In my experience, having comments on your blog is very important for SEO and to prove it, I will give you 2 specific cases, one on this niche site and another on a local marketing site.
First, here is why comments matter for SEO:
- It is a positive social signal for search engines.
- It lets search engines know your content is high quality (triggers people to comment).
- It is indirectly a major ranking factor for Google.
- Sites with more comments generally have more trust and success overall.
In this article, I’ll be giving you:
- 2 case studies of how comments on my site directly improved my Google rankings.
- And I will also show you ways to stimulate your readers to actually comment on your sites to make this happen.
Case 1 (A comment on my blog post gets the article ranked on page 1 of Google):
I had my skepticism when I started doing SEO and comments were never really something I paid attention to.
But that completely changed a few years ago (and this is where we get to the importance of blog comments and SEO) when I received one on this exact site from someone who asked me to review an MLM. The MLM’s name is called Mynt.
Here is the comment:
Now prior to this person leaving that message and even for a few months afterwards, I never wrote a review on that program and before I actually did, I received 2 MORE messages from people also asking me about the same MLM.
How was it that 2 people who did not know each other post about the same topic?
Well I got my answer when I finally decided to look into the MLM they were asking me about.
I typed in “Mynt MLM” into Google and what I discovered changed my mind about comments and SEO forever:
This comment alone got me ranked for the keyword “Mynt” and on the first page of Google!
Now this “kind of” changes things for people who are used to getting ranked using the traditional idea which is pick out a low competition keyword, put it in the title and a few times in the post and that’s how you get ranked because remember, it was just a comment that was on the 1st page and on an article whose title and even content had nothing to do with the person’s question.
How was it that this happened? Well in my opinion:
- My website authority at that point was pretty high with Google.
- That MLM that came out probably had very little competition because it was probably new, thus there were probably very few sites talking about it, except mine, where the only mention was in a message and thus that’s why it ranked.
Now I wish I could show you a screenshot of that message showing up on Google, but as soon as I realized what happened, I immediately wrote up a review on the actual program and overtime, that review would up substituting the one which showed the message so now if you do a search for “mynt mlm”, you will see this result:
Here is proof that comments directly impact SEO (positively):
Note: What this also proves is that the traditional way of ranking I talked about above still had more weight and that’s because a large post full of content will outrank the previous one just about every time because it is more relevant.
But what this scenario (again) also showed me was just how important comments were and in this example, it had a DIRECT positive result on SEO. And by the way, when I did write the review, I went back to the person’s question about it and provided a link to the review. It gave me an interlinking opportunity and I believe it may have also played some kind of role in helping my review rank quickly. Even if it didn’t, interlinking doesn’t hurt SEO.
Case 2: How allowing comments on a page boosted that page’s SEO.
There has been a local niche site I’ve been “working on” for the past few years where I’ve made very little progress in rankings despite the fact that I now have over 50 posts on that website.
Most of them were following all the rules of SEO but I was still not making progress as even my “best” posts were ranked on page 2 or 3 and I would get an occasional organic visit. It was basically a site offering online consultations for a law firm.
Now I do have to say that I really was lazy on this site because I just had other ones which I felt were more important but it was frustrating to work on it and see very few results.
Despite there being low competition for most of the keywords I was targeting, I was still not seeing good results and that was probably due to:
Most of the sites which were ranked on page 1 had so much more authority that despite the OVERALL keyword competition being little, it was still VERY difficult to get to page 1.
At this point, I feel like I’m going to need at leas 20 or 30 more articles before I start to get the better rankings, but because my posting frequency was so far apart, I doubt I’ll get there.
Because I had not seen good results from this site and I was running out of ideas, I began opening it up for questions and after getting a few of them, I had noticed that there was a spike in clicks on this website as indicated by webmaster tools:
Now it can also be a coincidence because I had 10 extra posts added to the site about a month prior and it was possible that they began ranking around the time that those blue spikes happened (they indicate clicks), but this has not been the first time I have noticed that getting comments had positively affected my SEO.
My final thoughts: Comments are crucial so have them on your site!
