One thing I enjoy doing when I browse the web is commenting on blog posts. This is also a great way to build some buzz about your own site. Unfortunately, entering my name, url, and email address on every blog post is a huge waist of time.
I have found a Firefox extension called Autofill Forms. This extension has more features than I know what to do with! It is a great way to simplify things so you can save time when you comment on blogs.
When you install this firefox extension, a default profile will be created for you. Typically, The fields used on most blogs are labeled Name, Email, and URL. Press Alt-J which is the Autofill Forms keyboard shortcut, it automatically fills in those fields with these configured values.
To add field rules to your profile, check out the How To Add A Specific Field Rule Form Fieldwiki page for detailed instructions. Once this plugin is configured, blog commenting is as simple as pressing Alt-J on the keyboard and then typing out my comment. The only issue I have with this tool is well really an issue I have have with blogspot, they want your password for some other site in order to post, it also does not work with Disqus or other third party commenting systems. This extension ends up saving a ton of time.
As an SEO for local business I have found blogging to be a very useful tool. Now I understand that a lot of people do not believe that “Do Follow” blogs pass much link juice and are not worth your time. I have to disagree. While it should not be the only tool in your link building tool box it can be a very useful one.
In local SEO we are not usually trying to get thousands of links from huge authority sites, while this would be nice, our clients just don’t have the budget for it.
What blogs do offer to your client is an easy way to get some link juice with minimal effort. These links are usually on pages that relate to the keyword you are going after and some even allow you to chose your anchor text. Now when your biggest competitors have under 200 links, those blog comments start looking really nice.
The biggest problem I ran into in the past was finding blogs that do not use the rel=nofollow parameter in their comments section. Luckily I have found some amazing sources that help me get the link love from some good Do Follow blogs.
Comment Hunt is one of the best sources I have found allowing you to search for any keyword and it will return blogs that are (or were) Do-Follow. Because Comment Hunt searches through Google you should double check to make sure the blogs are still Do Follow.
Followlist.com advocates the Do Follow Blog Idea.
“How do you encourage people to comment on your blog posts? You give them something in return. You give them an outgoing link to their website, when they make a quality comment on your blog”
They also have a nice list of no follow blogs.
Here is a list of other sites I have found with useful blog lists.
The success you will have with a blog comment link building strategy depends on the quality of the blogs and the competition for your keywords. While I doubt anything I have said us revolutionary I think its an important step to any local SEO campaign.
December 8, 2009 3:06 pm | 
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