The Purpose Behind Commenting On Blog Posts

Author : Bharati Ahuja

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In continuation to our earlier blog post on The Art Of Commenting On Blogs we would like to share our perspective on the The Purpose Behind Commenting On Blogs.

The user generated content in the form of comments is something that every blogger looks forward to when a blog post is published. As this content is the indication that the post has been read by the visitor and the visitor has found it compelling enough to share his opinion about it.

The main purpose of sharing your views or opinion in the form of a comment is to voice your thoughts about the topic which will carry the discussion further and enrich the post with more knowledgeable information which you may be able to add because of your experience and knowledge about the subject matter.

Each value- added comment adds to the info. about the topic of the post and every reply takes the discussion further. It also indicates the popularity and readership of the blog to a great extent. This mode of interacting with the people in your niche industry and sharing knowledge has been the prevalent even before the people started using social media sites like face and twitter for sharing and interacting with each other.

Comments on the blog give an idea to the blogger about his style of writing and encourages the blogger as blogging is not only putting forward your opinion but also being open about listening to other people’s opinion all over the globe which may generate fresh perspectives and ideas about a certain topic by initiating conversations and discussions by way of comments and replies. This can be between the blogger and the readers or the readers amongst themselves.

Each valuable comment is a contribution and shows respect for the blogger as it proves that the visitor to your blog who may have reached the blog via whatever media, whether he is a new or a repeat visitor he has spent time in adding to the content and proving that he has read the post. Hence the metrics like the no. of comments on the blog, no. of visits (new and repeat – as more no. of repeat visits to the blog indicates that people want to come back to the site again to read more about what is the latest being shared by the blogger on his blog) are important in judging the popularity and acceptability of the blog in that niche industry .

But just like every coin has two sides, people instead of these objectives behind commenting are resorting to comment spamming just like we had the keyword spam and the link spam.

What is comment spam and how can the blogger help to avoid such a spam?

According to Google on http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=81749

Comments are a great way for webmasters to build community and readership. Unfortunately, they're often abused by spammers and nogoodniks, many of whom use scripts or other software to generate and post spam.

If you've ever received a comment that looked like an advertisement or a random link to an unrelated site, then you've encountered comment spam.

Here are some ideas for reducing or preventing comment spam on your website.

· Turn on comment moderation

· Use "nofollow" tags

· Disallow hyperlinks in comments (Or have a Link Policy)

· Block comment pages using robots.txt or META tags

· Think twice about enabling a guestbook or comments

· Use a blacklist to prevent repetitive spamming attempts.

· Add a "report spam" feature to user profiles and friend invitations.

· Monitor your site for spammy pages.

Blogs are usually created for sharing , expressing and voicing certain thoughts, opinions and information to reach out to more and more people , comments on the blog prove that this exercise has been fruitful and has a multiplier effect on the outreach. Every valuable comment benefits the blogger and commentor but only if the true purpose of blogging and commenting is kept in mind while commenting.

The Art Of Commenting On Blogs

Blogs are usually created for sharing , expressing and voicing certain thoughts, opinions and information to reach out to more and more people , comments on the blog prove that this exercise has been fruitful and has a multiplier effect on the outreach.

Blog comments are the most valuable UGC (User Generated Content) which benefits the blog as well as the commenter. It works both ways , the blogger gets the opinions and view points of the readers which initiate a discussion, if the discussion has been meaningful and highlights the importance of the topic then it makes the blog post a valuable resource on the topic .

Such kind of regular value added comments from regular visitors which create interest in other visitors also help build a community. The success of any blog is based on the regular readers it has and how many additional visitors become regular readers on a regular basis.

No doubt the blog posts have to be interesting enough to generate that interest but to maintain that interest level the blogger too has to reply to every comment to make the person who wrote the comment feel that he was heard and what he shares regarding the topic is a value added content for the blog.

The back link you get from the comment thread may or may not pass on the link juice. I shall not mention the core SEO benefits derived from commenting as I think it is not ethical but when you share links in your comments do it from the perspective of adding content value to it or purely for the purpose of sharing the content on the link shared which according to you is correlated and will help the readers in some way or the other.

There are certain things to keep in mind while commenting on other blogs:       

            

• Never just post a comment for the sake of getting a link back. It is unethical and also resorts to comment spamming. 

•  Share valuable info. related about the topic or share your opinion about it. 

•  Reply to other people’s comments if you think have something to add to. 

•  Do not make your comments too long so that they end up superseding the blog post itself. 

•  If you think that your comment is worth being shared to other beyond the community of that blog tweet the link on Twitter or share it on social media. This again subtly benefits the blog too. 

•  Comment only on topic for which you are passionate about or have knowledge about. 

•  Incase you are posting a comment on a blog post about which you do not have Much knowledge, you can even ask a question in the comments section. 

•  Be honest and authentic about who you are and if possible allow your logo or picture also to be displayed 

By having such a commenting policy and approach your web presence can reap the benefits of promoting your brand, having a voice in the selected community, have indirect SEO and marketing benefits, reach out to new communities beyond your blog and search engine presence and also manage to get additional direct and referral traffic.

Why Blogging Is More Important Than Ever Before And How Can Blogging Help You Maintain The Rankings On The Search Engines?

Fresh content , authority inbound links and social media presence are some of the main aspects of retaining your rankings in the search engines. We all know that all this is easier said than done.

For fresh content you need to keep on updating your site with the latest happenings, developments and the future plans of your company and the future trends of the industry. This infact gives a boost to the inbound links too but again planning for good authority links is a full time exercise in itself. Social media again is about engaging with your followers and sharing content and there by integrating the social link graph to your SEO efforts. If you keep on retweeting links from other sites the SEO benefit from the social media presence to your site will be null.

Hence, it is necessary to host the content on your site and tweet that link and thereby get a platform for voicing your opinion too.
All these aspects – fresh content, social media and the focus on getting links individually may require separate set of skills, focus and plan but in fact are inter connected and interrelated and the main emphasis here is on blogging.

As only blogs can offer you the right platform to host fresh content regularly in the most easy and user-friendly way. If the blog content is unique and on some latest topic then it has the tendency to go viral thereby getting you inbound links and blogs being a social media platform itself it offers the option of creating a community and the possibility of interacting with the visitors via comments. Blogs in addition generate SEO friendly links and make it easy to share and tweet content on other social media sites.

Hence if you have a blog you have the chance of getting ranked in the blogs option of the search engines, have a chance of your social media post being displayed on the updates option of the search engines and also there is possibility of getting the inbound links .

In order to maintain the SERPs and improve upon them having a blog and keeping it updated is of utmost important and if you have good quality posts which have a good social media presence in the form of tweets and retweets then the social link graph surely adds a silver lining to the cloud (In this case your blog) .

Do You Need A Blog And How Often You Need To Update The Blog?

This question has got a dual perspective –

1. A Personal Perspective:

Do you need to blog because you like to write and a blog is the best canvas where the thoughts and ideas can be poured on and made to reach out globally?

2. From the Business perspective of your website :

Do you want to reach out to your visitors and clients with more and more information about the company services, products and other developments? Does your website need additional content?
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