The first case definitely was enough to show me how important it is to have comments on my site. What I always tell people to do is to just ask for people’s opinions on what you’re writing.
I also have one other case where I was at a private meeting with my bosses from Wealthy Affiliate and I asked them a question pertaining to a website I saw which had much more content than I did, fewer comments from what I saw but didn’t seem to have rankings.
The question I posed was if writing so much will yield good rankings and they told me because the person doesn’t encourage for people to leave their thoughts, that they don’t get enough of them and thus that impacts ranking too.
Now that same person also had a private meeting with these people and I am certain he took their advice on this because shortly after these meetings took place, I did notice that person had many more people leaving messages on one or more of their articles and I was also cross checking this with how their site was doing on Google and sure enough, their rankings went up much more!
Content is always going to trump comments, but when you have both of these things on your site and people are actively leaving their feedback, it can and does improve your SEO.
Update 8/30/16: 7 ways to get people to comment on your blog:
First here is a basic formula I use to get more comments:
- Write engaging content.
- Share a story in your content to connect with people.
- Use phrases throughout your page such as “What do you think?” or “Comment below and tell me what you think!”.
- Ask people if they can relate to your experience. Use phrases like “Have you guys had this happen?”.
- Tackle controversial subjects (stay away from politics) because they get the most emotional crowd that is likely to comment.
- Respond to comments politely (don’t comment negatively) and show people you’re positive and easy to talk to.
- Use humor to disarm people. The more disarmed they are when reading your content, the easier it is for them to comment on it.
One of my highest commented on blog posts on this site is my review of Wealthy Affiliate. You can check it out yourself and scroll through the 800+ comments it has to see how I do it. I also make sure to answer every comment on that page so that people know I am real.
Share your thoughts, questions and experiences on this folks!
I’m serious, don’t be shy to comment on this subject and ask me questions. Let me know if the tips I gave for stimulating comments on your site worked and if you saw SEO benefits from it too!
Hello,
Thank you for writing this article, it really clarifies why comments are so important. This is an area I really need to work harder at. I also find with comments it may give me an idea of what my next blog may be. The examples you gave greatly show how comments are important.
Yes, this is an extremely important point Angie (your last one), I have found countless ideas from comments I’ve gotten and/or comments on other blogs that are bigger than mine but deal with the same niche.
As far as getting your website or blog search engine optimized, you need to engage your audience deeply, and a great way to achieve this is getting blog comments at regular intervals. Search engines truly love fresh and quality content and you don’t have to be a writer for you to get loved by google and other search engines.
Once you can write a new post at least once a week and engage your audience from time to time, getting traffic is guaranteed.
Well it depends on what kind of writer you are. I find people who write too properly get less readers because it’s boring to read, vs someone on the other end who writes who has no grasp of simple concepts such as grammar or spelling. I believe the golden center here is someone who writes in a conversational way.
Thank you for this post, Vitaliy.
The case studies do make a good example on what your post has to say.
But I have a few questions, 2 actually.
Are we supposed to be picky in receiving comments from others?
I am aware that we should delete spam comments, but if the comments are not spam but barely (or just a little touch) touches on the post topic, sould I still accept those comments or not, since having comments do effect positively on our SEO?
Thanks again Vitaliy.
Hi, I have a lot of experience with this, so here is how I’d deal with the situations in all your questions:
1) I am very strict on how I approve comments. Aside from having an anti-spam plugin around to filter out the truly horrible ones, I do allow REAL people to post a comment.
2) This happens to me a lot and there isn’t a single rule I follow, I would have to read the comment and gauge just how much it fits in with the topic. The less that it does, the less likely I’ll publish it and vice versa.
You have to consider yourself as the person who is commenting and see if their question is something you would ask. If it is, there is an argument to approve and reply to it.
As for things like negative comments (they WILL happen), if the person is writing unreasonable stuff you can’t really debate on, delete it. If it’s polite, and you can respond with your own, intelligent arguments, approve it. You can have a potential dialogue come out of this where you go back and forth with the person and this will only add more content to your site (better SEO!).
