We all know the value of guest posts to our SEO strategies. They are a great way to get content into specific marketplaces, as well as offering valuable “link juice” as a reward for our hard work, sourcing blogs and writing interesting content.

There is one thing that I see time after time, and that is blogs that maybe have one or two comments from readers, but no reply or response from the person who has written he post. I find this to be both lazy and short sighted. Those two traits regularly go together I find.

Why Bother Responding To Comments?

–          A lot of the time your link will be repeatedly shown in your responses, adding valuable link juice to your site. It will also show Google that this post is active and receiving interest, which helps the value of the links coming from that post and the attached comments.

–          You can answer genuine queries and quell any misinformation that may be written by others, greatly enhancing your own authority on your chosen topic. This means that you will also start to get people following your writing within a niche and adding more comments elsewhere. These create really valuable signals, and can attract Twitter followers, Facebook likes and other social media followings.

–          Blog owners are more likely to allow you to come back and post if they see you actively encouraging debate and follow up information to help their blog visitors. I think many find it rude that some people just post, collect a link and then disappear for a time, until they need another link. Blog owners want to see their guest posters engaged with the people who have read their information. This, to me, is perfectly reasonable.

My main point is that despite the value to SEO, and whether you are posting on blogs from Northampton, or North America, you should have the decency to help the momentum of any comment exchange to run as far as it can. It doesn’t show much authority to make a point, and then disappear as soon as someone else challenges you on a part of it. I accept that many blog comments are spam, software creations that can invade a perfectly good debate. Many blog owners though will actively eliminate “spammy” comments, and only allow ones that are relevant to the issues written about in your piece. If they can be bothered to keep the comments free from spam, you should be bothered to add to the value of any debate that may be taking place regarding your content.

Daniel Vassiliou is Managing Director of www.seonorthampton.org , and is always happy to hear from anyone who has an SEO issue of one type or another. You can contact him through the above link, or through his twitter page https://twitter.com/enduranceseo . Feel free to comment below if you have an alternative point of view.