Leaving comments on other people’s blog is a good way to not only get the blog owners to notice you, it can also be a good source of traffic because blog readers notice you as well. Now you don’t have be as prolific as few of our Top Commentators but being part of a blog community brings many advantages. Here are a few ways to get maximum benefit out of comments.

Be The First To Comment

If you’re after traffic, then be the first to comment. Blog readers rarely read comments after the first ten so the chances of you receiving any traffic benefit if your comment is near the bottom is very slim. I remember telling Ed to be the first to comment on Digg stories that match his blog posts. Ed would sneak in a link to his related post in the comments of a front page Digg story and the resulting traffic was better than if he had submitted a Digg that didn’t make the front page. However, after while of doing that, Diggers got pissed off at him for being a comment spammer so use this technique sparingly.

I did this myself when I was still banned from Digg. My friend Carl got a front page Digg to his tech site and someone made a comment that his RSS button was very big. I made a reply that said, “That’s not a big RSS button. THIS is a big RSS button!” That reply sent almost 500 Diggers to check out the button.

Go After The Big Blogs

Technorati has a list of the top 100 blogs on the Net. These blogs get a ton of traffic and they all have comment system. The key is not to spam those blogs with a ton of comments. All you need is to be among the first 10 or so to make a comment to the latest post. It’s best to go after big blogs with topics that are related to yours. Make a nice thought provoking comment and there’s a good chance readers will check out your blog.

Another trick you can do is to send a trackback because some blogs separate their trackback from their comments. TechCrunch is one of the blogs that does this. Best of all, their trackbacks are listed above their comments. Look at their post about Cisco Buying WebEx. 45 comments but only four trackbacks (one being mine).

Look For Blogs With Top Commentators List

If you’re going to be active in a blog, you should be rewarded for it. After all, you are helping to drive traffic and keep the blog active. The Top Commentators list is the way I reward bloggers for helping to maintain an active community. The Wordpress Plugin lists the commentators with the highest comment count over the past five days (it can be set for whatever period you like). The link does not have a nofollow tag so the commentators gets full SEO benefit as well.

Being a Top Commentator on this blog bring the added benefit of sky rocking your Technorati ranking. Those commentators who were on the list saw their ranking shoot up after my Technorati ping fest. How does that help you dollar wise? It allowed Michael Kwan to finally join ReviewMe and it boosted Stephen Fung’s ReviewMe price to $100. That’s money in the bank.

While it may not seem like it, getting on the Top Commentators list really isn’t that hard. Your chance of beating Saman Sadeghi is pretty slim but it only takes about 30 comments to get on the list. That works out to six comments per day.