The first step on your path to comment dominance is to set up an avatar for yourself. An image of yourself or your mascot is usually best as it is free branding for yourself. Instead of uploading an image to every blog you visit there is a service called Gravatar, which means Globally Recognized Avatar, and should show up automatically on blogs you post on. You can sign up and upload your image here: http://en.gravatar.com/
Find Blogs
Now your avatar is set it is time to find blogs related to your niche. Chances are you will already know of a few, but if you need some more then you can search Google such as “Link Building Blog” and that should bring up some pretty good results. If you are looking for even more blogs on your niche you can go to any of the big social networks and type in your keywords and you should find some big juicy blogs.
Read the latest posts
Once you have found blogs it’s time to see what they are writing about. Read through their latest posts fully and try to think about areas on the subject they have missed out on or where you think you have something to add. After all a blog post should be like a discussion, what can you add? If you don’t think you can add anything to the post either move on to a previous post or just move on to another blog.
Comment
The time has come, you have prepared well, and it’s time to make that elusive comment. It’s time to take those ideas that you can up with before and craft them into a comment.
The first step is to make the initial move and write out that comment. Now take that comment and read over it, does it make sense? Check there is no spelling or grammar mistakes; in the safe knowledge your piece is error free, sit back and get ready.
Hit Publish.
Wait
Okay, so lets recap. You’ve set up your avatar, read through the post and made your comment. Now you must wait to see if either the blogger or another commentator replies to your comment. To take the suspense away completely you can subscribe to updates by email so that you will be notified when someone else comments.
Follow up
It’s there, an email in your inbox. Someone has replied! Quickly rush over and see what they have said. The first comment you made was just an intro, but the second one is the way you really get to know people. Read over the reply and if you need to write your own reply, remember to be courteous at all times.
Connect
After you have commentated a few times you can begin to take it to the next level, ask some bloggers if they use any instant messaging services or social networks. Go there and befriend them, get to know them a little better. The aim is to become pretty good friends with the blogger so you can both help each other out in the future.
If there was one thing I could attribute my success to it’s networking with like-minded bloggers, the progress you can make with another persons help is phenomenal compared to what you could do on your own.
Subscribe
You think you’ve finished sunshine? Not yet, the key is to be consistent, so sign up for the blog and stay up to date whenever they post.
This also helps because there’s a good chance you can be the first person to comment, which is great because the first comment usually gets a lot of attention from the blogger and the readers on the condition that it is of good quality.
Repeat
You should be proud, you’ve achieved a lot today, you’ve gone from being a silent lurker of blogs to an active participator, and in the process you’ve made a new friend in your niche, which can be invaluable. Now all you have to do is repeat this process over and over again, expanding your network of friends each time.
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Good advice. I honestly think that this has become somewhat of a lost art as spammers have made it much difficult to get posts approved. For every good post you reply to, you’ll get 10 “nice post”, “Thanks”, or “Great info”. More than likely each of these was produce by spam blog commenting software. While I’m sure it works to some extent, it sure makes it harder for everyone else.
Great re-introduction to blog commenting. If I could add one thing…..many people feel that it’s rude to post criticism on a blog post comment, however as long as the comment is constructive in nature the blog author will most likely appreciate the feedback…I know I do.
Great post and keep them coming.
By the way, I love the footer bar you’ve added to the site, very slick.
Regards
Phil
Phil Hogan´s last blog ..How Richard Branson Manages His Time And Stress
Well Phil i think is not so bad for ppl to do soome criticism for some articles, because is not that we all got the same ideeas or thoughts, and beside most of the blog post represent some projects or ideas on which everyone discuss about thir personal opinions.
Anyway Donny is good that you touched this point. Some of the bloggers avoid to discuss it because most of the spammers bring them traffic… if you understand what i mean
Hi,
As a new blogger i’m new to all of this information, but really glad that are people with knowledge and expertise in the subject that like to share it.
Hope i can be part of the circle.
thanks,
Ivan
Ivan HP´s last blog ..Bienvenidos
As a blogger, I’m happy to see people coming back to my site commenting and making a conversation with me. I don’t care if they have links or not but as long as they give valuable comments and I feel their sincerity…. even with just a simple ” That’s great!”, I give my thanks to them and that motivates me to share more.
Often, commenting on a high PR blog is not an easy job.
Olan Pays´s last blog ..Rayovac Batteries
Nice steps, being a regular reader and atimes sparing the time to drop some related comment is a great
Haha, so there is more to blog commenting than just leaving comments. Good insight on a new idea – hopefully there are some friendly people out there!
Really every nice tips for blog commenting. I never knew about the avatar factor.