I will probably release a thrashing Commenting Blueprint Ebook somewhere in the future of my blogging career, and I don’t want to drop it all here… But I am busy preparing some stellar marketing for Blog Engage and thought I would share some tips with you top add some value to your experience here at Blog Engage.
Sure, this is by no means rocket science or a revelation, but new bloggers could really benefit from this and hopefully some of the more seasoned bloggers here will also benefit somewhat.
Link building 101.
If you want links built through commenting that actually mean something, you want to look for blogs with the following criteria:
1. The blog needs to be nofollow-free (or dofollow).
2. It should have KeywordLuv installed so that you can place your name and your desired keyword in the ‘name’ part of the comment section.
3. It should have ComLuv installed (Premium) because it will allow you to choose from the last ten posts from your blog you’d like to promote.
4. It needs to have a PR higher than 3.
5. It needs to have an Alexa rank below 100k.
Well, those were the criteria I looked at in my preparation doing marketing for Blog Engage. The list is not finished yet, but right now there’s around 28 GOOD blog on there. The above is not the valuable part of this post but the following is:
The most valuable part.
There’s still a lot of research for me to do, but as I searched for Comluv enabled blogs, I happened to come upon a search engine that Karen from Blazing Minds actually have installed on her blog. I don’t know which search engine she’s using (looks like a Google type), but here’s the link. From there I was able to get 28 nofollow free, high PR, Low Alexa ranking blogs.
Until the fat lady…
Nope I’m not done yet, I will be searching for some more blogs to go and ‘invest’ some time into and once I have 50 or so, I’m going to start cutting them off by measuring against the first list of criteria.
Your turn.
Do you know where else I can ‘shop’ for blogs to go market at, except of course the Blazing minds list, all the A-list bloggers and looking at the Comluv bloggers list. Is there anywhere else you know of I can go and ‘do some research’.
Andreas Pazer (152)
abhibalani (136)
Jafar Dhada (128)
Holly Jahangiri (101)
bbrian017 (62)
Justin Germino (51)
Kris Edison (47)
James Pruitt (46)
Rahul Kuntala (31)
Hajra (26)
Twitter: seommotips
Hi Ivin,
Why don’t you publish a post “List your blog here if it meets criteria”. I know here are many blogs that are above PR 3 and offer dofollow link back.
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Twitter: ivinviljoen
Hello Suresh. That would be a good idea, but that would be showing favoritism to some where that is not exactly what Be is all about. However, if you want to do some research fro blogs I think the method may be effective.
ivin recently posted..Adverbial Modifiers
Twitter: BlazingMinds
Hi Ivin, you are correct the Blogger Search engine on my blog is using Google, I find it easy to customize and adding new sites to the list is so easy
Many thanks for linking to it, much appreciated 
Blazing Minds recently posted..Pull Your Head Out Of The Sand And Out Of Your Bargain Bucket
Twitter: ivinviljoen
Hello Karen. I liked that search box and would like to know how you customized and inserted that. Perhaps you could do a post for Blogengage here to show the community how you did that?
Thanks for the takeaways Ivin. I will look forward for the commenting blueprint you will be publishing. Any thought sabout the ComLuv Premium? I heard many bloggers are dying to be qualified as Beta testers
Twitter: ivinviljoen
Hello Reika. Sounds interesting actually. I applied but don’t seem like I made the cut for Beta testers. So, I’ll have to buy like everyone else. Not a problem though, I think $20 is fair for what it’s gonna do. I actually believe it should have been a paid product LONG ago.
Self advertising, what about my blog? I think I met the above stated… not sure, but I think my blog traffic had increase quit a lot the past few weeks…
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Twitter: ivinviljoen
Who says you’re NOT on the list? Hehe. We are also looking for blogs that have LOTS of comments. I think that is because eyeballs are needed.
Very important: Don’t try to place keywords in the name field if the blog is not KeywordLuv powered. I did it and I fell into WordPress spammers list, although I did it only four or five times and the comments were relevant to the article topic and were no spam in any way.
Also, I’d be grateful if you rescued this comment from your spam basket, Ivin
Twitter: ivinviljoen
Rafa, Good news! Not in the spam folder. It would be devastating to land up in the spam folder. I actually just trust that when I click in the ‘name bar’ and it returns the @ it’s enabled. I would actually like to know how tom check for that.
Thanks for your reply, Ivin. Nice to see one of my comments not filtered
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Twitter: dragonblogger
You still gain some PR benefit from commenting on NoFollow blogs and some sites measure your # of unique backlinks from other sites, so commenting on original and unique sites regardless of PR0, PR1, PR2 is also a plus. Remember that if a blog is PR3+ the page you are commenting on typically isn’t and each page has it’s own PR so you gain little PR juice from commenting on a PR0 page even if homepage of blog is a PR4.
Commenting should be more about engaging the bloggers and inviting communication than simply garnering the links as Google also automatically puts less weight on links in comments even if it is DoFollow, Guest Posting is more effective for quality backlinks since the links are in content.
