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.
WordPress by default adds the no follow tags to the comment section but there are people that will remove the no follow tags from your comments in return for you leaving comments. Believe it or not there is a way you can find these blogs with a search.
Before I get into what to look for to find blogs without the no follow tag I want to cover comment etiquette.
Any comment you leave on a blog MUST have something to do with the content of the post.
If the post you are commenting on is about writing articles you don't want to leave a comment about extreme sports. If you site is extreme sports related you can have the link to your site but the comment text needs to be related to the post.
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.
I personally have my comments set up so that if you put links in the body of the comment it will go to moderation and not be posted until I get around to reviewing the links. This might be done quickly or it might take me a week to get to it. Remember, some people never check the comment moderation.
The name field for the comment form should only be filled with your name or moniker and a moniker should only be used if it describes you or your business accurately. Don't stuff the name with keywords if you start doing this you might have some blog masters ban you and put you on the spam lists. You can have keywords in your moniker but only if they apply (as stated above) to you personally or your business but you are always better of using a name that can be used to recognize you.
That pretty much covers the etiquette but I can hear a lot of you out there screaming, "Why should I bother if it is going to have the no follow tag on the back link?"
There are a number of reasons why you should do this:
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 you are posting relevant comments people will remember your name and you will start to build a reputation for yourself, especially if you only used one name.
3.Just like above if your comment is interesting people will click on your link out of curiosity just to see what else you have to say.
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.
If comments have the no follow tag activated how do you tell?
One way is to go to the blog and find a post with comments and look at the page source, find the comment and see if it has no follow tag on the link. This is a pain but it works.
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 addon will give you a bunch of information that can be used for SEO but the one feature that we are interested in now is the no follow highlighting. What it does is look at all the links on the page your viewing and highlights all the no follow links in red. If the name in the blog comment isn't red then the no follow is shut off on that blog.
People that run WordPress blogs want you to leave comments and they don't want spam comments so a lot of them have started using a plugin that rewards the people that comment frequently, this plugin is called Lucia's Linky Love.
Once Lucia's is installed the blog master can set up the comments so that after a person make so many comments the no follow tag is removed for that person.
It does require that you use the same name and the same email address for every comment (I believe I mentioned using the same name above).
The owner of the site can set the limit from 3 to whatever they feel like but most of the time if they are using the plugin it is set from 3 to 5. This means you will have to leave a relevant comment 3 to 5 times before the no follow tag is removed but when it is removed it is removed from any comments you make from there on.
How do you find blogs that use Lucia's Linky Love plugin? The easiest way is to use Google's Blogsearch, put your keywords in quotes and then put a plus sign and then Lucia's Linky in quotes and do you search. It should look something like this "keyword phrase"+"Lucia's Linky" you results should sow you posts that are related to your keywords and using Lucia's Linky Love plugin.
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.
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