Blogging for beginners is a DoFollow comment blog now

This post really has little to do with learning about blogging and more to do with helping others build quality backlinks for their own blogs.  Up until now, I have received basically no comments for this blog.  Even though there are people stopping by and reading what I have to say, not so much commenting about that is going on.  So, I am throwing you all a bone.  I know that I do not carry a PR yet, because of the blog age, but I will get it there, I will get it to at least a PR1 very soon, and with that I would like to share with you some of my link Juice.

Please feel free to comment here, I will moderate though, and if you spam me, I will delete your comments.  But for all those that can follow my rules on proper blog commenting, you will get a little love. 

I am doing this because I know it is hard for beginner bloggers to find links and to find places that offer Dofollow links are even more difficult to come by. 

And for those of you who do not know the difference between NoFollow and Dofollow.  Here is the basics.

A NoFollow link is a link that most spiders WILL follow, but you will not receive any sort of credit or value from that link, so, if you place a link on a website that has a high PR, it does nothing more for you than placing a link on a low PR site, if they are both Nofollow.  It is just a link.  Google cares very little about that, Yahoo seems to place a little more value in link quantity, but still give you no real benefit from it.

A Dofollow link carries the value of the link it comes from.  Meaning a Dofollow link from a High PR site is going to be viewed as a more valuable link than a Dofollow link from a low PR site.  But whether or not thesite is a high or low PR, the DoFollow link will always carry more value.

So, even though I said I was not giving a blogging lesson today, I guess in some ways I did.

Thank you for reading blogging for beginners

Proper Blog Commenting

Today I have received my first comment on this blog, and although I would not usually let this type of comment through my moderation, I figured it would give me the perfect opportunity to illustrate to you the difference between proper blog commenting and comment spam.  

See, this person has broken all the rules in my book as to how you should use blog comments to help your website, because truly that is what we as bloggers are going for.  The problem with that mentality is many people pay very little attention to the comment in which they are actually commenting on.  This person was just looking for a juicy backlink, and in the process, really made a few big mistakes.  He just happened to luck out a little today when I decided to let it actually pass. 

The Comment was posted on my weekly recap, and as you can see.  He totally went straight for the jugular and stated that he heard this was a good place to get a backlink.  What? Really?  It that what he was really told?  Because backlinks that you will get from commenting on this blog offer very little value at this moment, if it is not on topic!  My comments are set to Nofollow, meaning he gains no PR juice from me, and with very little traffic this blog is seeing so far, he is NOT going to receive any traffic to his site through the link.  And it is not just because I have no traffic, it is also because the site has NOTHING to do with the topic we are talking about here.  And he took no time to try to spin his comment to make it look like he was relating it to our topic.

All big NO-NO’s.  Most bloggers would never do this.  Not unless they were real beginners who have not taken the time to really learn proper blog commenting.

Let me break this all down for you as best as I can. 

Starting from the beginning, why is it important to comment on others blogs?
Because it creates awareness, it shows the other readers of that blog that you exist, in many ways it is a first impression.  For both the readers of the blog AND the author of the blog.  What you write within the comment should be relevant and add perspective to the article.  Remember people, first impressions.

See a lot of people only comment to create a backlink.  But there is a big flaw in this mentality.  If all you are trying to do is impress the search engines with all your backlinks, then you are barking up the wrong tree.  Most of the comment sections within most blogs out there are NOFollow.  You may not know what this means so I will give you a brief idea of what NoFollow and Dofollw mean.

NoFollow links are backlinks to your site that are labeled in a way that tells the search engines not to follow them.  Some search engines do not follow this rule and will follow the link, BUT, this link carries no real value to the search engine.  Even if you comment on a blog with a great page ranking, none of that juice is passed onto you for your page ranking, so, Nofollow has little value, other than to find new readers from other blogs.  It is a way to generate traffic, and it is something to be practiced regularly.

DoFollow links are backlinks that carry value to the search engines.  If you establish dofollow links on high page ranking sites, your page ranking will be effected, you get a little bit of their “Link Juice”, These links are key to raising your own page rank, but are not as easy to come by as the nofollow links.

