22 replies to this topic

[razsports]

Hello,

I've had past and new clients asking me for blog comments. My job is to search for blogs that relate to their theme, read the stories and comment on them. My comments are to include a link to the clients website. However, as you all know NOT all blogs will accept your comment. Some blog owners hate the fact that your title tag takes visitors to your website. This leads me to ask you all, what is a fair price for leaving blog comments for content building. Yes, I call this content building and not link building. Why? because content is what I write and I take the time to read each blog article.




Plan A:

30 Comments per website (spread over a period of 30 days. This way your link building looks nature).
$50 setup fee- Non-Refundable! (this is for my time of searching for blogs, reading stories and leaving my comments)
$1.50 for each approved comment.

Plan B

60 Comments per website(spread over 60 days).

$75.00 setup fee-Non-Refundable
$1.50 per each approved comment

Plan C

$50 setup fee per month-Non-Refundable (30 comments per month)
$1.50 per approved comment

Any suggestions? I do need to be paid for my time and effort. Your suggestions are very much appreciated. Thank you.

Edited by razsports, 01 May 2009 - 09:46 AM.

[Ron Carnell]

Charge what it's worth:

Zip. Zero. Nada. Zilch.

[razsports]

That is not totally true! Blog commenting can work if done correctly. I look for blogs that are not spamming(no hidden text or links) well written and are interesting.

[jonbey]

I would suggest article writing as an alternative method of link building. Probably more likely to be successful, and better for promoting a brand. Comment, although useful, are very hit and miss.

With my site, a comment has to be really good for me to publish. If they make a good point but write badly, I sometimes correct their spelling/grammer etc. but sometimes just delete. Depends on my mooood.

[bwelford]

As you described your proposal, razsports, the value to the client may be comparable to what you are asking. However in the grand scheme of things, I think Ron's answer is closer to the truth. Perhaps I can explain why I seem to be covering both ends of the spectrum.

Google has suggested that paid links should carry a nofollow tag. In that way they would presumably have no search engine visibility value. Some feel therefore that comments should also have nofollow URLs to head off those who might wish to spam. I infer from this that comment URLs without the nofollow tag do have some SE value, however small.

On my blogs I do not nofollow comment URLs since I think this is a small benefit to give someone who has spent the time creating useful content (yes, I think it can be). I clearly state in a visible policy that I do remove some comments even if they have got by the Akismet spam killer when I feel they add nothing of value for future readers. The exact policy reads as follows:

SMM DoFollow Policy

Our policy is to encourage more valuable comments by offering their authors ‘linkjuice‘. This is more generous than the approach of the Lucia’s Linky Love plugin. At the same time, we accept the burden of removing spam comments. The Akismet plugin already does a good job of removing most spam comments. Other comments are deleted if it is felt that they do not merit being seen by other readers of the blogs. If it is felt that a commenter has written a comment merely to gain a link, then all his comments will be carefully scrutinised and may be deleted. It’s a kind of Tough Love policy but hopefully everyone wins.

There is a slightly fuller explanation here.

Given all that, what you offer the client may be of a little value. However I think it is missing a real opportunity. I think it is much better that some clearly identified individual speaking for the company makes fewer but more valuable comments. In this way that individual can develop an authority for themselves and for the company. In that way they are using the social media aspects of blog comments. It's a big topic but perhaps that summarizes what I'm thinking.

[razsports]

Thank you all for your advice I just want it to be know that I do not spam! I actually take the time to read blog articles. I never ever promise that I will leave 500 blog comments in a 24 hour period.

I also do not believe in 500 web directories. If anything, I look for human submitted directories that are like that of joeaunt, dmoz, http://www.webchirkut.com/. Why? Because they are well written, organized and let the visitor(s) get involved by suggestion a website.

[send2paul]

You say these are your current and new customers. so why not put blog commenting in as part of a package. I assume you do SEO work. Something like blog commenting should be apart of a bigger package because blog commenting alone will probably not yield a good return on investment. Without a good ROI your clients probably won't be clients for long.

