end of the day it’s a numbers game + providing value in the comment that makes this effective.

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Kate Chan 108 months ago

I’m interested in what metrics you used to track the success of the commenting experiment. In other words, what data do you look at that tell you the leads are a result of commenting?

I get analytic paralysis because there’re so many things to track. So I’m curious what you used?

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Scott Walker 111 months ago

Despite its controversy, I think Alexa rank is still the #1 decisive factor in determining the value of a blog or website.

I noticed that you made reference to few other metrics, but I think it’s worth mentioning Alexa rank.

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Sujan Patel 111 months ago

Great addition. Personally I’ve moved away from ALexa but you’re right that it’s still an important metric.

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Scott Walker 111 months ago

There’s a wealth of information that you can gather on Alexa’s newly updated site.

One of the least known method to increase Alexa rank fast is a service called Rankage: http://www.rankage.com , I’ve used it couple of times and it worked great.

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Stuart Armstrong 111 months ago

“The LONELY CEO blogger!”

Sujan, hello, bonjour. Thanks very much for your blog post and great tips on why and how people should act within their blogasphere ecosystems to research, qualify and add value for their potential clients, influencers or just contributing to GK. (global knowledge). As a 61 year old sales manager, I can recall sitting in the local library making prospect lists, photocopying relavent industry “insight” articles, then going door to door in person or via telephone to get leads, then sales. Many times I would ask for the CEO right away so he could read the information I had. (of course that was in a non-global “local world” when North American GDP demand growth hit 5-6% some quarters thus we only needed 150 qualified prospects to make/exceed quota versus the 1,500-5,000 relationships salesreps may require to-day. The social network mining tools you and others have mentioned in your collaborative blog can be very effective and I am still learning.

However one thing I have noticed in my B2B blog travels are the number of C level decision makers, business owners and many managers in larger firms who are publishing or commenting via blog entries themselves which go unanswered with zero comments even from B2B salesreps who are at the same time trying to sell a solution to the same company.
(50% of whom have not made quota in 8 years as per CSOInsight, Siriusdecision surveys)

No wonder many CEO’s are not seeing the value of reciprocal social media participation.

Thanks,

Stuart
Canada

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[…] HOW I GENERATED 513 LEADS TO MY STARTUP BY COMMENTING ON BLOGS by Sujan Patel for […]

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[…] I love it when someone refreshes an old-school marketing technique. Great experiment. Read it here… […]

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Nikhil 111 months ago

Hi Sujan.

You included great way to do comment on blogs. People usually do commenting for the referral traffic. You went one step ahead and generated leads. I have one question realted to blog commenting. I hope you are the right one to answer it.

Some people use top commenters widget in the sidebar. It shows the link of a post with the commenter name and gravator. That post gets linked to each page of the blog because. When we explore for backlinks for that post, it shows many backlinks from a single blog. Is it good for seo purposes?

Please explain it………

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Michael Vogel 111 months ago

Very interesting article Sujan. Interacting on blog comments might even be more valuable than Twitter – just because there can be so much noise there.

This might be helpful for my own startup http://www.goNetcoins.com – see what I did there 🙂

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Sujan Patel 111 months ago

I did 🙂

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Matt A 111 months ago

Great post! I actually have a Feedly folder called Comments that I put blogs in that I enjoy which post regularly in my niche. This way I can read & comment on these a lot more than just 1x. When they update, I know they’re going to be something that may help me with comments but also I can stay on top of what’s going on around my industry.

I also separate my regular “informational” blog reading out – but not necessarily ones with the greatest comment sections. I would rather have a discussion on Moz, here or Problogger than on randomdudewith1comment’s blog.

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Luke Fitzpatrick 111 months ago

Great post Sujan. I’ve done similar tests that were generalized. You make a point all marketers should always remember, “think more deeply about your target market” – be specific, and focus.

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Amit Kakkar 110 months ago

Love this article. Good work Sujan…

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Alex Rodriguez 110 months ago

Great post, Sujan. This is something I’ll be sure to keep in mind and use, as I begin building out my own blog.

Cheers!

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Luiz Centenaro 110 months ago

Like you said it’s all about the quality vs quantity. The research you did up front paid it’s dividends.

14% conversion rate! You found some terrific blogs to comment on, thanks for sharing the results Sujan.

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Garet Hindman 95 months ago

I agree you. Quality over Quantity!

