A key strategy for building traffic to your site is by looking for other sites in your area of interest / business and interacting with them. Pretty much every half decent site out the gives you the ability to respond to an article or to join the conversation.

Including yourself in the social web is your responsibility as a business owner, not embracing this opportunity is like going to a night club and sitting in a dark corner looking at the beautiful people rather than chancing your arm and chatting them up.

Are you a lurker?

bag1A lurker is a person who reads discussions on a message board, newsgroup, chatroom, file sharing, blogs or other interactive system, but rarely or never participates actively. Life as a lurker is really easy but isn’t going to make you any money.

Stage 1: Stop lurking and start talking?
Its scary getting involved for the first time, but this isn’t time for excuses, just get on with it.

  • Stop being afraid of being wrong
  • Stop being afraid of saying something stupid
  • Stop being afraid that you wont be interesting enough

Your mission is to just say something even if its just hello.

Stage 2: Be Relevant
So, your going to comment on this article. If you write something constructive about the article then chances are as the site owner I’m going to be chuffed that your interacting and allow your comment. If you come on and talk about your company and not the article your going straight in the spam pot.

Stage 3: Build Trust
I don’t want to hear about your company just yet, I want your opinion. Ask me some questions build a rapport with the other members of the site. If you build trust with my members I might even let you tell people what your company does.

Try and sell yourself too quickly and you will burn your bridges.

Now the real test…. who’s been reading?  Bottle of champagne goes to the best comment/question…

11 Responses to “How do you promote youself by commenting on blogs”

  1. Reg 12. May, 2009 at 11:59 am #

    It’s scary posting for the first time on here, but I’m going to stop being afraid of saying something stupid because I want a bottle of champagne, innit?

    Reply
    • Simon Morton 12. May, 2009 at 12:07 pm #

      nice one reg… :)

      Reply
  2. Rob Watson 12. May, 2009 at 1:45 pm #

    For some reason i find it a lot easier writting my own posts that leaving comments on others.

    But i firmly believe it’s an excellent way of promoting your own website.

    Like most things, i believe i will get better at it the more times i do it.

    So here goes.

    Plus, i do like champagne!

    Reply
  3. Nick 14. May, 2009 at 9:26 pm #

    Are you bothered about what others think of you?

    My five year old daughter is always repeating “…but what will they say” after a spectacular 10/10 rolypoly or similar moment of brilliance.

    The fact is, most people will say bugger all. Indifference, they call it.

    So be different to the rest. Write something, anything, NOW.

    Be personal. Be honest. Be contentious, but just do it. Give an opinion. Say Yo! There is no right or wrong way today.

    When you hit ‘Submit’ it’ll be the start of YOU building authority.

    Reply
  4. Aileen 17. May, 2009 at 4:33 pm #

    it’s safe to lurk
    instead of work
    feel much too tense
    to get off the fence
    tho’ Simon says it makes good sense..

    erm.. Yo!

    Reply
  5. Reg 20. May, 2009 at 8:20 am #

    I was just going through a Google analytics report, and I’ve had 13 people visit my site due to one comment. Times that by 10 and you’ve got… errrr, quite a few visits! I was never good at maths. 120?

    Reply
  6. Mandy 21. May, 2009 at 9:02 am #

    I’ve just started to use the WordPress blog to promote my company and I’m really impressed by how versatile and easy to use it is! You can spend thousands with SEO experts getting them to host content all round the web to move you up the Google charts. This already seems a much more effective and useful way of doing the same job. At the same time too, providing people with useful information and enticing them to your site.

    This is without a doubt the future of the internet! : )

    PS. Champers is my favourite tipple! lol! ; )

    Reply
  7. Claire 22. May, 2009 at 12:51 pm #

    My name is Claire and I was a Lurker..

    It’s hard posting for the first time and reading and re-reading your comments wondering if someone is going think what you’ve put is rubbish. You hover over the submit button then when you have sent it off you spend half an hour wondering what people thought!

    Is there a limit on how long your comments should be? I read someone’s comments today on another site that was so long it was over four posts! Is this good or bad?

    Reply
    • Simon Morton 22. May, 2009 at 9:03 pm #

      in the words of Mark Twain, “I was going to send you a short letter, but didnt have time so I had to send you a long one”. As long as what you say isn’t just rambling chat away

      Reply

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