3) For this question, I think I my response in #2 will suffice.
Vitaliy
It’s pretty incredible how much engagement matters for SEO. Rankings for my posts with more comments are significantly higher than my posts with fewer comments. However, I still struggle with getting engagement on my posts. What strategies or techniques do you use to get people to comment on your posts?
Hi Charlie, the 2 biggest things I find that incentivize people to comment are:
Good content (controversial content is also good) and asking people either at the end of your article or a few more times within the article to weigh in on what you’ve said.
Genuinely an incredibly useful post. I really haven’t been focusing on getting comments but now after reading your article I will definitely try and encourage people to leave some. Previously I had just been posting tons of content and just letting that be the end of it.
Is there a certain amount of comments I should be aiming for on each post?
I don’t have any “quota” of comments Jacob, generally, the posts whose keywords are more popular should get more comments if they rank high. What I mainly focus on is writing the good content and asking the visitor to leave their thoughts.
Hi Vitaliy
Thank you for another great post. When I started to work on my website, I put the main emphasis on content creation. I didn’t work on getting comments as hard as I worked on creating new content.
But then I read few articles about the importance of comments and I started to pay attention to involving people. And I noticed an increase in clicks and sales. But this is on the condition that new content is generated constantly. So in order to succeed it has to be both – fresh content and many comments.
Exactly right Arta, and you’ll find that the comments will come themselves when you encourage them with good content and high rankings (which come from the good content itself).
Thanks for writing this post, it has been very helpful. I do ask for comments and make sure I have a couple on each post but I was not aware that those comments could actually be ranked by Google. I thought it just showed that they were of interest to some people. I will definitely be working harder to get more comments.
It actually works for both sides Margaret, not only does it help add more content to your site and as a result helps with SEO, but it also shows new visitors that this is an active site you have and that you’re reachable and trustworthy, all around it benefits you and your site in every way.
Hi Vitaliy,
I’ve always believed that comments were important, but not for the same reason that you give. I had always believed that feedback and questions from my readers could lead to new ideas for content.
I had never considered that it could actually help increase my Google rankings. You have definitely given me more to think about when it comes to comments and how I respond to them. Thanks for the food for thought!
Actually Robert, you make an awesome point which I was actually going to include in a future article. Thank you for confirming this. I think we both helped each other out here 🙂
Very intriguing and interesting article. I’ve wondered myself if comments were important, and your example of ranking because of a comment is eye-opening. Who knows, maybe something I say here will help your website 🙂 I am curious if Google considers comments when doing page ranking. Perhaps it lends legitimacy to a site if people are actively commenting on it.
Hi Delia, I think you kind of confirmed your own question because as I said, comments do help SEO, thus it also helps page ranking which is part of SEO. And yes, of course there is added legitimacy to a page when readers and Google both see that there’s people frequently commenting on it and you’re replying to them.
That was a very insightful article, and just when I am pondering on the whole comments aspect of my website. I also used to ignore them, in years gone by I found that I was attracting all sorts of spam type comments, but that is because my content was not that interesting, so I like the 3 steps you have provided, I am certainly going to be incorporating these into my content and hope that I see some favourable rankings from it.
I think you were getting spam comments because you didn’t have an anti spam plugin set up Laurie. I recommend WP-Spamshield, check for it on your plugins page, it should be free and will erase all the spam comments which come to your site.
Hey bud, could not agree more with you on the power of comments. I remember a few years back I too did not pay any attention to getting and answering comments.
Since I have given this attention my rankings have also improved 2 fold. It does seem people want to talk if the content is interesting and the call to exists.
Keep the good articles coming!
Shawn
Great to hear from you Shawn! Regarding your experience, I will say years ago, comments didn’t play as much of an important role as they do today.
Thank you for sharing your personal experience. I’ve been on the fence about when and where I allow comments versus when not to. I like your idea about editing out links and will implement that strategy for my own site. That’s been concern number one for me. My other concern is erroneous information that commenters may leave. I’d hate to block people’s entire comment/information because it just plain wrong.