Justin Germino recently posted..Apple iPhone 5 Pre-orders Available at Deutsche Telekom
Twitter: ivinviljoen
Hello Justin. This exercise wasn’t necessarily for the PR back links as Blogengage is a PR5. But we simply want to present potential customers with the BE service, which I’m sure you know how valuable it is. I agree with you 100% that commenting should be about community and adding value to the blogs you comment on – and in adding that value through commenting, I think it would be great marketing for BE, among other things I still have up my sleeve
The logic is, a high PR blog usually have good traffic, because you can’t get that high a PR without authority sites linking to it. And therefore a comment on them is good time spent marketing.
If you’re concern is PR0 blogs and noobs getting attention, I make a point of voting up ‘underdog’ blogs and even comment there sometimes. Blogengage being the focus of my marketing right now, I believe in the product 150% and believe commenting on good blogs is a good investment.
Twitter: dragonblogger
True, just adding info. About your statement “The logic is, a high PR blog usually have good traffic, because you can’t get that high a PR without authority sites linking to it” because I have had blogs with less than 5000 visits per month be a PR2, PR3 and PR4, where blog with 65k visit per month barely stays above a PR0 or PR1. So I think it depends on how high the PR is. I would say any site can relatively easily get to PR3, but getting to PR5, PR6 or above requires high authority sites linking to it and this maybe bought links, or just mean you have a very good reference site that others find informative and link to but still may not yield much traffic. Examples would be some really tight niche sites where they have high authority but very low traffic, yet can have a high PR.
The PageRank has absolutely no bearing on actual traffic to your site, it is more about links in, links out than anything else. Now some would say more links in should equate to meaning more traffic, but it isn’t really directly comparable.
Good to see BlogEngage at a PR5 now.
Twitter: ivinviljoen
Thanks Justin. I actually have to look at your points and adjust my approach slightly. What was interesting about what you said is that the blog itself may be PR5, for instance, but the page your commenting on may not be. I have read that somewhere sometime before, but appreciate the reminder.
I think at the end I will look at blogs that are related, in such a way that I know potential customers hang our there and all those other metrics may just be a bonus. I’d LOVE to hear your thoughts how we could market BE other than the methods already use. PM me if you have some ideas you don’t mind sharing.
Twitter: dragonblogger
For advertising and links, PR5 is highly desirable. At PR4 I was able to sell homepage links for $25 per month each link, and was able to do several $150-200 year long lease contracts in the same month. I probably could get $40 per month with a PR5.
Though it can damage PR, I would suggest looking at something like Intellilinks or Teliad which gives you the freedom to add the links manually instead of using a plugin somewhere on the homepage. Just an option if you want to go the sponsored links route.
Offering specific Do Follow banner ads is another option, though I don’t think you can do this with BSA and need to use a customized version of WP125 (which I manually modified to allow DoFollow links) to the banner ads, this way you aren’t doing the “paid link” think but they get the ad + dofollow link for the “alt keywords” for the month, it is like having 2 ads in one.
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Twitter: ptaylor98
Thanks for this post. I have been looking for a resource list to be able to post legitimate comments and get a backlink. All my blogs and websites provide a backlink, which I think is a suitable reward for those who take the time to read and comment. I don’t hoard “linkjuice.”
Twitter: Ileane
Hi Ivin, did you know that Ana Hoffman is building a CommentLuv Enabled blog list over on Traffic Generation Cafe? I’m sure she’s a Blog Engage customer so it should be easy to find the link here. Good luck with your strategy.
Ileane recently posted..Getting Your Blog Ready For CommentLuv Premium
Twitter: ivinviljoen
Than ks Ileane. I was actually looking for a ComLuv enabled search engine. I though ComLuv had one on their site but I couldn’t find it. Glad I ran into Karens nofollow-free list. Do you know if Ana’s Done with hers?
Twitter: Ileane
Ivin, Shiva from Net Chunks has a list of 400 blogs. He put this together back in December but it’s pretty good if you ask me. I still get traffic from here.
http://www.netchunks.com/huge-list-of-400-dofollow-commentluv-blogs/
Hope this helps!
Ileane recently posted..Managing Extensions In The Google Chrome Toolbar
Thanks for the list, Ileane! I haven’t found any consistent ways to find nofollow blogs, other than lists such as this. It’s a little easier to find ComLuv blogs, however.
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Wonderful post Ivin. My blog is above 100k in Alexa, that’s the only problem I have right now. I think I have to study the metrics on how to lower my rank in one month unless you give me some pointers. Can’t wait for the blueprint to come out, looking forward to it. Cheers!
Twitter: ivinviljoen
Hello Esmael. My Alexa got to 82k just by posting everyday. And I mean Monday – Sunday. That’s how I did it.
Thanks Ivin,
So posting regularly is really important to get a good Alexa rank. I think I have to increase the number post per week. I only do 2-3/week but I make up with quantity with quality. Thanks for the tips, cheers!