To me, blog commenting is a unique way to connect with people in the industry. Why? Because leaving a comment is a great conversation starter. Further on, you can follow the person you're interested in on Twitter/Facebook/G+, exchange emails and what not.

Blog commenting is also an effective link building technique. While most blog links are nofollow, they can be great direct traffic channels at the same time. If you leave interesting comments, people will be eager to learn more about you and may click on the link in your name/signature.

Unspoken blog commenting rules

Just like any human activity, blog commenting has its rules and conventions. It's better to get familiar with those before you start commenting, to avoid learning the hard way and to avoid gaining bad reputation.

Here is a blog post we did on commenting etiquette some time ago. To sum it up, when you comment on somebody's post, make it real-life conversation. You wouldn't want a stranger to approach you and say something meaningless or begin selling you merchandise, would you? So, blog commenting is very much like starting a conversation in real life. Just keep that in mind. Read more »

Article submission is dead - long live article submission

Some say that article submission is dead. Google's Panda has killed it. Hmm. That depends on what you mean by article submission. Submitting spun articles to hundreds of article directories may be as well half way to its grave. But not white-hat guest article posting!

Today, with Google's Panda at large and content farms suffering PR and traffic loss, it appears to be wiser to focus more on submitting 1-2 quality articles to reputable sources, rather than spamming the already over-spammed Web with more spam. Read more »