How To Write Great Blog Comments That Stand Out – (With Examples)

In this new article, we are talking about how to write great blog comments, showing you what you should aim to do and what you should definitely avoid doing.

We will be covering:

• Why does blog commenting get such a bad press?

• Great content doesn’t guarantee comments

• Is blog commenting bad for SEO?

• How to write great blog comments

and so much more.

Let’s get started

How To Write Great Blog Comments

Blog commenting tends to get some very bad press but in this article, we are going to give you the positive side of blog commenting and show you  how to write great blog comments

Commenting is often seen as a spammy practice and of course, it is if you happen to be a spammer.

But the flip side of the negativity that surrounds blog commenting is some serious upside in traffic, engagement, and new connections.

In this article, we will be showing how to write great blog comments that STAND OUT and help you build click-through traffic to your own site all whilst making new blogging friends in the process.

So why does blog commenting get such a bad press?

Well, as mentioned above it mainly comes down to comment spam.

Spam can be a major problem for a blog if unchecked, It makes a page look untidy, it confuses the article and it can even make a page look abandoned. And there can be some serious SEO problems if the situation is not dealt with.

But help is at hand, there are some very good plugins that can help you with this problem. 

Akisimet seems to be every blogger go to plugin with a million-plus installs.

Akismet checks your comments and contact form submissions against our global database of spam to protect you and your site from malicious content.

Our friends over at WPBeginner have a great set-up guide for Akismet that you should check out

And even with Akismet, comment spam can still be so bad that some blogs don’t even allow blog commenting on their sites.

It will only weed out the very worst of the offenders, you still get the very short commenters and for some, it is just not worth the time to build an engaging comment section.

For me, this is a missed opportunity to grow the conversation around what you have written.

A healthy active blog conversation at the end of an article that you have spent a long time writing is a good indication that you have done a very good job. 

 

But great content doesn’t guarantee comments

If you’re not getting any comments then there are a couple of reasons why:

 

1/ Your content is not appealing and difficult to read

The fix for this is to use headlines, to space your text adding in negative space.

Careful use of bucket brigades to guide readers on and further breaking up text with images and video

2/ You are just not being seen

The fix for not being seen is social media. Social media is the fastest way to put your blog in front of potential readers who will then appreciate what you have written. These are the guys who are going to write you great blog comments.

And then the long-term fix is SEO.

For some reason, SEO scares the living daylights out of some bloggers when in fact it is very easy to do SEO yourself.

Or they just manage to master a platform like Pinterest to generate traffic and then just abandon SEO altogether.

The reality is that you should master SEO and social media.

Just like you are always looking for multiple streams of income you should be looking for multiple traffic streams.

Join the conversation – We are talking blog commenting. Is it good for your site? Is it worth your time to comment? Some say commenting can be bad for SEO, What do you think?

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Is blog commenting bad for SEO?

There could be SEO problems ahead if you don’t manage your comments, but these SEO problems should never arise because you should always be paying attention to what readers are adding or attempting to add to your comment section.

Some quick questions to consider!

Do you allow very short meaningless blog comments like “great post” or “I like your post”?

Do you allow links under the add comment site option (shown below) that are just not related to your niche or link to products or sales pages or worse?

 

If you do then your comment section is not going to look great in Googles eyes. 

But if the comments you receive are high quality, 200-300 words long.

If they ask questions, give opinions and just add value then they can only be good for SEO and your SERP’s

Good blog comments continue the conversation, they keep the buzz of a new post alive.

They engage other readers.

And if you reply to comments then you also get valuable repeat visits.

If a comment that you add to another webmasters site is great then you pick up clickthrough traffic and reciprocal comments to your own site and maybe even organic backlinks.

Blog commenting when done correctly is good for your sites SEO but only if your write good blog comments and only accept good blog comments.

There are also so big SEO ranking factors like Dwell Time and Time On Page to consider.

When your readers are taking the time to write good blog comments then your dwell time and time on page gets better.

