Committed to Commenting
I have started doing something I hope catches on in the blog community: Commenting with purpose. Being the owner of this SEO blog I’m always delighted to see comments, especially since this means someone thought enough of what I wrote to read it and then comment on the content.
It can be discouraging when a commenter is taking advantage of the fact that I do follow comment links, but if they have said something worthwhile I feel it is a small price to pay if I give away some link juice. It can also be disheartening to see I have three comments on a post, but the total word count for all three comments is about 30 words. Sometimes three simple comments like, “Nice post, I agree with your thoughts,” can be nice, but more often I would rather have one comment that says something more and even challenges what I have written.
So, I have committed myself to commenting with purpose. When I visit other blogs I will make every effort to make an intelligent, thoughtful and interesting comment that actually adds to the post. It may not always be lenghty, but my comments will never be boiled down to a “Nice Post” comment.
I hope those commenting on my blog will try to do the same, and I also hope my readers will not feel pressured to write more than they want. After all, I would rather see a short post with gratitude than nothing at all. Thanks for reading and for commenting. And when you do comment, use your name, not your keyword, it cheapens the comment, in my humble opinion.
Update: Well I’ve made one comment per day this week and I feel good about my contributions. Here is one of the comments I made on a post by Jill Whalen about changing urls.
Popularity: 4% [?]
Want to know what Shell is doing?
6 Responses to “Committed to Commenting”
By Malignition.com on Dec 13, 2007 | Reply
Many blog owners comment with intentions of building backlinks. While I can’t blame them for trying to improve their search engine rankings, it’s certainly no excuse to leave a generic and run-of-the-mill comment on someone’s blog.
By g1smd on Dec 13, 2007 | Reply
Great Post. I agree!
(Actually, that sort of non-information comment is a waste of everyone’s time. It is annoying to see that 20 threads have new comments, but then after a lot of clicking, you find that there was zero information in any of them.)
By SEO Canada on Dec 14, 2007 | Reply
That was my strategy right from the start. My goal isn’t just to blog spam *GrinZ* But to add a valuable comment, as there generally moderated more positively
I find it even works on EDU sites 
By SEO Specialist - Terry Reeves on Dec 14, 2007 | Reply
I like to read as many blogs as possible. I love to comment when the discussion creates a need for me to say something. Unfortunately, many blogs, especially SEO blogs, seem to simply be posting for the same reason many comment. They are not hard to find either. Actually it is harder to find a blog like this one where posts are actually worthy of revisiting.
I have not been posting here long but I have found something interesting to read each time I have come here so I will be back.
I too feel there needs to be more real discussion on blogs, especially search marketing blogs.
By Shell Harris on Dec 14, 2007 | Reply
Terry - Thanks for the compliment and for the comments. I see you have commented a few times already. I have been devoted to posting one useful tip every week and at the end of this year I will have completed this task. It was/is much harder than I anticipated as 52 unique tips that are actually helpful has been a struggle at times. I feel that committment was a big reason my posts were valuable and interesting.
But I hope next year I can be more opinionated and thoughtful in my posts since I can move away from SEO tips.
By John Simpson on Dec 22, 2007 | Reply
I usually try to leave a comment only if I have something relevant, substantive, and unique to say. If not, I keep my big keyboard shut.