And it is all for good reason.  Originally all links were followed.  Back in the day every link carried value to it, but what happened is spam, lots and lots of spam.  So, to combat that, the nofollow/dofollow tags were added to blog comment sections, because these were the biggest culprits to the spam that the search engines were finding.  But in turn.  Many websites have picked up the nofollow tags for links.

Rambling, I know.

Back to my point anyway.
So, it is important to maintain a high standard when you are commenting on others blogs, because you want to leave a good impression.  It is also important to make sure you are commenting on blogs that are relevant to you own personal blog.  People seek out topics to learn something about that topic and are not usually interested in running off to a site that seems to have nothing to do with what they are learning at that very moment.

Like I have said before, Blogging is a community.  Readers and writers alike read blogs and tend to gravitate towards that style of website when seeking out information.  Blogging has a very unique ability to stay current, due to the fact that the best blogs are blogs that are constantly being updated with new materials.  It is what makes us special.  Blogs always offer the possibility of offering new perspective.

So, can you see now how that persons comment was almost useless.  Luckily they didn’t waste much time on it.  And luckily they happened to comment on a blog that talks about topics such as blog commenting.  They really lucked out, but it will not happen again.

This is not to say I do not welcome comments, far from that in fact.  I would like to see my readers comment and add a link back.  Just remember that I am no follow and that if you want to generate any real interest with that comment, it better be worth our time.

Now, being that I am a blog about blogging for beginners, you may ask, how can I comment on this blog?  My blog is about…________ (fill in the blank).

It’s not so difficult.  In that case you are going to create a comment that expresses the fact that you think I am wonderful and I have taught you so much and have helped you improve your own blog, _________(fill in the blank), and would appreciate if I took a look.  Maybe ask for a pointer or tip.  Something along those lines.

Mask your primary goal with complements!!  I feed off them.

I hope this helps illustrate the importance of "proper blog commenting".  I am sorry I had to make an example of this person just trying to establish a backlink, but, if they had taken the time to learn a thing or two, they would never have commented.

What are backlinks? Blogging for Beginners basic understanding of Backlinks

What are backlinks?
Backlinks are links to your website that are located on other websites around the web.  They can be generated by you or by others who may wish to link to your content.  They provide search engines and individuals an easy way to locate your blog on the internet.

Why are backlinks important?
Backlinks are important because, search engines use backlinks.  When a search engine is crawling the Internet and stumble upon your backlink, it is an open invitation for that search engine spider to crawl your site.  Opening up the possibility for your site to be indexed.

But that is not the only reason backlinks are important.  They serve several purposes in increasing your blogs traffic.  Not only does that backlink provide awareness for search engines, but it also offers awareness for any individual who happens upon it.  Giving them the opportunity to “Check it out”.  This is an instant traffic generator.  It is a way to increase focused traffic to your blog.

On top of that, Search engines use quantity and quality of backlinks to factor into the SERP and page rank.  The actual value of backlinks to a search engine is well beyond my ability to calculate, but they use a very unique algorithm in order to determine page relevancy. 

So, with that, we can determine that backlinks are important, but how do we generate backlinks?
This is the time consuming part.  There are many forms of backlinks. So, let me cover a couple of your options in creating backlinks.

1.)Blog commenting – I just talked about this in my last post, about the importance of blog commenting, this is an easy and proven method in generating backlinks on sites that are relevant to your own. 

As a side note, it is important to try to generate backlinks on sites and in content that are within your own niche, id does play a factor, search engines will give unrelated backlinks less weight in calculating Page rank.

2.)Within your own blog – As I mentioned before, you will first off, want to make sure your title includes a link to your home page, this creates a backlink, even if it is devalued due to the fact that it comes from within the URL, it still is a backlink.  Also, include backlinks based on your keywords that you will include within your articles.  Some may call these links internal links or inter-linking, they too add to your backlink count, along with offering your readers a way to find other articles within your blog.

