I am a member of the ProBlogger.com forum, and we get newsletters every so often. In today's newsletter, something caught my eye:
Challenge: 30 Day Comment Campaign
Have you noticed, due in part to the big CommentLuv/Famous Bloggers contest, that commenting is like, on hyper-drive lately? It seems that commenting has become (almost) as important as blogging - or even moreso!
Naturally, I was intrigued by the words "challenge" and "campaign" so I clicked through to the forum and read about it. What we're doing over there is spending 30 days actually TRACKING our comments to see what kind of traffic is coming through. This isn't really about increasing commenting. It's about measuring the effectiveness of commenting in terms of traffic. You don't want to waste time on something that doesn't work; yet, you don't want to miss out on a good source of traffic (if it even is a good source of traffic... for you).
How to Join the Forum
Before I get into metrics and tracking visits, I wanted to just quickly tell you about the ProBlogger.com forum. It's not free; it's something like $5.95 (USD) per month, and I've been a member of it for a few months now. I'm not an incredibly active member (should be), but I want to have it in my back pocket because it's such a beneficial resource. And of course, I would not have found out about the comment campaign if I wasn't part of it.
To join, go to problogger.com and sign up. Simple as that. That's not an affiliate link. I really want you to join and take your blog to another level for a reasonable price. It's far more effective than reading a book or listening to a podcast, guys. Let's get real.
Now... back to it.
Should You Care Whether Comments Bring in Traffic?
You should if it's part of your blog promotion plan. If you're commenting willy-nilly, it doesn't matter whether anyone clicks through to your blog. But I always include commenting as part of my blog consulting service and highly recommend it as a marketing method.
What Types of Comments Bring in Traffic?
Easy. The good ones.
Okay... fine. The types of comments that bring in traffic are
- Interesting,
- Usually the first ones left on the post (in my own experience, at least),
- The ones that are a direct reply to someone else's comment, and
- The ones that have something other than just your name as the link. In my experience, the comments I leave that have Tia - BizChickBlogs.com get far more click throughs than any of the others.
There's a post on problogger.net that probably does a better job of explaining how to leave good comments. Read it here. I just go with my gut and it seems to work out.
CommentLuv links also get higher click throughs than standard anchor links.
How to Measure the Traffic
You need an analytics tool. Suggested ones:
There are probably many others that work. For this type of thing, all you need is something that will tell you the precise referral link. It's not enough to just know the domain, because you want to be able to figure out if a particular comment is bringing traffic.
Want to Know More?
If you're serious about increasing traffic, but at the same time, making sure your time is being spent effectively, you should consider joining the forum and participating in the campaign. The nice thing about it is that other members will be looking at your comments, too. If you're getting lots of traffic from them, you'll be a source of inspiration. If you're not, other members can help you figure out why.
POLL: Have you ever gotten any noteworthy traffic from a comment you left on a blog?
Leave your reply in the comments (hint: make it interesting and you just might get some traffic!)
Good luck!
- Tia Peterson
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