This post is part 5 in a group writing project about driving traffic to your blog, organized by Steven Snell of VandelayDesign.com. Be sure to check out the first four parts:
Part 1: Driving Search Engine Traffic to a New Blog
Part 2: Be Selfish and Help Someone
Part 3: What’s Your Best Source of Web Traffic?
Part 4: Be Community Involved to Get More Traffic
Part 5: You’re looking at it!
Is it really true that you can drive decent traffic to your blog by being the first to comment on others? If so, how much traffic could you expect to receive? In this post, I analyze and share my personal statistics with you.
You may have heard that if you’re the first to comment on a blog’s post, you can expect to receive more clickthroughs to your site than if you commented somewhere down the line. I was not quite sure if this was true until I was given the perfect opportunity to test this hypothesis out.
On September 1st, John Chow posted his monthly income report. I knew that this would be a very popular post as it would be the first income report since he had started using his new theme. Guess who happened to be the first to comment on that post? None others than yours truly.
To date, there are 340 comments on that one post. It also currently appears in the first spot in the “Popular Articles” section of his blog. Did that one humble comment generate any traffic for me? See for yourself:
You’ll notice that Google Analytics showed no traffic at all the day the comment was made. This is because when I made that comment, I was in the middle of a theme redesign of my own and I had not installed the Analytics code, so it was not yet recording any of my traffic. I think we can safely assume that I received at least as many visitors on September 1st as I did the next day, which would bring the total number of unique visitors to my blog from clicking on my link from this comment to just under 200 in less than 2 weeks!
Another interesting statistic is the fact that over 76% of people who clicked through to my site were new visits. In other words, there’s a good chance they had never seen or heard of SiteFever.com before.
Oddly enough, this small comment drove three times as much traffic to my blog in one-third the time than a post John Chow made on August 25 where he specifically talked about SiteFever.com, quoted parts of a post I made and linked to my site twice. So far, that post has sent only 79 unique visitors over a three week period. (Not complaining)
I’m sold. I now know that commenting on other blogs- specifically being the first comment- will in fact drive traffic to your blog. I wonder who will be the first to comment on this post?
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Article posted by: Neon on September 14th, 2007
If that’s the case, I’ll try to be the first comment on this post and see what happens
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Well I was one of the people who found sitefever through that very comment. I wasn’t even aware that JC had written a post about your site!
I liked what I saw on that visit and have subscribed to your RSS feed… that’s the power of commenting first!
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That is very impressive but you did also put out a bait by mentioning your own stats report. I think people really like stats reports - I know I do
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[…] Drive Traffic By Commenting First - SiteFever.com Post a Comment […]
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Who the hell is John Chow anyway?
Funny enough I just discovered that I rank on 3rd position on Google with a John Chow related keyword. There goes my plan to rank better for other stuff.
John that is an interesting fact, one I had heard about before, but to see stats make it all the more plausible. Cool
Monika
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Wow great post and congrats on the tactic. I had never been sure that commenting first would drive significant traffic, but thanks for the proof!
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I am very new to all of this web marketing stuff. My pet sitting website gets about 500 to 600 first time visitors monthly all from free postings on pet sitter directories and natural search engine results, but I would like to find a way to add additional income using a system that works automatically. Any comments or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks!
Tom Sawyer
http://www.wesitpets.com
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I won’t be the first, but I’ll be among the first. I just started my blog about two weeks ago and most of my (extremely minimal) traffic comes from posts I comment on. Looks like I need to read the other 4 articles in this series
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That additional comment about publishing your own stats soon would have added the compulsion for readers to click through to your site from JC. Very well-planned - I should try to test this too.
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First to stumble!
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part 5 filled….i think sucker is first commentator of most of your posts..i would try to become. I’m thinking of part 6..i’ll inform you all about it.
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I would have never figured this out without your post. Great work! Now I’m just mad I didn’t find it until I was 6 hours too late. Thanks to YC for stumbling the post, that’s how I got here!
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Well I’m glad you found this site. Hope you stop by again soon!
Thanks YC for the stumble-
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John,
Nice information. Thanks for being part of the series, I hope it was beneficial for you. I guess you’ll be ready to comment again next time you see a new post on JohnChow.com.
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[…] Drive Traffic by Commenting First from SiteFever. […]
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That is amazing that being first to comment vs. actually being list drove more traffic to your website. I noticed the other day you were linked in a post and that day he released his stats I noticed you were the first also. This is a good comparison and thanks for sharing the stats, who would have known with a simple comment like that.
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This is very true. People always read only first two or three comments.
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[…] Drive Traffic by Commenting First from SiteFever. Post Author : Kevin Authors Website : Blogging Tips […]
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Wow, that’s amazing results you’ve had. Commenting is definitely one of the best methods of generating traffic, especially if you’re a newer blogger. It’s helped me tons. Great post and keep up the good work.
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It is a shame you can not always be first. I was first on an a list blog one time and I got a lot of traffic from it as well. But making really insightful comments can also be a great source of traffic. So be first, and be helpful.
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[…] Fever has posted an interesting article on driving traffic by being the first to comment on a popular blog post. On September 1st, John Chow posted his monthly income report. I knew that […]
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[…] Fever has posted an interesting article on driving traffic by being the first to comment on a popular blog post. On September 1st, John Chow posted his monthly income report. I knew that […]
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John, you must have sat there waiting for John Chow to publish his stats - and be the first to comment or was it just coincidence?
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No, I was not planning on it. I just happened to visit his site at just the right time.
When I saw nobody had commented, I came up with the idea to track the stats so I typed the comment as fast as I could!
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That’s pretty good traffic from one small comment. I’ve never been first to comment on John Chow, although I have had some decent traffic from some of my comments.
I have almost been first to comment on two other top bloggers sites, and the comment was disallowed. Wonder if they charge people for being first to comment or something? I hope John Chow doesn’t start doing that!
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great article this is true iv tried on many of my other blogs now the only problem is finding out when the article will be posted so you can be the first
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Great article even if I didn’t get here first! Definitely helpful to someone like me who is new to blogging. Thanks!
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[…] Drive Traffic by Commenting First | SiteFever.com […]
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“First Post” comes full circle
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Great post! I’ve thought about this on occasion after posting on seomoz (http://www.seomoz.org/blog/guide-to-traffic-from-digg-comments) about the traffic garnered from being the first to post a comment on an article that becomes popular on Digg.
Again, great post!
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[…] Fever has posted an interesting article on driving traffic by being the first to comment on a popular blog post. On September 1st, John Chow posted his monthly income report. I knew that […]
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Well as you can see I was definitely not the first to reply, but have something to say. Although you may have got some traffic, what about how targeted the traffic is. With John’s review of your website in a standalone large post his users will know what the site is about before clicking on your links, but in the comment that you posted, not many people will know what your site is about until they click on your sites link, which really is un-targeted traffic.
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In one aspect, I can see what you’re saying, but in another I’ve got to disagree with you on this specific case.
I would consider any traffic that John Chow receives on his blog targeted to my blog as well because much of the subject matter of both sites are similar. I think that the majority of people who like to visit John Chow’s blog, after reviewing the content of this blog would also be interested in coming back for more.
But again- I do see where you’re coming from on this and in most cases I agree with you 100%.
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[…] Drive Traffic By Commenting First from SiteFever […]
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[…] called Comment Sniper. That name sounded pretty interesting, especially after reading about how being the first comment on a blog post can be better than being on the Top Commentators list in the sidebar. Comment Sniper offers you a […]
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Last time I was the first to comment on John Chow’s blog… I didn’t get a SINGLE visitor
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