If you take one customer and only comment on one blog for 30 days and every comment is approved you can then charge your customer $45. Now how do you justify that charge? Do you provide links to all your comments left? Can you show them that this $45 has produced results? If it is producing results then you can charge what you please but if at the end of the month you have nothing to show then it really doesn't matter what you charge they won't keep giving you money.

The simple answer: You can charge whatever you want if you can justify the charge and show the client that their money is well spent.

Actually - that answer is not mine. But - as you happened to ask the exact same question over on Yahoo Questions, I thought I'd give you the exact same answer that was there - as I thought it was a very good answer. The author of that answer? : Dan G - nice one Dan! (See Yahoo Questions for more details).

[SEOigloo]

As a blogger, should I take it as a compliment that a company would pay someone to promote their business on my blog? I'm stretching to see a compliment in the scenario, but I'm not seeing one.

Razsports, I know your question is about how much to charge for this service, but if I were in your shoes, I'd be telling my clients to spend their money some other way. I automatically delete self-promotional links from the comments on my blog and simply feel irritated that people are trying to use my blog to promote themselves, so obviously, by link dropping. It's bad enough when people do this for themselves, but the idea that they would be paying a third party to do it for them strikes me as taking this practice to a new low. If your clients are truly desirous of creating visibility in their corner of the blogosphere, why not have the end object of their (or your) efforts be contributing to the community rather than walking in with the intention of dropping links? I think you should discuss this further with the clients who are asking for this.

My 2 cents.

[jonbey]

The problem with blog comments is that there is no guarantee that you will get a link. At least with directories etc. you may build up your own list of reliable ones. And don't forget all the other types of site where you can squeeze a link in with a bit of work, like Pligg's and Wiki's.

[EGOL]

If you are truly good at getting these links then you are certainly a very clever person. Instead of doing these linkdrops I bet that you might make a lot more money starting a website on a topic that you are very excited about and putting enthusiastic work into it. I bet that you would enjoy it a lot more.

Just so you know... most links from blogs are worthless for SEO purposes... and most bloggers really dislike having their blogs used as linkfarms.

[AbleReach]

Blog comments can be part of relationship building. People can get curious after reading a comment, and then follow a commenter's link to see what they're about.

I doubt that a $1.50 comment from someone who is not part of the link-owner's organization could usually be part of relationship building. What you're doing sounds more like comment spam to me.

If you're a good googler & fast reader who is good at the quick summary... I wonder... would there be a business in using that skill to provide quick summaries of sites to watch & network with, targeted to niche & client?

[razsports]

Hi people,

There is talk that part of link building is leaving blog comments. True or not? Even so, I never ever leave spam comments. As I said earlier, I actually read the blogs and leave proper comments. Not sure why a few here would say what I am doing is spamming. I am a little confused.

I never ever write comments such as: "Nice website. Thank you for sharing." I actually write interesting comments that catch the readers eye.

Also, as I said earlier, I do not believe in that 500 web directory crap. I for one believe there are not 500 directories on the Internet.

Just getting ideas on link building. Oh yes, I do not sell PR or the likes.

[bwelford]

I always welcome comments on my blogs that are likely to be appreciated by future readers or that are part of a conversation. If your comments followed those guidelines, razsports, then I do not think you would have too much problem with most blog owners.

I do delete blog comments that do not follow the guidelines or where I feel the main motivation is to get links. So if someone comes in and comments on say five blog posts and some of them are quite old, then I delete them all, however worthy they might appear. One or two commenters have complained but them's the rules.

[razsports]

bwelford,

I agree with you. I try to find blogs that are new and have good content. I never spam nor do I ever a leave link in the comments. This is a no can do. I only leave a link to a website if the blog asks for it. My question, is it a good idea to leave anchor text for the user name?

I asked you all for how much to charge because I do good work. I am not your typical spammer or promise guy. Everyone who asks me to promise rankings- I say I can not do that! I do not believe in 500 web directory submission. I also am against cloaking, backdoor pages, hidden text or links.

Keep your suggestions coming in regards to link building. Yes, I know writing on page content is key

[A.N.Onym]

Even if you are very good at building igloos, no one needs them south from the Canadian border (or a certain latitude).

What you are offering might be good content, but it doesn't translate to high ROI in affecting the target website both in terms of targeted traffic and dofollow links.

