Brian Clark writes …No. And yes. It depends on how you do it. Some people do it horrendously wrong.
Curiosity-Click Traffic is Crap
If one of your primary traffic strategies is to leave fast comments on the posts of larger blogs in your niche just to get a few clicks from the passing traffic, stop. You could get more traffic from one piece of stellar content than months of that type of comment strategy.
And without good content, there’s no reason to attract a few “curiosity clicks” anyway. What’s going to make them stick around after the click if your content sucks?
Nothing.
Plus, the root motivation for those curiosity clicks is often bad to begin with. The nature of the game makes it that way.
Many new bloggers take the misguided approach of trying to be the first or second comment on every post of a larger blog. They do this because those positions in the comment stream get the most click-throughs, all other things being equal.
The problem is, in the rush for “first,” the resulting comments are often incoherent and banal. Sometimes it’s quite clear the commenter didn’t read the post, or missed the entire point in the hurry for top position.
So any curiosity clicks are usually motivated by “I wonder just how bad this bozo’s blog is going to be?” It’s true… lame blogs are entertainment for the rest of us.
So, is commenting on blogs worthless?
Nope. In fact, you can actually attract that traffic you want via a smart commenting strategy.
How Comments Can Lead to Real Traffic
So, we’ve established that great content is rule number one. Without it, all traffic to your blog is pretty much a waste.
Beyond that, the secret to blog comments that ultimately lead to traffic establish…
…relationships.
Shocking, I know.
Think about it. It’s no secret that many of the people who comment on blogs are also bloggers. They simply have more motivation to take the time to comment.
So when you meaningfully participate in the community aspect of a blog, you’re creating meaningful relationships with people who can send you significant traffic—bloggers and other active social media users.
Getting links, re-tweets, social media votes and bookmarks… this is the way that content spreads. This is the way you get real traffic that actually matters.
This doesn’t entail kissing up to the blog owner (most of us hate strategic-sounding praise). What it means is creating a network that provides the payoff for all the effort you’ve put into your content.
It takes time, but at least it actually works.
Can’t I be First and Fabulous?
I have seen some people who manage to leave exquisite, meaningful comments who also routinely score the first or second position. But I don’t recommend it.
Watching your feed reader or tweet stream that closely throughout the day has got to be distracting. Maybe I’m not as good a multi-tasker, but I find that the higher level of singular focus I place on content development, the better the content turns out.
But that’s just my opinion.
So, what do you think? Am I right, wrong, or middling?