3.)Content – There are several content sites on the web that you can write for besides your blog.  I recommend it highly.  Become a member with sites like Hubpages, Bukisa, Ezine and Goarticles.  There are of course many more options to choose from here, these are just a few.  And with sites like Hubpages and Bukisa, you have the added benefit of earning money online, along the way.

4.)Account Profiles – Under most account profiles you will set up on line, they offer you a space to add your personal website URL.  Never forget to add it!  It is an easy backlink.  I am not sure how much real value this backlink adds, but every little bid does count!

5.)Social Bookmarking and Web 2.0 – Social bookmarking and social networking sites offer an excellent place to include your backlinks.  Although some social bookmarks frown upon self-promotion and view it as a form of spam, the occasional bookmarker will not hurt.  This along with any social networks you may be involved in, offer the chance to generate a lot of traffic, at little time cost to you.

6.)Naturally occurring – These are the best possible backlinks you can get.  Problem is, they are not something you have much control over.  In order to get naturally occurring backlinks, you will need other individuals to link to your site, through their own content or websites.  Again, this is going to be controlled by the quality of your content.

So, there you have it the blogging for beginner’s guide to understanding what are backlinks.  I hope this helps you in your blogging quest!

The importance of Blog Commenting

In many ways, blogging is a community.  Bloggers read other Bloggers, we comment on each others works and we build business style relationships in order to assist each other and our blogging endeavors.  And the key to becoming involved with the other blogs that are within your Niche is through blog commenting.  And here I will give you a beginner lesson in blog commenting.  And blog commenting etiquette.

Blog Commenting creates awareness, it does so because most Bloggers enjoy receiving comments about their blogs or posts.  We all appreciate being read, it is why we blog.  And to know that we have wrote something that inspires a response is a stroke to our egos.  Not that all Bloggers walk around with big heads because we are receiving positive affirmation through our comment sections.  But personally, I know that I take the time to read every single one of my comments.  And I also take the time to reply to those comments.

And what does that matter really?

Well, within your comment, you are going to add identity to it, a way for the person reading the comment to link to you, or your blog.  Anyone who comments on any of my blogs gets me as a visitor.  I will go check out their blog and see what they are doing.  And, in turn I will comment.  Sometimes I will message them also, if I have a means to do so.  To create a bond with them, that can benefit both parties. 

It is important to give quality comments if you have any chance to catch the bloggers attention.  Poor comments will be viewed as spam and will sometimes be discarded by the blogger.  You never want to be viewed as a spammer.  This will only hurt your standings within your blogging community.  There are many great bloggers out there.  And they succeed for one reason or another. And maybe they have some insites or maybe they may have an interest in guest authoring a post on your blog, and maybe you have the same in return.  All this creates a possibility for others to find you.  If you have links to your blog on another person’s blog, you now have the chance to receive some of their traffic.  Traffic that is focused on the topic, and is looking for more information.

As a side note, I want anyone who may read this to know, that if you contact me, I will be receptive.  If you would like to guest blog, or would like me to guest blog on your blog.  I am always open to the possibility.  I can find a way to make it work
And this is only part of the benefits in blog commenting.  Something we have not really talked about yet is backlinks, we are getting to that, but realize that quite often, when you comment on someone elses blog that falls within the same niche as your, you are creating a backlink.  Search engines love backlinks as a way to determine popularity and relevancy.  These are key factors in page ranking and s.e.r.p (Search engine results page).  The more quality backlinks your blog has, the better your standings will become with search engines.  And in turn, will increase your overall traffic.

So, remember to spend some time every day blog commenting.  Reading other peoples blogs will only help in your success, and in turn, you giving your fellow bloggers some attention will help them. 

Important factors to consider when Blog commenting

-Make sure you are not commenting anonymously, this will not create backlinks.
-Make your comments insightful and noticeable.
-A little self promotion is ok, just don’t go overboard with it.
-Comment on at least one blog per day.
-Make sure your comments are turned on, on your own blog, to allow reciprocal commenting.


And there you have it, a basic blogging for beginners, understanding of why you should take the time for blog commenting.  I hope this helps you in a successful blog.