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Raul Tiru 109 months ago

I love the way you think Sujan! As long as you ALWAYS deliver value, I guess there is no harm done.

I’m working on the topic “How to Solve the Biggest Problems with Online Marketing Tools”. Feel free to send me an email (hi@raultiru.com) about how ContentMarketer.io solves problems and I’ll get back to you when the post is online.

See you around!

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Ronkie 106 months ago

Blog commenting does work very well when done properly. I would like to say I’m pretty impressed by the way you explained the whole process. I myself highly reply on this tactic.
So, far the result I got is more than enough. This articles though me some new elements that will help me to build more audience for sure.

-Ronkie.

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8 Blog Commenting Mistakes You Need to Avoid at All Costs 106 months ago

[…] Sujan Patel generated 513 leads to his startup by commenting on blogs. Not just any type of comment, but relevant, valuable, and rich comments. […]

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Dan Neamtu 105 months ago

Hey Sujan,
I found interesting that Google use comment content even for meta description in SERP, this is amazing. Comments bring value for both: blog and you, but there is something more important: the readers. Great advices. Cheers!

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Sujan Patel 105 months ago

@Dan wow Google including it in meta description is even better 🙂

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Ravinder Dande 105 months ago

Hi Sujan,

To be honest I came here after neil patels post on 8 blog commenting mistakes . Like Neil you also delivered the awsome post. Doing Blog commenting in niche which are not related to our business and blog is not a good practice.Its time waste i think .having complete startegy of blog commenting on relevant blog can help us in getting decent traffic.

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Tahir Taous 105 months ago

I have read that leaving thoughtful comments on other blogs can drive traffic to your blog, but i never tried it. You have written everything in detail.

Using gravatar is very important, i have been using my blog name in gravatar, what do you say, should i use my personal image or using blog name in gravatar is OK.

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Gaurav Kumar! Digital Marketing Executive 105 months ago

Nice post, Sujan

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Lee Wilson 104 months ago

Loved this post!

It is so easy for people to excluded tactics in digital marketing (especially SEO) based on sweeping generalizations that ‘this is bad’, ‘Matt Cutts said xyz’ – the fact is with almost every instance that falls into this criteria, there are ways to use the tactics effectively and professionally, for long term search and digital success.

Part of expertise is expanding the potential for success and embracing opportunities that other may discount completely or overlook, not restricting potential, and yet, I see all the time, people with great capabilities doing this very thing.

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John Albert 104 months ago

Informative article. However, we are in a era where majority of online marketer prefer quantity links not quality links. As an online marketer I usually adopt the same strategy which you have pitch in this article. Many Thanks for sharing such a useful article. Totally worth visiting here.

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Zeev 104 months ago

Really good information..

Thanks for the valuable information and insights you have provided here, it can be very helpful for the newbies and many seo experts struggling to get traffic to their websites..

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Mitesh Sanghvi 103 months ago

Hey Sujan, I agree with you. The blog commenting have been doomed, but it still possess the same power as it used to be in early days. Due to spamming activities from hundreds of bloggers, it’s value is decreasing but we can still stand out from the crowd with our quality approach and bring up some leads. Thanks for putting these all words online and keep sharing. 🙂

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Prakhar Shrivastav 103 months ago

Comments are really a requisite of a growing blog. Most of the bloggers don’t follow these easy steps, and that’s the reason they do not get the higher Ranking on Google. For every blogger commenting is a must. Amazing write up. Thanks for sharing

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John 103 months ago

Hi Sujan
This is really insightful and helpful for the novice blogger. How do you differentiate between people who speak on similar topics but are likely to be a competitor. Do you mean competitor in the type of traffic they reach or in he products they offer?
Thanks for sharing!

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Nathan Elward 103 months ago

Great article Sujan …. especially for the newbies would not know the physics and math behind posting comments to generate leads. Must say it creates a strong foundation. Another similarly great read that speaks beautifully and in a very simple way of email marketing – its basics and steps for newcomers is at https://easysendy.com/blog/easysendy-pro-beginners-guide-email-marketing/ Let me know your thoughts too.. Thanks, Nathan

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roshailjohn 103 months ago

Thanks for the valuable information and insights you have provided here, it can be very helpful for the newbies.

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Ajay Walia 102 months ago

Well I agree with you. Blog comments are the easiest way drive traffic and get backlinks, but is it that easy?

