Some things to keep in mind:

• Incoming links (links from other Web sites to yours) have search engine benefits.
• You can create links from someone else’s blog to your site by leaving a comment.
• People respond to incentives.

Thus, it’s no surprise that unscrupulous marketers (and even some with scruples) leave a lot of comments on other blogs for the sole purpose of increasing the search engine visibility of their own site or blog.

Never mind that almost every blog in the world uses a no-follow ref tag in the comments section, basically neutering the SEO benefits of a comment.

That being said, not everyone seems to have gotten the memo. There’s still benefits to leaving a comment, however:

• Adding to the conversation the blogger started
• Getting the attention of the blogger and perhaps beginning a mutually-beneficial relationship
• Having people admire how intelligent, insightful and on message  your comment is, and possibly following the link back to your Web site or blog.

That last bullet point needs to be repeated, this time with some emphasis:

• Having people admire how intelligent, insightful and on message  your comment is, and possibly following the link back to your Web site or blog.

And that’s the trick. You need to be intelligent, insightful and on message. Although every blogger has his or her own rules for when to leave a comment up there, I’ve always been open to destroying a comment with extreme prejudice if they seemed more interested in promoting their own work than continuing the conversation I started.

For example, I recently received this comment on a post on How to Add Photos and Videos to Your Tweets:

Besides the atrocious grammar, it’s hard to take someone serious who:

1. Recommends a product which also appears to be his URL
2. Has a generic sounding gmail address
3. Was named “Mass Email” by his parents

Not to mention it has nothing to do with the post at hand. If this were a post on email marketing, or bulk email marketing tools, this would be perfectly appropriate.

If you are going to leave comments on other blogs, please add something of value. It helps the blogger, his/her audience, and may actually do some good for you as well.

Rich Brooks
Small Business Blogger