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Is Your WordPress Blog a Google Magnet?

February 4th, 2009 · Comments

Make your blog a Google magnet by increasing the number of comments made on your blog.  Google and the other search engines put an undefinable, but considerable weight on comments you receive on the articles you write in your blog.  If you want to move up in the search engine rankings, you must write quality content and get people to comment on your submissions.

Just ask yourself this question:
If you were Google, how would you determine how good an article is?

  • You would check article for originality - not scraped from someone else
  • The use of keywords - is the usage natural or are the stuffed?
  • Keyword density - is it in a reasonable range?
  • Whether there are related keywords - Latent Semantic Indexing
  • How the keywords relate to the title
  • Many other characteristics of the article - Who knows?
  • Finally, how many people comment on your articles

You should be striving to become an authority site.  We want a site that has incoming links from other related high pagerank sites indicating that our site is trusted and recognized.  One of the fastest ways to get quality incoming links and recognition from the search engines is to have many high quality, original articles that people have commented on.

The dream is to get a discussion going on your site.  This is where people use your article as a vehicle to “argue”,  “debate”, “dispute” and “discuss” the pros and cons of what you have written.

Here is a small list of things you can do to increase your number of comments:

  • Make a controversial post - Take a strong position.  You will find some people will agree with you and some will not.  Get them commenting by being somewhat outrageous
  • Ask people to comment -  The vast majority of people won’t comment, but asking them to comment does help.  Ask some questions at the end of your post that invite people to express themselves.
  • Use Web 2.0 type promoting - Post your article on Digg, Mixx, Reddit, StumbleUpon, Sphinn, Propeller and at least one to two other sites.  You don’t have to be on all the sharing sites, but you will want to hit the influential ones, at least.  Use an article submitting service such as SubmitYourArticle.  You will find that it pays off pretty quickly.  Your number of incoming, one-way links will increase over time.
  • Post comments on other people’s blogs -  Experienced bloggers really appreciate it when you make an intelligent, non-spam comment on their blog.  Many blog owners will make it a point to search out your blog and comment on your work.  Within Wordpress, the blog owner can simply click on the commenter’s blog URL.  It is pretty to reciprocate.

In summary: Comments are very important in your success.  Treat them with respect.  Engender them and you will see your rank improve.

Do you agree with the list above?  How many other ideas do you have?  What have you found effective in increasing the number of comments your blog gets?  Let me know below.

Tags: Link Building · Marketing

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  • Wow! Gotta tell you Richard, I just rescued about 10 comments from going down the tubes with the rest of the spam.

    I wonder how many other comments I have deleted without realizing.

    Of course going through all the rest of the spam makes me feel like I need to go take a shower!

    I like playing with my dog but GOOD GRIEF!

    <abbr>Lorraine Grulas last blog post..Outdated Video Formats: Getting Them Converted</abbr>
  • Hey Richard.

    As usual, that is great advice. I get so dang much spam I tend to not bother to look through it. I will now!

    Akismet tags anything with a link in it? Wow, that could indeed cause some issues.

    Thanks!

    <abbr>Lorraine Grulas last blog post..Outdated Video Formats: Getting Them Converted</abbr>
  • Here is a little trick that most people forget when it comes to comments. Check you spam!!

    Don't just delete your spam without going through and visually determining whether they are spam or not.

    If you hold your comments for moderation before they are shown on your blog, that doesn't have anything to do with whether Akismet will catch spam or not.

    Akismet will look to see if there is a link in the comment and it will automatically put it in spam. If you read it and it looks good, mark it as "not spam" before you delete all the other spam entries.

    I just did it a few minutes ago. I had 46 spam entries and six of them were not spam. They were good comments.

    So, take some time and look through your spam bucket. You might find some worms there, but you may also find some diamonds.
  • Joy: If you get a negative one, you can delete it. However, to be safe, you should be sure to "hold all comments for moderation" in your setup.

    I once was trusting and I let people post directly to my blog without my seeing it first. I had two or three people with very unusual email addresses register as a user on my blog. (In retrospect, I think this was done automatically with software.)

    A few days later, I opened my blog to find incredible pornographic pictures in two posts on my blog. I couldn't delete these fast enough, but I was also worried how many people had visited my blog and saw this porn.

    Be careful that you make sure that people can "contribute" not "author" and that you must approve comments first.
  • Joy
    Thanks for a useful post. I was one of those who was a bit nervous of inviting comments in case I got negative ones. However I was encouraged to do so and am now starting to get comments on my articles and blogs and pleased to find that so far I haven't had a negative one!