No this is not easy. If I just write ” awesome blog” no one will see my profile. Everyone will read it and skip it, cause it is the very simple and short work.

To drive traffic, to drive attention you comments should have meaningful and important words. It should have information, argument, questions, query etc. So that people can read it with interest .

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prashant 102 months ago

Nice article helpfull too. I have read another article which will help and will add some points to this. http://goo.gl/4yHLzo

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Munyole 102 months ago

Blog commenting has immense power in regard to expanding your customer base

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Jane 102 months ago

I’m a newbie as far as gaining an audience through blog commenting for my business growth and I thank you for educating me on what the proper method to do so is. Didn’t know that Google patrols links on comments. The spread sheet list is a very helpful tip. Bottom line, honesty is the best policy. Thanks

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Gorik 101 months ago

Blog commenting can have value, for sure.
But how can you filter out spammy comments if you are a blog owner? Where do you draw the line between a useful comment and shameless self-promotion?

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Uliana from WPmatic 101 months ago

I actually thought about the same thing as I was reading. I believe that it has to be a balance between the right amount of useful info and a modest mention of your name/service/product. Especially if your comment starts a conversation – brings more action to the blog post – the chances of adverse reaction from the blog owner should be minimal 🙂

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john 101 months ago

Great post, Sujan. This is something I’ll be sure to keep in mind and use, as I begin building out my own blog.

Cheers!

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Uliana from WPmatic 101 months ago

Great post, thank you! It’s so easy to understand and to do, and yet so many marketers prefer automated mass approach because it’s easier and saves them time (to do what?) 🙂
I bet leads that you’ve generated using this strategy are of higher quality and have a longer lifetime value than the leads produced by using automated mass lead generation methods.
I will definitely use this approach in my future lead generation efforts 🙂

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technology guide 101 months ago

Blog commenting is really confusing but it is difficult to make comment on quality blogs and on blogs which provide high backlink. but it provides links on various websites and usually people visit your website through blogs.

it is really interesting seo task

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Aarti Sharma 100 months ago

Hi Sujan,
Thank you so much for sharing helpful tips with us.
I have some concerns, could you please help me out?

1. My friend told me that if I comment on someone’s blog (like yours) with my website’s name instead of real name, the comment would be unapproved to publish. Is it true?

2. Is it compulsory to do comments for getting back links on New Incognito Window? Or I can do it on Chrome / IE / Firefox?

3. I’m really new to blog world and SEO. I started writing a fashion blog about 4 months ago and I’m not getting much traffic on my page. Addition to blog comments (back links), are there other ways to increase the rank for my website? Please advise.

Look forward to your help. Thank you, Sujan

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karamath 99 months ago

Hi Sujan,

Sounds very new strategy every on comment on others blog’s just for a single backlink and to get referral traffic but this article was unique thanks for sharing your experiment.

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Shaikh Masood Alam 99 months ago

Thanks for giving me strong reason to continue my blog commenting strategy, because many blogger promotes comment link building dead in new SEO world. I know its work and it really work for my new blogs. I comment on any blog for one time and forget it but your article show me I am wrong and thanks for correcting me.
BTW I am your contentmarketer user.

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Robbie Schlosser 99 months ago

Hi Sujan,
Thanks for posting this wonderful article about commenting on a blog. Such a thorough discussion of pros and cons! For me, the main point of any comment is to ADD VALUE AND KEEP THE CONVERSATION GOING. And build the relationship, so I reply to feedback on comments I leave. Not doing so would be like telephoning a friend to chat and then hanging up when they answer.
– Robbie

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David Hoos 97 months ago

This is helpful from a commenters perspective, but it leads me to a related question from the host’s side.

Would you advise ALL companies with blogs to leave comments on?

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Sujan Patel 97 months ago

I advise anyone that’s writes regularly to comment on other blogs. It’ll help you build a relationship with the author and a name for yourself.

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betrice ally 97 months ago

Hai,

Nice article using this above hack can generate good amount of backlinks.

Thanks for sharing.

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Don Harold 90 months ago

Had to laugh-snort at the first few images you posted. Ah, those spams, so ridiculous.

With that said, I followed the last of your tips. I read every comment here and learned MORE, on top of what you wrote above.

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snekaa 69 months ago

Thanks for sharing such an informative blog, the blog consists really a great stuff.

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