Since most blogs use nofollow, it doesn't matter, if you use the anchor text: the link won't be counted by the SEs, it only has a chance to pass slim targeted traffic.

If you do comment on dofollow blogs, using anchor text drastically increase the chances of your comment to be removed. For a comment to be accepted with an anchor text links, it needs to be the size of a blog post and of much better quality, than the post you are commenting on. This brings us to a point: you'd rather write posts for your customers blogs, guest posts or articles for distribution, rather than commenting.

Either way, as has already been noted, there are many much more effective forms of search marketing, than blog commenting. As already been said, blog commenting is best done by your customer, because he has the experience to share and relationships with bloggers and readers to build.

Edited by A.N.Onym, 02 May 2009 - 11:07 PM.

[EGOL]

A good model for a link building service is http://ericward.com/

[A.N.Onym]

I'd say Eric has the best link building model: it's based on real reasons why people would link to the website, most of which are site's usefulness and quality.

It's based around creating targeted link-worthy content (aimed at both customers and linkers) and promoting it among those, who would link to it. I also like Eric's approach in approaching link contacts: only if the client's website is extremely useful to the link resource, for example.

You may have heard about this approach as linkbait, but, practically, it's about creating astonishingly awesome content, aimed to get targeted traffic and links, rather than baiting someone for links.

Of course, Eric also has a simple announcement service (URLwire), but it only works for already awesome website, who don't need great content to be even greater.

There certainly are similar link building strategies, but they all revolve around ways to create something useful (a tool, a widget, etc) and promote it to get links (or get links, when the tool is used, in a way of a WP plugin or a sidebar widget).

Edited by A.N.Onym, 03 May 2009 - 05:18 AM.

[iamlost]

There are three major problems with offering a blog (or forum) commenting service:
* the value for effort (as previous posters have mentioned) is simply not there. Too often the links pass little/no value (for a number of possible reasons) or the comments are removed as spam or they never get posted (pre-mod).

* the market is totally swamped with automated and third world piecemeal submitters who have crashed the price to pennies per submission. Given this floor amount, the problems in reason '1', and the cheapness (and ignorance) of clients looking at this link building route there is no scalability (and poor chance of profitability) to a 'quality' blog comment business.

* continuing on from reason 2 - you are late to the niche. There are several very big players who dominate. While there is always room on the web, this last when combined with reasons '1' and '2' paint a bleak business outlook.

All that aside there are growing niche high value commenting services. One such is in reputation management. Granted most are part of a service from SEO or broader Rep Man companies but there are specialist contractors out there. Note the difference - this is commenting without reference to PR or necessarily even to links. Quality and message and finding the best message outlets in a timely and co-ordinated manner are key. Sort of a specialised copywriter.

One last comment - by needing to ask an appropriate price to charge implies no business plan, no business model, no marketing plan, no revenue plan, and so no foundation for formulating pricing costs, which bodes ill for success.

[jonbey]

I would never pay for this service for one simple reason. A couple of years ago I set up an experimental Pligg site. One day I got a Google alert for it, and it was on a list of sites that someone was stating that they could place links on for SEO purposed (the advert was in eBay of all places!). What I am saying, is that many people (not necessarily you) will place links in places that they know they can get easy links. These often have no value, some may even be relatively short lived (my story sharing site was closed shortly after the ad due to all the spam - 28,000 accounts all dropping one link each!).

I think that a lot of people know follow the rule that to do link building right, you are best of doing it yourself, or getting someone you really trust today help out (in office etc). I agree with the idea of adding it as a mini service for clients, as if you boost their own sites a little, they are more likely to recommend you to other people.

[razsports]

Hello everyone,

Thank you all for your feedback. I greatly appreciate it. I will say this, I agree with most of the advice that has been given. Also, I am against spam. I do not sell links, page rank and etc. As I said earlier in my discussion, I do not believe in the 500 web directory submission.

Finally, I had a potential client ask me to submit his link to 100 blogs. I refused and told him I can't do that. First, it would not look nature for link building.Second, I refuse to add his link to blogs that are unrelated, out dated or full of crap. Finally, as I said over and over again, I actually read blog articles and look for spam.