    <abbr>Joys last blog post..Can cola cause migraine?</abbr>
  • Gaming the search engines these days is more work than simply going out there and providing quality content. Get a cascade of comments on your blog is a sign of an active blog community and truly these days the best way to get those comments is to stand out of the crowd. How? Well controversy will always do that for ya!

    <abbr>Kayye Nynnes last blog post..Why Dog Training Is Essential</abbr>
  • You are right. It isn't worth the bother, most of the time, to try to game the keywords system; especially if it makes the article sound false and hollow.

    I think we are at the point now where we just need to provide good quality articles and rely on comments and a varied approach at building links.
  • Nice article. When I first started out, I read all the guides which detailed how and where I should insert my keywords.

    I just didn't have the time or energy to do it, and yes, it makes the post sound artificial.

    I write articles that I think my readers will like. I choose a keyword related topic and then write naturally from there.

    The results have been OK. My readers view multiple pages per visit and spend a good deal of time on the site. I am still very new and am looking forward to eventually ranking higher in the search engines for specific terms.

    For now, though I'm very happy with my reader feedback and steady growth.

    Erin Matlock

    <abbr>Brain Training 101s last blog post..9 Reasons Golf Is Good For Your Brain</abbr>
  • Leo
    There are so many factors involved in getting people to comment. As far as I can see there is no guaranteed strategy that will work.

    <abbr>Leos last blog post..Do You Think Britain is Bust?</abbr>
  • You've hit the nail on the head. Comments on your blog are even more essential than comments on your social sites. I also think it's important to 'ask' people to comment. One good reason is that by the time they reach the end of the article, their mind is ticking over at an incredible rate normally (with the just-read information). A reminder to comment quickly jars the reader into taking advantage of an immediate opportunity to pass on their thoughts. A very important and underated subject - thanks!

    <abbr>Site Traffics last blog post..Google and the Fear of Retribution</abbr>
  • Kelly Johns
    Really this is a very nice article for Seo. I was not aware very much. But I realize this is very helpful for all. Thanks,

    Kelly Johns
  • Years ago, you could fool the search engines very easily. . . Now it is harder to do that.

    The SEs have to use indirect ways of establishing whether the content is good quality or not. The safe way is to just write your articles naturally so that humans will gain something from them.

    The idea of substituting pronouns with the actual noun is excellent advice as you mentioned. . . Just don't over do it, as you said.

    I guess, my primary point is that the comments and the resultant links into inner articles and pages of your site make the difference.

    I actually have come to enjoy commenting. They don't call it "commentluv" for nothing.
  • I have to agree that comments on blogs is a very important aspect of blogging. Some bloggers make the mistake of not allowing comments on their blogs since they fear a negative one.

    But blogging is really of conversation between people with common interests. You'll never get everyone to agree and you don't want to - you want the open communication between your visitors to be open and honest. And that's just one reason why Google loves to see many comments on a blog.
  • Hey Richard.

    This is a great article. I was not aware of how much emphasis SE would put on comments, but it makes sense. Comments means people are reading your articles and finding them compelling enough to bother leaving a comment. We all know (and SE do too) that most people will not take the time to leave a comment, even if they like the article. So if they do take the time, obviously something about the article was superior in order to motivate them to spend the time and energy needed to comment.

    Personally, I have always approached search engines and SEO from a practical standpoint. I barely know the meaning of the word "algorithm" So I knew I would never figure this whole game out by analyzing the algorithm. I always thought trying to do so was a waste of time. Just like people trying to figure out some kind of exact key word ratio is NUTS!

    So if you don't approach it from an analysis of the exact algorithm, the question becomes, what would the search engines logically look for? They look to see if there is quality info people would enjoy. So give people that and the search engines will love you too. Instead of calculating keyword ratios, write an article that makes sense. Like any kind of communication, be aware that using lots of pronouns can make an article confusing if it is unclear what specifically the pronoun is referring to. (The antecedent as your English teacher would say.) Therefore, instead of using lots of pronouns, use the actual noun, which more than likely, is a decent keyword. But don't use it so much that it sounds unnatural because humans and bots alike will find that irritating. i.e. STUFFING.

    People who study verbal communication say that the over use of pronouns is one of the main reasons why people MIS communicate. Who is "him" and what is "it"?

    In other words, communicating well with people will also please the search engines because the algorithm is designed to detect quality communication. Give it to them.

    <abbr>Lorraine Grulas last blog post..Using Amazon S3 Video Hosting: EZS3</abbr>
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