Jun 05 2008
How Much Does Commenting Help a Blog?
Since I started travelling in January I’ve pretty much stopped reading most of my favourite blogs completely. It’s sort of strange because I really do like reading blogs but it just seems like my time is completely taken up with working on my own sites. That, and Facebook. Way too much Facebook.
So I thought I would try to motivate myself to participate more in the blogging community by turning June into a bit of a test to see how much of an effect commenting on other blogs really has on this blog’s stats. My RSS feed had 129 subscribers on June 1st and this is what I’m most interested in increasing. I just submitted to the 45n5 Top 100 list a couple of weeks ago and am currently ranked at 234. This list uses Technorati and Alexa stats to rank blogs so I figure tracking my ranking on this list is more meaningful than keeping track of those stats individually. Last month I had 55 comments and I’m curious to see not only if that will rise, but also if I’ll see comments from new people. In May this site had a daily average of 42 unique visitors and 85 page views.
I have a list of about 30 blogs that I genuinely like reading and am going to attempt to interact with them a lot more. I’ve got some make money online ones, some self improvement/motivational type blogs and a handful of travelogs on there so my main interests are covered. Some of the blogs are new discoveries, some are old favourites, some are really popular, others are smaller, but all of them are blogs that I consider to be interesting and well written.
Lets see how far ahead participating in the blogging community really pushes a blog in a month with some cold, hard figures!
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I've been travelling since January 2008 living off earnings from the web. Follow me as I bum around Asia and beyond, getting up to mischief and working online as I go. 
I found you recently via a comment you left on Affiliate Stuff so there must be some worth in commenting. I’ll be interested to see what results you get.
Hey that’s great, welcome!
That’s actually a blog I’d never heard of before but really like it. Check it out - http://www.affiliatestuff.co.uk.
I think you do ok from it, but it won’t be anything startling. If you really want to get more visitors I would recommend doing a couple of guest posts on blogs that have higher traffic than your own.
When I read this blog I only click on signatures if there’s nothing new or if it’s an particularly interesting comment. But if it’s a blog I’ve never seen before and am just surfing around I frequently do.
But I agree with Mike, if I´d collect all the comments I’ve made I’m sure it would amount to a book or two, if I count forum comments also I’m sure it’s some thousand words/month.
But it is a great place to find ideas for new articles and it looks super cool if you can comment something like: “interesting what the #2 commenter said, I once/just wrote an article about a similar subject …”
Been reading here for awhile, thought I’d go ahead and comment…
I really appreciate that you’ve given really detailed accounts of your website income. It serves as an inspiration & has much greater credibility than many people who say “I’m making X$/month” but they don’t back it up with anything at all…granted, I understand, if you’re in a market that is performing well, you don’t want to give up the goose that lays the golden egg….
I’m just getting started and my main site was a very mis-guided attempt at making money on the Internet, but I’m emotionally invested in it so I’m working on using it as a central hub for any other sites that I eventually do. My second site just got its first google hit! For the keywords I am targeting even! And after being live for less than two weeks!!!
o.k….enough. I have a question. On the sites that are performing well with adsense - how much daily traffic do you see? Is it search engine traffic or other?
Cheers!
I don’t expect supe rhuge things but I think I’ll see a jump up in all of the areas I’ve listed. I guess I’m mainly curious how much of a difference it makes, even if just a bit. I’m certain that the time taken to make the comments is probably time I can better spend doing other things but I really do want to get back into reading blogs and making it into a bit of a test is a good way to motivate the likes of me. So far I’ve found some really great blogs, too. Bonus!
Hey Will, welcome aboard. I tried to check out your site but I think the Great Firewall of China might not like it. Will have another try later on. I really love reading about other people’s income in detail so I would guess that other people are interested in the same thing. Again, posting earnings sort of keeps me motivated as well.
To give you an idea of my Adsense income, 40,000+ page views across four main sites and a couple of scragglers earned me $400+ in May. Those are the stats from my Adsense page and it seems like a lot. My London site, for example, gets about 200 uniques a day with five page views per visit… or around that. So not huge crazy numbers but it’s almost all SE traffic which, I think, converts well to Adsense clicks.
