Become A Top Commenter - Get Two Back links
- February 3rd, 2008
- COMMENTS 14
The Discovery
When looking through my Google Analytics the other day, I noticed something quite unusual: I was ranking on Google for a person’s name. At first, I wasn’t quite sure who it was, but I soon remembered that this person was on my top commentators list for the second month of Elite By Design’s existence. At first, I didn’t think too much of it, but later realized that this could be beneficial to both my readers and myself. If you are on my top commenters list, you will get a high quality back link for your name. Unless you really want to rank for something like “John Doe,” this doesn’t matter to you. So how could you make this discovery work to your advantage? Use targeted anchor text!
Make It Work For You
Instead of putting in the name section “Brian,” or “Joe,” you should put something like “Elite By Design” or “Internet Marketing” or any other keywords you want to use. This is a win-win situation for everyone. The more you comment, the more it helps me, while at the same time it helps you get a well targeted back link with the anchor text of your choice!
Now by this point, some of you may be wondering how you can get two high quality back links for becoming a top commenter. Remember my January In Review post? As you will recall I handed out another back link to my top commentators in that post. There you go. One link from my sidebar, one from a post. Simple as that.
Rules:
When something like this comes up, there must be rules that will be enforced to reduce the amount of spam comments. Here are two:
- You may not spam the comments with one word responses to get your comment count up.
- You may not spam the anchor text you use. Two or three words should be fine, you don’t need to write a sentence.
Those aren’t too unreasonable to land two high quality back links to your own site with your own hand-picked anchor text.
I look forward to hearing from you all through the comments you leave this month. Become a top commentator and land yourself two high quality back links!
You’re definitely correct about the sidebar link, but the comment links are marked as nofollow (WordPress sets them nofollow by default to combat spammers). So, it’s sort of debatable whether the comment links will help from an SEO standpoint.
Love the site, by the way.
True Andy, but the top commentators are definitely getting some sort of recognition by Google.
I’m not an SEO expert, but that is what I know.
Thanks for the comment
That’s a very interesting idea Brian and you’re right about the back links, from just appearing in your sidebar I received a large number of clicks. And as a daily reader of your blog, which is one of my most favorite sites, I won’t be having any problem with keeping the comment count up
Oh and Andy, I see the links in Recent comments for example don’t have the ‘nofollow’ markup so probably they add to the SEO ranking somehow?
Sorry Brian for spamming on this post, just saw this in your HTML source after posting my first comment… Feel free to remove this one
I’m surprised your advocating this. As someone who likes to personally respond to every comment on my blog, I hate keywords for names. I want to know who I’m speaking to, how I can address you and should I wish to send you a personal e-mail I’d like it to sound more friendly than “Dear Elite by Design.”
To each their own, every blogger is different. Your point is very relevant but I’m famous for changing the name people leave in comments or removing URL’s for trying to catch some SEO. On the flip side, I have absolutely no problem if the name people choose to use is that of their blog…. even though I do prefer a name (at the very least with your e-mail address) so that I can feel like my response is more tailored for you and not generic.
Brian,
Cat amongst the pigeon with this one I feel!
There will always be pro’s and con’s of whatever you decide to do, people for and against. Otherwise we would all do it and then the benefits would not be so… erm.. beneficial. it takes two sides of the coin for these things to actually work, if you see what I mean.
For those that don’t then they find alternative cool idea, and the one’s that previously did, may not on this occasion. Then you get the lemmings who just do everything because everyone one else. Can’t help that.
But it’s posts like this that help the blog. People have their own views, you allow them to express it and at the same time allow them to link to their Blog. So ultimately people who don’t agree, still end up winning. If they truly were offended by your ideas, then it would be safe to assume they shouldn’t lower themselves to comment as they would surely be contradicting themselves in their opinion.
Controversial Blog posts are almost always winners one way or the other. Sure you will put some people off, but overall, the laugh is with you, not at you. Unless you really cross the line that is, then it’s a long way down.
