So, I sat on a panel at RETech where we were asked, “How do you build traffic to your real estate website or blog?”  Great question, right?  As I strategically sat in the last seat on the panel, I got to listen as 4 of my peers told an audience of tech savvy Realtors that you build traffic by commenting on other blogs, putting blogrolls on your site and joining social networks. Hmmm… call me crazy, but doesn’t that just garner you a whole lot of other Realtors coming to your site?  Is that really all that useful to you?  Does most of your business come from other Realtor referrals?  Do you relish splitting a commission with another Realtor for a referral fee when you do most of the work?  I know the Realtors we work with very rarely take in referrals so that kind of traffic would be totally useless to them.  Needless to say, my answer to the panel question, as usual, bucked the system:   ”I must be simple, but I don’t much care if your real estate sites gets 500 visitors that are other Realtors, I care that you get 500 consumer visitors.  So, here’s my suggestion, build high quality backlinks from directories, RSS feed submissions and linkbait.  Write high quality real estate focused, hyper-local, keyword rich content. Don’t waste your valuable time commenting on blogs that likely have the no-follow tag turned on, don’t join every social network under the sun (be strategic in your choices).  Be smart- get indexed by Google for short tail keywords and watch the consumer traffic flow in.”  Commenting simply isn’t going to build you business, it may garner you some Realtor traffic, but that isn’t the transactional traffic you are after! Does that make sense to you?

Why is commenting for backlinks or traffic a waste of time?

• You generally get bad anchor text if you are not mindful of putting in your keywords instead of your name
• Most comments are no-follow so you don’t get the backlink
• Most sites you comment on have low PRs so even if you do get a backlink, it is worthless
• At the end of the day, it is still just a blog to blog link which doesn’t carry as much weight as a site, directory or RSS site.

Read also: Ultimate guide to building backlinks

What is the no-follow tag?

Applying the no-follow tag to links tells Google not to follow the link which means a link from a blog with the no-follow tag turned on will not be counted as a backlink to your site.   6% of all URLs across the web contain the rel=nofollow attribute.  Nofollow attributes are used on a significant percentage of the web’s most trusted and authoritative domains. (*source: SEOmoz) 

How can you tell if the no-follow tag is turned on in a blog?

Use SEO for Firefox.  When you visit a site with the no-follow tags turned on you will see links highlighted in red.

Is all commenting a waste of time?

No, I often comment on other blogs to build relationships with the blog owner.  For example, when I first entered the real estate world, I commented on a lot of real estate technology and marketing blogs.  Why?  Because it made a lot of sense for me, as a vendor, to develop relationships with those people.  Now, that I am predominately in the entertainment and business blogging sphere, I comment on more music executive, Fortune 500 business, general blogging, copywriting and SEO blogs.  Do I comment for backlinks?  No.  Did I ever?  No.  Do I get some from time to time.  Yes.  Do the people I connect with out there mean business to me?  Yes.  See, it makes sense.

So, let’s flip the coin.  Where should Realtors be commenting if anywhere? 

Comment where you know you can get a backlink. 

Resource: Do Follow Blog List

• Comment on local blogs so you can build relationships locally. 
• Comment on national real estate and mortgage sites where you can build higher level relationships. 

Your time is valuable.  So, use it wisely.  Your business is not grown by building relationships with Realtors in Alaska if your business is in West Palm Beach.

Also, if you want to build relationships effectively, use a professional networking site like LinkedIn. 

Why do all the big blogs have their comments turned off?

Anyone ever asked why the Google, Pro Blogger and Seth Godin blogs turn their comments off?

1.       Because it can be a royal pain in the butt to moderate hundreds of comments daily

2.       Because it can dilute the content value and keyword density of a post

3.       Because you can get Yahoos in there offering advice that is against the advice of the author or trying to pick a fight

4.       Because the content itself is engaging enough that they don’t have to build community and relationships through commenting

5.       Because services where you can move the comments to a separate site like Sphinn or Digg are more appropriate for large scale consumer blogs with lots of engagement

Why do I like my comments on?

1.       Because I am a niche (real estate professional) blog focused on a small community of early technology adopters that have questions I can typically answer

2.       Because when you add a comment to a post, you change the content of the page for me which makes Google interested and lets me be lazy (I don’t have to update older posts myself.)

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