I appreciated comments on my site so I always make an effort to comment on the sites I read…like this one…
Choayang is the district I want to move too…that or Haidain.
and there is no such thing as too much facebook!
I came here from a comment on pissbiscuit and it shows the power of comments. I’ve opened my eyes to just how much traffic informative and constructive comments can bring.
Sounds like you are having a great journey and all thanks to adsense. I will bookmark this site so I can have a look at your sites later. Must get back to the 9 to 5.
@ Kristy: WOW… I love your writing! This post is right up my alley too. Love the realism, love the organic content you’ve got. JUST KEEP DOING IT. The blogging community really needs more organic bloggers.
The biggest piece of advice I can offer you is this… comment, comment, and comment! If you start commenting on other blogs as well as you commented on mine, you’re going to explode. They are the fastest way to building a great readership.
I too came here from your post on “PB” and honestly I’m glad I did. So are my readers. We’re a family of sorts, and when someone new to the community shows up, we all come a running to check things out.
Speaking of comments… Did you enter for my little publicity stunt? LOL! I won’t write about it so that I don’t spam you, but you may want check into it. Hey, you might even get a premium theme out of the deal…LOL!
I’m going to go subscribe now, I hope you come back and visit often. Oh, and I love “Nerdy Nomad” awesome name!
What an embarrassment! Check your name! Please edit that
So so so sorry! What a doofus I am!
Piss Biscuit….hahaha….there’s no way I’m not visiting that site! though I have my doubts as to people googling “Piss Biscuit”
Matt I like commenting too and feeling a part of the whole blogging community and all that good stuff but I never seem to take the time to do it. Lets see if I will change my ways after this month long comment-fest.
Affiliate Post guy, thanks for visiting! Same, I will check your site out a bit later on too. Commenting and reading through other people’s comments on other sites is a great way to find out about new blogs. I can tend to stick in the same circles so it’s nice to have new people finding me so I can branch out a wee bit more.
PB I’m actually not big into the organic traffic thing.. organic traffic doesn’t make me money, SE traffic does. BUT… this blog isn’t about making moolah, it’s about connecting with people and all that fun stuff so bring it on. I was actually going to write a post about your blog, but not about your contest. Stay tuned. Oh and it’s ok about getting my name wrong, I get that all the time. I’ve stopped correcting people. Damn my parents for giving me a Scottish name! Growing up in Canada was LOTS of fun. I take whatever’s close.
@ Kirsty: So I see you made it over to AP. I have added yours to my list of dailys now too and thanks for the comments. I thought youhad to be british…using the word ‘arse’ and all
@ PB: DOOFUS!!! LMAO
AP guy, I’m not British, I’m Canadian but with a huge UK and Aussie influence that has buggered up my vocab. I’m told I have a bit of a mongrel accent too after living abroad for 8 years. Neato.
Commenting does a tremendous enhancement for the social aspect of your blogging career and helps you get ahead and make friends in the blogosphere. Depending on what your goals are, commenting does help a lot. I stumbled across your blog while reading up on stuff, and I have enjoyed everything I read here. Keep up the good work!
Ahhhh facebook. Now that’s a platform! I’ll have to check you out and ‘add’ you!
I have a suggestion - try commenting on blogs that are on the Digg front page. I’ve found that spikes traffic and usually gets a couple of good subscribers (more than just on random blogs I like) if you can be one of the first 3 or so comments on a homepage hit. Good luck this month, I’ll look forward to seeing what kind of impact you get!
So far I can definitly say for sure that I’ve had a lot more comments on the blog this month than last! As for the other bits, we’ll see.
Thanks for the tip Suz. Digg and Stumbleupon and the gang are things I’ve never really used much. Might mosey on over there sometime soon.
[…] A month ago I decided to run a little test and see what kind of an impact commenting on other blogs would have on Nerdy Nomad. I was even keeping track of how many comments I had left and on which blogs but I seem to have lost that file somewhere into the abyss that is my disorganised hard drive. […]
[…] I had loads of free time in June and did a wee experiment to see if commenting on other people’s blogs more than usual would have any sort of imapact on the number of visitors and RSS subscribers for Nerdy Nomad. I figured it was a pretty sure bet that commenting more would lead to higher traffic, more subscribers and more comments on my own blog which turned out to be the case. […]