So far, the commentars raise useful possible reasons why it may not work, which is constructive and allows people who may not be so SEO savvy to make more of ainformed choice. It’s all good stuff.
Personally, I like the idea. As long as you set some simple rules, like you have. Then it’s fair game.
PS: WOuld it be deemed inappropriate to have your ’signature’ at the top of your comment rather than at the bottom? So it actually appears in the ‘recent comment’s? So people can obviously see who and where the comment came from? Blatant advertising ofcourse, but is it any different from having it at the bottom of your post?
Honestly, there are not many Blogs I comment on. But yours in one that I read everyday and feeling more inclined to comment each time. So all good.
I see what Brian has done, which is to add after is name, a ref to his Blog. Which I think is a good idea. So it reads well in the side bar ‘name then blog’. Obvious but not corny or a misuse of links. So have copied that one Brian.!
So on that note, I will leave you with my standard anchored link Signature on this occasion… :0)
Graham
ImJustCreative
“On: Creativity within Life”
@Katy and Graham, you both make extremely valid points. Thanks for the input.
@Katy
I am in the same boat as you. I prefer responding to comments with a person’s name, rather than keywords, much like I am doing now. But as you can see, this post didn’t change some people’s minds. However I would agree with you that a name is so much better - thats why I try to remember to add at the bottom my my comments “Brian” just so people know my name.
Usually when I comment on other people’s sites, I respond as Elite By Design. Why? Because I want the name to be recognized. If I used the name Brian, which is my name of course, it doesn’t help to build the Elite By Design brand. I hope that makes sense.
@Gary
Its always nice to see the other side. In my opinion, both of your points make me feel weird about what I did with this post. For that reason, I think that time will tell when it comes to seeing how people utilize the commenting on Elite By Design.
Naturally, if people put in the ‘name’ section “web designer graphic artist wordpress coder” or something unreasonable like that, I would change it.
Like I said in my post, I’m not opposed to trying to help people - as long as they don’t abuse the help given. So thanks guys for the input, I think we’ll just have to wait and see what people do. What do you think?
Brian, if you are using the Top Commentators plugin for Wordpress I think you should check out this article :-
http://www.fiddyp.co.uk/spammers-use-top-commentators-vulnerability-to-hijack-top-list/
The other day I realised I had suddenly lost my position as Top commentator on Fiddyp.co.uk due to an obvious bug in the way the plugin works.
Just thought you should be aware of the potential to blog spammers to hijack you top lists…
Cheers
Interesting post. I like using the Top Commentators plugin - it shows who’s been participating in the dialog on a blog, plus rewards commenters with some links and helps with Technorati authority.
Brian - thanks for the insight into intelligent comments. (Referring to harnessing the SEO potential, vs the quality of the comment or post). Presumably you use the top commentator widget to give back to your readers who post comments on your blog. What keeps you from using the commentluv widget as well?
Do you find that you get more spam as a consequence of being blogger friendly? (FYI, I found your post through Katy’s post
I’m wondering if there’s a “Top Commentator Plug-in” equivalent for Blogger. I would really like to get some sort of system like this on my own blog.
Spokane - I wish there was. I started on blogger, but eventually it was the versatility you get from plugins that brought me over to WordPress. (Then I learned that the free version of Wordpress.com doesn’t allow widgets or monetization. So, we forked over the cash to self-host our own blog.) Playing with the plugins is a lot of fun… and there are a lot of plugins to play with out there.
But good luck finding a Blogger plugin.
Brian, how long does it take for a brand to break? Sometimes, I wish I had chosen a more keyword loaded brand name like ShoeMoney, or make money online.com or something else registered shortly after the internet was born. (Or, perhaps money is such a ridiculously popular word that it’s impossible for a blog to get top rankings with it.)
How often do you find people land on your page by specifically searching by your brand name elite by design?
I’ve been thinking this was possible for a while, nice article.
[...] reading Brian’s post on Elite by Design discussing getting links to your blog by commenting on his site, I decided to [...]