If visitors are staying on your site then it is a good SEO ranking signal to Google that your content is good and so that is reflected in the search results.

Broken Links

One thing that you do need to keep an eye on for SEO is to keep a check on broken links.

As time passes from when comments are made we often find that some of the links that get added into the site option section when making a comment become broken, meaning that they no longer link to the destination.

Sites do close and shutdown, pages get removed but if those sites and pages are being linked to in your comments section then those links appear as broken.

And as we know broken links do not deliver the best user experience.

They affect SEO negatively so they need to be removed when found.

The good news is that broken links are relatively painless to find and fix.

There are some good online sites that can help you with this Online Broken Link Checker is a useful site and Dead Link Checker is also a popular option.

There are also plugins that you can add to WordPress such as Broken Link Checker with over 600k downloads.

 

So the question now is how do you write great blog comments that stand out from the crowd?

Here are some useful tips that will help you write great comments.

 

How to write great blog comments

1/ Read the post that you are commenting on

How can you possibly know what to write if you do not know what the article is about?

Just reading the title is not enough for you to know what to write. Just skimming the article does not give you enough information to write a great blog comment.

2/ Read the comments that have already been made

There is a chance that within a healthy blog comment conversation that what you want to ask may already have been said and covered 

If you know what has already been covered then that affects what your comment should be about.

Read the comments so that you can add new, fresh ideas and opinions to those already added.

3/ Grammar and punctuation

Everyone is busy and often with blog commenting we let the grammar and punctuation slide.

And yes I am guilty of this.

Keep the standards up.

Some webmasters are very strict and don’t allow comments with bad grammar and punctuation.

So don’t let a great comment be refused over a spelling mistake or a miss-placed apostrophe.

If grammar and punctuation is not your thing then you are in luck, download the Grammarly Chrome extension (no affiliation) and you’re be told instantly of errors and shown the corrections needed.

4/ Be helpful

Reply to questions where appropriate and give answers

5/ Don’t over-promote yourself

Remember you are not leaving your comment to promote yourself.

You are simply adding value to the conversation.

If your comment is great then you will receive traffic and comments from others.

If you have a link to offer as a good resource that will help and qualify then ask if you can add the link.

Just dropping the link is not a good idea, it will probably be picked up by spam protection and your comment may never see the light of day.

6/ You can disagree

There is nothing wrong with having a different opinion but just be mindful that you don’t get into an argument.

You may be right about something but how you translate that to a comment matters.

7/ Comment early

The earlier you comment the more likely your comment is going to be read and the more traffic and clicks it will generate.

8/ Use the writer’s name when commenting

Hey, Dexter great post but what do you when XYZ happens?

Using names and making comments more personal helps them standout

 

6  Costly blog commenting mistakes to avoid 

1/ Not adding your real name

A big commenting mistake is the misuse of the name section when leaving a comment.

The name section is for exactly that, “your name”.

It is not for your product name, it is certainly not for a keyword that you are trying to rank for.

I would even go as far to say that you shouldn’t use a business name either if you are looking for real engagement.

Your site link goes into the comment section under “your site” and that is all you need to promote your business.

2/ Adding an invalid or inactive email address

Some people don’t like sharing their email address. They think that they are opening themselves up to endless update emails.

But the question is how to do engage with other commenters if you have no contact present.

Readers who comment cannot directly contact you via email because it is hidden but when you subscribe to comments then you do receive updates when someone replies.

If you are worried by the number of comments that you will receive then the solution is to make an email address just for when you comment and then your primary email won’t ever to affected.

3/ Not Branding yourself with Gravatar

Gravatar is an avatar service that connects to blogs. When you comment the avatar that you add to your account appears every time that you comment.

This is a great asset when it comes to branding yourself or your site. 

A list of your recent comments are also logged on the Gravatar site as well,

4/ Leaving comments on non-related blogs

Why would you comment on a non-related blog then link back in the site section to your blog?

If you genuinely want to comment on a non-related site to your niche then don’t use it as an opportunity to link to your site and I would also recommend using a different email to the one that you use for your site.

