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Drive Traffic with Comment Marketing

There’s a well-known statistic that says you need to get your message in front of your target audience seven times before they’ll take action. In the old days (10-15 years ago) that took a lot of time and money. To get someone to see or hear your brand on TV, radio, and in print for instance, you would have had to spend thousands of dollars and have only moderate confidence that you were reaching your intended market. In these days of social media and wide-spread blogging, there’s still a certain amount of uncertainty about what is most effective, but the nice part is that you can try several methods without spending a dime. And one method of driving traffic and increasing recognition that works for many is comment marketing.

Put simply, comment marketing is just commenting on other people’s blogs, forums, and news posts. It’s a great way to get your name out there, establish yourself as an expert, and begin to build relationships with other site owners. Of course to be effective, there is a right way and a wrong way to do it, so here are some tips for maximizing your efforts:

  1. Be careful. If it looks like you’re self-promoting in your comments, you’ll turn off the readers of the comment as well as the site owner. On most blogs you’ll be asked for your URL when you sign up as a commenter, and this will be linked to your name. Therefore, it’s not necessary to put your site address in your comments. In forums, you’re often able to create a signature with your URL in it, so the same rules apply. The only exception might be if the post is about something that is extremely relevant to a specific page on your site. Which brings us to the next tip…
  2. Be relevant. Make sure that whatever you post is relevant to the topic you’re commenting on. If you have a blog about WordPress themes, and the article is a review of the iPhone, just stick to your opinion about the iPhone. If you have no opinion about the iPhone, just say, “Great post. I didn’t know that about the iPhone. Cool.” If you say, “The iPhone is almost as cool as my newest WP theme. Check it out at http://….” it will be quite clear you’re just fishing for traffic.
  3. Be polite. When commenting on someone else’s post, remember the Golden Rule. Don’t write anything you wouldn’t want someone to post on your site. Feel free to give your opinion, even if it differs from what’s in the post you’re commenting about. Just make sure that you’re not slamming the author, the site, or the content. Remember, your goal is to get people clicking through to your site and make a good name for yourself, and people don’t want to deal with jerks.
  4. Be useful. To establish yourself as an expert in a certain area, provide your expertise whenever possible. Again, it’s important to stay relevant to the post, but be sure to check other comments as well. If someone asks a question in a comment and you have a good answer, get it out there, even if their question is off topic. Just be sure to refer back to the original question so it’s clear you’re not putting irrelevant information out.
  5. Be consistent. Comment marketing takes work. Posting every now and then on random sites isn’t going to get you the results you’re looking for. Find sites that have the same target audience as you, and comment often and early. Figure out when they typically post their new articles and try to be among the first to comment, as comments are typically listed oldest to newest. Of course for many blogs their posting isn’t on a regular schedule, but if you get on a schedule of checking the same sites regularly, you’ll do ok. For forums, you really have an opportunity to show your expertise. Look for questions posted relating to your business and provide thorough, useful answers, and ask your own questions as well. Opinion questions do well, and when you state your opinion and ask others for theirs, it puts you in a position of authority. Also, consider welcoming new forum members regularly, which helps to establish your status as well.

So there you have it – a few rules to help you become a comment-marketing pro. Some of our regular commenters are great at this stuff. What other tips do you have? Let us know in the comments below!

Matthew Toren
 

Matthew Toren is a serial entrepreneur, mentor, investor and co-founder of YoungEntrepreneur.com. He is co-author, with his brother Adam, of Kidpreneurs.org, BizWarriors.com and Small Business, BIG Vision: Lessons on How to Dominate Your Market from Self-Made Entrepreneurs Who Did it Right (Wiley).

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