One thing that has been truly exploding on some of the internet marketing forums lately is that “there is no point in commenting on a blog without dofollow”. Frankly, I find this to be a very disappointing sentiment, it is no secret that internet marketers are typically invidiuals looking out for their own well being, but the purpose of comments is to stir debate, not to leech link juice.
There are two main reasons why I still post on “nofollow” blogs rather than just the “dofollow” ones, the main reason being that as a newcomer into the blogosphere I am starting to appreciate the moderation of comments, conversation, and other efforts that bloggers put into their blogs. By contributing in an intelligent conversation on a related blog, you are going to naturally attract readers to your blog from a more targeted source than search engines. This highly targeted traffic can be easily monetized with affiliate commissions and since they came from another blog, assuming you have good content, they are far more likely to subscribe to your RSS feed and be frequent visitors to your blog. It also makes them far more likely to be bloggers themselves, and toss you a blogroll link or a post about your blog.
The other reason I comment on nofollow blogs is simply because good comments can be few and far between, and a frequent high quality commentator on a blog is likely to receive some kind of reward from the owner. That is why I use Lucia’s Linky Love plugin, I try to moderate my comments so that only the high quality comments make it onto the page, but if you get 3 posts then suddenly all your links become dofollow. As a nofollow blog owner as well, I have had repeat visitors to my blog leave excellent comments each time I post, and as a result I gave them free links in my blogroll. Everything in the blogosphere moves at a different pace than on most marketing forums, with blogs there is a “you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours” mentality rather than the competitive and self-promoting atmosphere of most forums such as DigitalPoint or Warrior forums.
If you could choose between having a comment on every single dofollow post on the internet, or every single nofollow post on the internet, which would you choose? This is an important question to ask yourself, because this is how you should base your link building strategy. For my own needs, I know that I would far prefer a link on every nofollow post as the sheer traffic that would result from all the Wordpress.com, Blogspot, self-hosted blogs, etc. would outweigh by a 100:1 ratio that of dofollow blogs. This traffic alone would be all I need, but it would also create a huge storm of coverage of my blog, and in the internet marketing world it is all about getting your name out there.
On that note, my name is James Spinosa and I am an internet marketer headed to a midterm. Remember that this blog is in fact dofollow, so feel free to post your comments but leave the spam at home and feel free to subscribe to my RSS feed.
James, great post. I agree with the above, you’re right on when you say frequently commenting on blogs increases your visibility online. I would also add that it is just being a good blogging citizen to participate and converse if you’ve got something valuable to share or a strong opinion to voice.
Additionally, if other visitors to your blog enjoy what the the post but do not want to participate in the discussion they can get added value and a better customer experience by reading comments from other visitors thus feeling more engaged and part of the community. Everyone wants to feel like they belong.
Thanks for the tip on Lucia’s Linky Love.
-Liberty
I feel like it’s good for internet marketers to step back once and a while and realize that what they’re trying to ultimately forge is connections between people. Commenting purely for link juice makes it a monotonous activity and is almost like littering instead of adding to the discussion. I think it’s good to recognize the ’screw google’ mentality that Shoe talks about, in the sense that you should act like you are enthusiastic just because you want to be, rather than for Google’s favor. It will most likely benefit you more than you know. Nice post.
-Jimmy