5/ Leaving irrelevant short comments

As mentioned earlier your comment needs to serve a purpose. 

It needs to ask a related question, given an opinion, it needs to add value and it certainly needs to be on-topic and not be a waste of text space. 

No one engages with irrelevant comments if they even make it into the comment section.

Leaving irrelevant short comments is a big blog commenting mistake that you should avoid.

6/ Allowing Do-Follow links in comments

You need to be very careful about what you link to.

It is my SEO strategy to only link to known, trusted, authoritative sites.

Linking into bad domains is just going to kill your SEO dead.

 

How to write great blog comments – examples

So before we finish up with this article I think it would be a good idea to give you a few examples of what I consider to be good blog comments and why.

I will link you into each post so you can follow the conversation as it happened.

The first is a comment that I made on Justin Penrose’s post entitled 9 blog design mistakes to avoid in 2018

 

Blog commenting example 1

Very useful article. Yes everyone scans and most how a very low attention span.
Have you come across “Bucket Brigades” it is where you add very short scannable lines to lead the reader on to keep them on the page.

They are bold so easily picked up on the initial scan 
Examples
“Here is the answer”
“Keep reading for the answer”

Would you be surprised to know that Justin’s post ranks No 1 on Google for the search term “blog design mistakes to avoid” and No 2 on page 1 for “blog design mistakes”?

I’m not.

The comments section on this post is pretty special with quality and value-added all the way down the page.

How important are the comments in helping this article rank, well we don’t really know but they certainly didn’t do the dwell time and time on page any harm.

 

Blog commenting example 2

My second example is by Enstine Muki taken from my Guest Blogging Opportunities post

Hey Dexter,
Good to be here again today.
You probably have touched on every point about guest posting here.

I like your point on long-form content to discourage link mongers.

But I think most link seekers are getting it all wrong.

If they produce long-form guest content, it will help their SEO if these get linked to by others or picked up by search engine.

I submitted about 3 guest posts recently and the shortest was over 1.5k words.

I was accepting guest content with 800 words but the latest 3 I have from my readers are over 2k words each.

Now I’m going to step up the word count limit just after this comment.

Thanks for the beautiful post

 

Blog commenting example 3

My 3rd and final blog commenting example comes from Ryan Biddulph on my What is the best way to pin for Pinterest Traffic? post

I’ve found Dexter how Pinning other folk’s stuff is the quickest way to gain traction on the network.

This approach works well in any site, with any niche.

Foolproof way to see more traffic thru Pinterest is to help other folks get traffic by Pinning their post.

Of course, I need to Pin your rocking post bro  

Thanks for sharing!

Ryan

 

What do you notice about these 3 blog comment examples?

The big thing for me is that they all have something to say and they all add value.

And that is the secret, you have to have something to say on the subject.

There is very little point commenting just for the sake of commenting.

Give your opinion, you can agree or disagree but be open to what others say even if you believe you are right. 

But you can’t do any of this if you haven’t first read the post and followed the conversation.

 

How to write great blog comments – Takeaways

Blog commenting, when done correctly, is a great method to build traffic and engagement on your own site.

There is nothing negative about blog commenting if you write great blog comments and only accept good comments that inform, question and add value to what you have written about.

A good engaging comment section at the bottom of any post or page only sends good signals to Google and it positive for time on your page and your dwell time.

Are links to unrelated sites an SEO problem? Well,

I don’t consider them a big issue as long as they are nofollowed and if someone has taken the time to write a great comment and get involved and it is not just for self-promotion or some SEO benefit then I have no problem passing traffic onto them.

 

That’s all for now.

Do you allow comments on your blog?

Do you have a blog commenting strategy?

Let me know in the comments section below, make sure that you subscribe to comments so that you are notified of my reply

Regards

Dexter

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How to write great blog comments that stand out – With Examples – Infobunny

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How to write great blog comments that stand out from the crowd. In this article, we will be discussing the merits of blog commenting for traffic…

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Dexter Roona

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Infobunny

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