One Way Link Building

Using blog comments to generate backlinks to your site is becoming more and more prevalent.

You have probably heard that you shouldn’t waste your time with blog comments because the search engines don’t follow the link because of the no follow tag.

There is a trace of truth to this but that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t use blog comments to get backlinks because there are some blogs that don’t have the no follow tags on their comments.

The default installation of WordPress automatically adds the no follow tags to the comments but if you know what you are doing you can find blogs that don’t have the no follow tag or will remove the no follow tag in return for you making a certain number of posts.

Go out and post your comments on these blogs but before you do I want to make sure you aren’t leaving spammy comments so here is some blog comments etiquette.

If you are going to leave a comment on the blog MAKE SURE the comment is relevant to the post.

For example if the post is on blog comments your comment should be related to that post and have something to do with the content of the post. Don’t leave a comment talking about how to conquer the newest MLM offering.

Don’t put links in the body of your comment. This is very bad etiquette unless the link is to a resource that expands on your comment. This doesn’t mean if you have a site on sports fishing you can put a link to your site in the comment body but if the post is on a new way to string a leader you can put a link to a page (on your site or another) that shows how to do this.

Most of the time when I set up a blog I set the comments in the discussion area so that if you put links in the body of the comment it will send your comment to moderation where I have to review and approve or deny the comment before it is posted. This stops all the spammy links.

Now your name or I should say the form field where you enter your name. This should be your name or your moniker. For example I will use Randy The Hermit because more people know me that way than by my normal last name. Your moniker can have keywords in it (only helps if there are not any no follow tags) but it should be related to you or what you do. For example if you teach people how to blog you could use the moniker Blog Boy or Blogging Teacher but your moniker should stay the same no matter what you use for a link.

That is brief overview of comment etiquette, basically it is the “Golden Rule” don’t do anything on another person’s blog you wouldn’t want done on yours. But I bet there are still of bunch of you asking why you should bother if the no follow tad is in place?

There are a few reasons why you should leave comments even if there are no follow tags, such as:

1.People will see your comments and your links even if there is a no follow tag. If you put 4 comments on blogs per day you will end up with over 1,500 links in a year. These links will be seen by potentially tens of thousands of readers that might visit your site.

2.If your comments are on topic and informative people will remember your name and you will become a known expert in the field. This is part of the reason you want to use the same name.

3.If your comment is informative you will also find that a lot of the readers will click on your link to find out more about you.

4.Some of the ad services and search engines, like Ask (the last time I checked) don’t read the no follow tag. With the ad services this means that you site will look more relevant and it could lead to higher pay outs on your ads.

There are the reasons to not worry about the no follow tag but what if you want to find blogs that don’t use the no follow tag in the comments?

The most obvious way is to find a comment and look at the page source, pour through all the code looking for the link on the name and seeing if the no follow tag is in the link. This will drive you crazy if you do it a lot of times but it does work.

A better way is to use an addon for the FireFox or Flock browser (these are the browsers you should be using). This addon is called SEO for FireFox it is provided by SEOTools.com or you can find it by searching for SEO for FireFox addon in Google.

This plugin will provide you with a lot of SEO information but it will also highlight any links that have no follow tags in red. If you find a post with comments if the name for the comment is highlighted in red it has no follow tags. Don’t worry if you get tired of the red highlights you can turn the plugin off with a click at the bottom of your browser.

There are a couple of plugins that blog masters will add to their blogs that automatically removes the no follow tag from the comments and another plugin that will reward the people that comment frequently by removing the no follow tags from that individuals comments. This plugin is Lucia’s Linky Love.

How it works it the owner of the blog can set the plugin so that after so many posts the no follow tag is removed from the comments of that person.

Lucia’s actually checks both the name and the email address for every comment so if you are posting on the blog you need to use the same name and email address the minimum number of times before the no follow tag is removed

The blog master gets to choose the number of comments it takes to qualify for no follow tag removal, the minimum number is 3 and the maximum is whatever they feel like. I usually see it set between 3 and 5 which means you have to make 4 to 6 post before you get a back link to your site.

Now I bet you want to know how this will help you when you are leaving comments. You can actually find posts that are using Lucia’s Linky Love but doing a search in Google’s Blogsearch. Put your keyword phrase in quotes then a plus sign (+) then in quotes Lucia’s Linky and you should find posts on topic that use this plugin. Make the minimum number of comments plus 1 and you now have start creating back links followed by all the search engines.

On my blogs I usually have this set at three and I review the comments on a regular basis any comments that read like pure spam I delete. Because I delete them the spammers never get to the magic number of three and the no follow stays in place. This leads to more comments that are usually more informative.

About The Author: Randy The Hermit Baustert has been working online since 1994 and is the top rated SEO expert according to ExpertRating.com the industry testing services. You can find more free information on SEO and blogging at his newest blog How To Blog Site

Randy gives away a TON of great content at MarketingBeginners.com. Yes, it’s FREE so help yourself by clicking the link now.

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