Commenting Etiquette: Don’t be Promotional

Writing by Nick Stamoulis Tweet

In addition to this blog, I write for/manage a company blog (the Brick Marketing Internet Marketing Blog ), as well as a blog on my internet marketing consulting site. I kid you not when I say that I can easily get 4,000 spam comments every day. Now most of those 4,000 spam comments go directly to my spam folder and I never have to see or deal with them. A lot of these comments are coming from black hat or overseas link building companies toting the benefits of natural Viagra and the like. Once I mark a commenter as spam, all their future comments get filed as such.

But I still manually sort through several hundred comments a day between the three blogs, trying to weed out the “sneaky” spammers that got past my filters. As a blog owner, you have to take some amount of responsibility for the comments getting posted. Comments are content, and a lot of poor quality or spammy contents could be negatively impacting your SEO and site’s trust factor.

Blog commenting rule number 1: Don’t promote your business in the post!

I’ve been in the SEO industry for a long time, so I know when someone is posting a comment just to get the link, not to actually add anything to the conversation of the blog post. Other site owners can tell too and they don’t want them either! A blog comment is not the time or place to promote your products and services.

First off, it looks incredibly spammy. Let’s say the blog isn’t closely monitored, so comments go through immediately. What kind of branding are you actually doing for your company? It’s obvious to every other reader on the blog that you are just there to name drop your products. How does that make you look to someone who took the time to write a well-thought comment that actually added value to the post? Would you want to work with a business that was blatantly spamming to get a few links?

You have to remember that blog commenting is worth so much more than a link! One of the results of leaving behind quality, thoughtful blog comments is that you build your reputation as an industry expert. Blog commenting also helps you develop strong relationships with influential industry bloggers. If you ever thought about trying to write a guest post for a blog you spam commented, you can pretty much forget about it.

A blog comment is not the place to pitch your company! You should be focusing on building your brand and online reputation, not just on getting one more link. That is where a lot of businesses go wrong with blog commenting. By spamming blogs you are actually hurting your own SEO.