What do you mean by erroneous information Anthony? Do you mean if they say negative things about your review or a position? If so, then it’s a great way to create a debate. Unless the person is being absolutely rude and uses foul language, you should be ready to debate and welcome opposing opinions.
Hey Vitaliy,
I can attest to how things were and how they are now. Used to not care much about comments on my sites either. But, times have changed, and I can say its imperative. Its good to see that you ran some case studies to show people just how important comments are.
I do not allow any outbound backlinks in comments. Specifically, for their username. I do believe they can hurt your site’s rankings. I guess, you could nofollow them, too. What do you think?
I generally do not let people leave their site names on my page unless I know for certain they are from a legitimate source like internet marketing friends I trust, but otherwise, if they leave a link, I’ll edit it out.
This article is exactly what I have been thinking about recently. Like your case 2 example, I have been getting stuck around page 2 and 3 on Google and was starting to wonder if I will ever break through to page 1. I also have no comments on my site and was only interested in adding content and more content. However, I have reading more and more positive information on the value of comments and this article is the latest one. From now on I need to get more of them on my site.
Thanks for the great information 🙂
That is a very insightful case study on the value of comments, on your resultant ranking and by deduction, traffic. So far my understanding has been that comments just increase the trust of your site due to the response to your content. Thank you very much, i will be pushing to get more on my sites as well.
Your article changed my mind regarding comments and it’s usefulness. I always saw it from negative point of view due in that people can be very unpleasant for no reason in the internet and keeping a check on this can be time consuming. Second reason were bots which as you know yourself are a pain.
Well most sites that do not have a spam filter plugin like SpamShield will have bots constantly attacking them but otherwise, the usually the other problem of negativity is always going to be present, but if you write good content, generally a majority of your feedback will be positive as well Michael.
I’m just getting started with SEO and I disabled my comments. I’m so happy you wrote this AND that I came across it early. Im going to immediately turn my comments back on and add questions that will get responses!
Thank you so much! I’m trying out local SEO. Basically learning as I go. Do you have any advice specifically for local SEO as far as getting comments?
I would recommend you add pages to your site that talk about the company’s services and then add articles about problems that the local company can handle. For example, if you can promoting a plumbing business, write articles on different types of plumbing problems and then link to the plumbing service part on your site.
The comments part would come when in each page you would ask if there are specific problems people are having (ask them for example if they have a specific plumbing issue). But on the services page itself, add contact information so they can get in touch with your or the client you’re doing the SEO work for.
After reading this page, I believe everything you say is correct. I suppose I am surprised by the rating received by MYNT but, again your explanation makes sense. Great information in the page.
One question, you mentioned your earlier fear of negative or damaging comments – how real was that fear and do you now believe there is no such thing as negative or damaging comments?
Negative comments can be a good thing if they are productive and lead to a debate Michael. If it’s nothing but cursing or something that you really can’t reply to, then there’s no reason to approve it.
A comment getting ranked by Google isn’t something I have given much thought to, but thanks for bringing this to our attention, it’s good to know that this can happen.
I’m aware of the importance of having keywords within a blog’s comments so as to enable Google to read it as an engaging comment, which boosts ranking.
I think it is also important to have as many quality comments as possible because they add to the total word count of the article or post. I understand that there is quite a bit of evidence to suggest that Google is more in favor of ranking much longer articles than it has done previously.
I think you have also shown here how you can really make great use of your comments, especially if they happen to have within them a low competition keyword. Linking the keyword within the comment to the post you later wrote was a great idea.
Wow, I would have never thought that comments could be so important! I can’t believe it actually got you ranked so high. I try to get at least 10 to 12 comments on each of my posts (including mine). I actually write a new post every few days, so trying to get more can get kind of tough. Do you think that is enough? I though about going back to earlier posts and getting more, but it’s hard to keep up just getting them for the new content I add.
You should not be aiming for a minimal amount, but instead be trying to write the kind of content that will make people want to comment. But even if people don’t do that, you should still move onto writing new articles and continue asking your visitors to leave their thoughts.