How One Hot Comment Brought Some Cool Customers

She said, “Her comment impressed me so much and was so good. It was exactly what I needed at that point in time.” When asked which blog this was or the topic of the comment, she could not remember. “The comment stood up so much that in my mind it took precedence over the blog itself”, she confessed.

Finally, she let it be known it was a comment I had left on someone's blog. She followed the link to my website and since then, she's been a satisfied customer of mine many times over.

Even before the blogging and user generated content craze, I've always extolled the virtues of strategic and intellectual knowledge exchange – in other words, responsible commenting. If you know how good participation in a forum can work for you, you'll get this immediately because the principles are the same.

There are some comments that have been left over 2 years ago and still bring me traffic every month. Admittedly, there may not be an avalanche of people beating down my door, but on the other hand, it would cost me several customers I would not have had otherwise. And the best part, I didn't even work that hard for it, but it's working hard for me every day, as long as the site owner leaves it up there.

Of course the above example is a bonus. You are not always going to hit the home run on every comment, you may not always affect everyone the same way. But the more of them you have out there, the more likely you will reach the right people.

Having said all that, this doesn't give you a license to purchase an automated software to spam every comment form out there. It's a waste of your efforts because few of those automated junk comments you send out will make it through the site's comment spam filters or the admin's scrutiny.

Second reason, comment spammers do so with the intent of gaining link backs. Though search engine marketing is important, they're be coming from the wrong angle. If you're in business for the long term – which I hope you are; Your focus should be more on the leads. The potential customers. The people who will read your comments. Remember, it's people who have the money to spend with you.

If you do that, the link back will come naturally. You also get the opportunity to make an impression on people who read your comments.

That itself is worth so much more and it's unfortunate that it's highly underestimated. I can personally testify how much. Remember the customer at the beginning? She went on to be an evangelical affiliate and months later, produced a bunch of sales for me. Sales, that would not have happened, if I didn't leave that fateful comment on somebody's site one day.