Building a blog is probably going to be the easiest part of starting your online business, but marketing your blog is going to be considerably more difficult.
In order to be successful in internet marketing, you should do everything with both your reader and the search engines in mind. Everybody's aim is to be on page one of the search engine results pages (SERPs) because theoretically that's where you'll make the most money. One of the many important things you will have to do to get your blog onto the first page of the Google SERPs is obtain backlinks.
The easiest way to get backlinks is by leaving comments on other people's blogs. These blogs should be "Do Follow" blogs, which basically means that along with your name and an e-mail address you can leave a link to your site.
Below are our three main tips for better blog commenting:
1. You should leave useful and knowledgeable comments on other people's blogs. The blogmaster is offering you something of value, i.e. the chance to gain a backlink, so you must leave a comment that adds value to his site in return. Leaving comments such as "great site dude" is of little value to the blog owner and will probably be deleted.
2. Make sure the blog where you leave your comment is relevant to your own website or blog. Google and the major search engines take this into consideration, and you will improve your ranking only if the blog is relevant. For example, if you have a site about dog training, its pointless leaving a comment on a site about flower arranging.
3. If your own blog is new, it probably has a PR0 (Page Rank) ranking. You should aim to leave comments on sites that have a higher PR ranking than your site does. A backlink from one PR6 site is far more valuable in Google's eyes than dozens of links from other PR0 sites. If you can find .edu or .gov sites where you can leave comments, these are extremely valuable.
Backlinks are like votes of confidence from other sites, and Google takes those into consideration when ranking your site. Always take the time to read some of the other articles on the blog that you're linking to so you can leave relevant, interesting and useful comments.
When you're searching for blogs to leave comments on, always make sure there is active participation - there should be a lively community commenting regularly, and if you can be notified via email or RSS feed about further comments you can also become an active participant.
When the blogmaster sees you know what you're talking about and leaving useful information for his readers, he may contact you and ask if you would like to write a guest post. This is very beneficial for both your site and for his - he gets a free article and you have the opportunity to encourage many of his readers to visit your site.
When you start a new blog, one good habit you should get into is blog commenting daily. Aim to leave comments on 10 other blogs daily - those 70 comments will work remarkably well to not only help you move up in the rankings, but to become recognized. If you don't have a Gravatar, get one with your smiling face on it - people will recognize you easier and should click-through to your site when you leave helpful and interesting comments.
By Gabriele CramerKnebel