How to Carry Out Niche Relevant Blog Commenting

Hi guys, it’s Dan Grant here, and today I want to walk you through the blog comments SOP we’ve set up for you. I’m going to show you how to carry out relevant, niche-specific blog comments for your site, or for the sites we want you to build links to. For this example, we’re building blog comments to a specific URL on Phat Rank that’s all about entrepreneurship and apprenticeships. To keep things simple, we’ll focus on apprenticeships, because that’s one of the key phrases we want to target for this URL. These links might not be the most powerful in terms of raw authority, but they’re very useful in terms of relevancy and potential referral traffic from people who click through from the blogs we comment on. To start with the SOP itself, the first step is to head over to google.co.uk and use specific search strings to find potential URLs for blog comments. The idea here is to use search operators that pull in blogs which are both relevant to your keyword and open to comments. An example search string is: inurl:YOURKEYWORD "commentLuv" In our case, the keyword might be “apprenticeships” or “entrepreneurships”. If you were working on another niche, like baby prams, the keyword would be “baby prams”; if it was sofas, then “sofas”. You always want something closely related to your main keyword. So, for apprenticeships, you might search: inurl:apprenticeships "commentLuv" “CommentLuv” is the system many blogs use that allows people to leave comments. Including that in the search helps you find blogs that actually accept comments. Another good search string is: intitle:YOURKEYWORD "submit comment" For example: intitle:apprenticeships "submit comment" This will pull in blogs that have your keyword in the title of the post and also show some variation of “submit comment”, which again suggests that comments are allowed. If you just searched for intitle:apprenticeships without the extra bit, you might find relevant posts, but many of them won’t allow comments. Adding phrases like “submit comment” or “commentLuv” helps you build a more accurate list of prospects. I’ll be adding more of these search strings into the SOP over time, but for now let’s stick with inurl:apprenticeships "commentLuv". When we search this, we get a list of relevant blogs all about apprenticeships – things like “becoming an apprentice”, “is an apprenticeship right for your teenager”, and so on. These are hyper-relevant URLs and potential blogs that we can comment on. I’ve already used the top result in my written SOP, so for this video I’ll click on the second one. The first thing I do is check that the article is genuinely relevant. Titles can sometimes be misleading, so I’ll skim through to make sure it really is about apprenticeships and matches the keyword we’re targeting. In this example, the post is titled something along the lines of “Earn While Learning – Consider a Model of Apprenticeship”. That’s ideal. It’s talking about earning while learning, employment rates, university as an option, apprenticeships as an option, and what young people should do. It’s clearly about the topic we’re focused on, so it’s a perfect fit. Once I know it’s relevant, I scroll down to see if there’s a comment section. In this case, I can see a “Leave a reply” box. That confirms the blog both matches our topic and allows comments, which is exactly what we want. Up to this point, we’ve completed the initial SOP steps: – Use the search strings to find candidate blogs. – Click through and check relevancy. – Confirm that the blog has a comment section. Now we’re at the stage where we actually post the comment. In the comment form, there are usually a few fields: name, email, website, and the comment itself. You want to fill each of these in correctly. For the Name field, this can be pretty flexible. You can use a random name (e.g., “Samantha Smith”), a made-up name, or your brand name. In my example, I’ll use “Phat Rank” because that’s the brand I’m working with. You can also vary it slightly, like “Phat Rank UK” or “Phat Rank” with a space. The key is just to keep it sensible and at least loosely related to what you’re doing. I’d generally stick to real-sounding names and brand names rather than anything too weird or spammy. For the Email field, enter your personal or work email – whatever you’ve been told to use. The email doesn’t appear publicly on the blog; it’s mainly there to verify that you’re a real person. You’ll often see a note like “your email address will not be published”, so there’s nothing to worry about on that front. The Website field is very important. Here, you must use the specific target URL you’ve been given – nothing else. In this example, that’s the entrepreneurship/apprenticeship URL we’ve been talking about. Copy that URL and paste it into the website field. This is the link we’re trying to build, so make absolutely sure it’s correct. Now we get to the Comment itself, which is the most thoughtful part of the process. It doesn’t need to be difficult, but it does need some attention. You want to write something that: – Is not overly promotional. – Clearly shows you’ve read (or at least properly skimmed) the article. – Adds value or an opinion connected to the content. Avoid generic comments like “Great read!” or “I like apprenticeships” – those look spammy and lazy. Instead, pick out specific points from the article. For instance, in this example blog they mention student loans and the cost of university. I might focus my comment around the idea that apprenticeships help people earn while they learn and avoid the burden of large student loans. So my comment might briefly talk about how rising student debt makes apprenticeships a really attractive option, and that it’s good to see this being discussed in detail. I’d reference the article’s points, maybe contrast university and apprenticeships a bit, and be balanced and impartial. I’m not talking about Phat Rank or pushing a product; I’m engaging with their content. To wrap up the comment, I might add something friendly and encouraging like: “Keep up the great content – it’s always nice to see this topic discussed in such depth.” That’s enough to show you’re a real person who actually cares about the subject. It massively increases the chances of your comment being approved and makes you look legitimate, even though we ultimately want the link. Once you’re happy with the name, email, website, and comment, double-check everything and then hit “Post Comment”. Make sure any required checkboxes are ticked before you submit. After posting, the next step is to confirm that your comment and link have actually gone live. Refresh the page, scroll down, and look for your comment. Check that the link is there and that it points to the correct URL. Sometimes comments are held for moderation, so they won’t appear immediately. In those cases, the comment has still been submitted, but it needs the blog owner’s approval before it’s visible. If you can’t see it right away and you know the blog moderates comments, make a note of that. If the comment doesn’t appear after refreshing and there’s no sign that it’s pending moderation, you may just have to move on to the next blog. Similarly, in some cases the website field may not create a clickable link, or the URL might be stripped out. If that happens, try putting the URL directly in the comment instead of the website field. Some blogs allow links only in the comment body; others allow them only in the website field. If neither works, you won’t be able to get a link from that particular blog, so again, move on to the next prospect. As you build up more comments, it’s essential to stay organised. Keep track of all your blog comments in an Excel sheet. For each entry, note: – The blog URL where you posted the comment. – The target URL you used. – The status of the link (successful, unsuccessful, or pending/awaiting moderation). If the comment is awaiting approval, mark it as something like “Awaiting link” and then check back after a few days to see if it’s been approved. This helps you stay on top of what’s live, what’s still pending, and where you might need to try a different approach or just move on. That’s it – that’s the SOP for blog commenting. I’m Dan Grant, hope you found this useful, and I’ll see you next time.