When we talk about social media marketing, blog comments have become an important part of it. Whether it is b2b or b2c social media marketing, using blog comments improves your search engine marketing strategy. From a search engine optimisation point of view, there are a number of positive effects of blog comments referring to driving qualified traffic to your site. Blog comments are an effective online marketing technique because they tend to bring more qualified and motivated traffic.

However, blog comments are also very useful and effective in building your online presence, so need to be carefully considered when designing your social media marketing strategy. Commenting on blogs demonstrates to readers that you’re active, passionate about a particular topic, and that you want to add value to the topic that’s being discussed.  Also, blog comments are an excellent way to connect and build relationships with key people in your field. Through their use, a business can create positive feedback and experience the benefits of social media marketing.

Before posting blog comments bear in mind three basic questions that will help you focus your message:

Who am I targeting through posting my comment here?
What action do I expect from their side?
How can I make them feel confident about taking this action?
We have compiled a list of Dos and Don’ts to have in mind as to structure your blog comments effectively:

Don’t:

Embed links in the body of your comment. WordPress, for example, automatically adds a “rel=nofollow” attribute to the link, so you won’t see any impact on your web analytics .
Add a comment if you have nothing of value to add to the conversation.
Leave a comment without knowing your grammar and checking your spelling! It hurts your credibility.
Leave disrespectful or inflammatory comments.
Leave comments on every single post, or on a consistent string of posts.
Leave comments just to build up your inbound links for SEO.  If you don’t add value, you will only be perceived as a spammer.

Do:

Read all the comments before leaving yours. Leave comments that are relevant and valuable to others beyond mere opinion.
Do answer questions left by other commenters.
Use your comments to hint at your expertise. Try to be subtle and skilful.
Do leave a link to your site.
Use target keywords in your “name” in your comments as well as your tagline/position.
Add insight, a new idea or a relevant link to the original blog post.
This is a list of do’s and don’ts to have in mind before posting a blog comment that will benefit your brand. Building your brand through blog comments has to be part of your business’ social media strategy. Please share with us your experience with blog comments and feel free to give us your opinion on this topic!

Article used with permission by SysComm International – http://www.syscomminternational.com an established search engine marketing agencies that, since its launch in 1999, has been promoting ethical use of free search engine marketing practices over a wide range of online media channels on both B2B and B2C platforms.