Last week, I talked about the value of enabling comments on your blogs. Comments from readers are like gold because they can tell you how well you’re reaching them with your message. Leaving comments on other blogs is likewise valuable, not only as a blog promotion tool, but also as a way to keep up with conversations, and to make yourself known in your target community.

Comments you leave on blogs should be insightful and topical. They’re not just a thinly veiled excuse to leave a link to your blog. Instead, they help you establish your voice, and let you develop insights into other potential readers within your market. Additionally, other blogs, and commentaries within them, can inspire subject matter for your blogs

Bloggers generally welcome comments from other bloggers within their niche. When you develop good relationships with other bloggers, you open the door for blog promotion opportunities. Always add blogs that you find valuable and interesting to your blogroll, and let the proprietors of those blogs know that you’ve done that. Blogroll exchanges are another valuable avenue to blog promotion, and readers are more likely to visit blogs that appear on your blogroll. They’ll also visit your blog if it appears on other blogrolls.

Commenting doesn’t have to be competitive. Blogging and commenting are more like cooperative ventures, and the more cooperation you offer, the more you’ll get. Over time, these seemingly small blog promotion efforts will drive traffic to your blog and your site. If you can establish yourself as an authoritative voice in your community, it may even open the door to wider media exposure.

Commenting on other blogs turns out to be a very valuable technique for developing authority and authenticity, and should be a key part of any blog promotion strategy.

Photo Credit: Rose Ann