We all use plugins, but do you have an overall strategy for the plugins you use?
I use plugins besides the ones listed below, but these are the plugins I use that have a visitor focus.
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The Do-Follow plugin by Denis de Bernardy of Semiologic
The Subscribe To Comments plugin by Mark Jacquith
The CommentLuv plugin by Andy Bailey
The KeywordLuv plugin by Stephen Cronin
The Comment Redirect plugin by Joost de Valk
The Page Links To plugin by Mark Jaquith
First, the do-follow plugin makes all comments able to pass link value.
If you are not familiar with do-follow and no-follow, the default installation of WordPress makes all comments ‘no-follow’, which tells the search engines not to pass page rank value through to the linked site.
No-follow applies to a link to a commenter’s own website if that is included in the ‘website’ field of the comment box.
This dissuades some people from commenting on a blog because they will not receive any value passing through to their own website. I think that is understandable.
WordPress (and other blogging platforms) introduced no-follow to stop spam comments flooding the internet.
However, if comment moderation is enabled, spam gets caught by the blog owner and the spammy comments never get published anyway.
Even More Added Value
CommentLuv and KeywordLuv work together to give the person who comments more exposure to other readers by quoting keywords relevant to their site and their latest blog posts.
If someone comments and would like to be kept in the loop for when anyone else comments or the blog owner replies, then the Subscribe To Comments plugin notifies the commenter by email. To activate this, all the commenter has to do is check off the notify box.
Take Your New Visitors Somewhere Useful
If someone comments and it is his or her first comment then the Comment Redirect plugin redirects to the page of your choice – in my case to the Comment Policy page on this site.
Finally, for page tabs that take the person who clicks straight to the destination website, I use Page LInks To – another of the excellent plugins from Mark Jacquith.
The Overall Strategy
The overall strategy is to encourage people to visit this site and to comment. The Comment Policy rounds it out by presenting new visitors with information on Do Follow, CommentLuv, and KeywordLuv so that they understand the advantages of visiting – quite apart from the compelling content.
While you are here, leave a comment!
{ 11 comments… read them below or add one }
Thanks for the info on the WP plug-in – most helpful
Glad you found it useful. I’m just looking at the way your site is set up. Looks good.
I was looking for some information about the comment redirect plug in and saw this. How does it benefit a blog to be do follow if you give away your power? I am not putting my website here now. I want to understand what happens before I risk it.
Good question. I am careful not to allow links to spam sites. As long as I do this then this site does not become a conduit.
Then it is up to me to produce content that attracts people.
As long as the number of visitors remains healthy then there is value to other sites in commenting here.
I use all of these but the Page Links To plug-in. Will need to take a look at that to see if it fits in on my site.
I also need to start watching the links that come through and removing some of the spammy links. Quality of link matters…
James recently posted..Croquet in Heels
Thanks a very useful post and I might look into installing the comment redirect plugin on my blog.
Simon Bunting recently posted..Hello world!
Yes, it occurs to me that because one can put anything in the redirect page, it is an opportunity to talk in a more personal way with the person who commented.
Hi David,
I have a question that I’m hoping you can clarify for me, you might know a bit more about this than I do.
My blog is Dofollow, and I moderate the comments. I also have a great plugin called ‘Nofollow case-by-case’ which allows me selectively apply rel=”nofollow” to comment links and comment author links. If they aren’t regular commentors contributing in a genuine way, then their links remain as nofollow.
Ever since I made the blog ‘Dofollow’ I have noticed an increase in comments. Majority are spam unfortunately, but I just delete them.
However, my concern (and question) is this, will the increase of outgoing links to external sites hurt my page rank?
I’ve read about SEO techniques and most say that I should keep a balance of incoming and outgoing links. But so far I have more outgoing links, but nothing has happened in regards to my SERP results and pagerank.
Was wondering if you, or anyone else reading this, could shed some light.
Thanks in advance..
Jay recently posted..Anna & Michael – Wedding & Reception in Kilburn
Hi Jay,
I also notice an increase in comments.
I could say that it is because of the wonderful content,
but my stats show that some people arrive via the do-follow lists, so it is pretty clear that do-follow is attracting visitors and people who comment.
I am not attracting links more than I was before I made the site do-follow. On the other hand, I am not taking any active steps to pursue or ask for links.
I tried do-follow with this site as an experiment. I read about the dire consequences of doing so, but I haven’t noticed anything that would make me want to stop what I am doing.
As you say, there is a lot of SEO information out there. I read Tim Grice’s blog at SEO WIzz. It seems to me that he has an independent voice.
Thanks for that David. Just had a browse through the SEO Wizz blog, looks very interesting. And I can see what you mean by an independent voice.
Will have to make some time to go through all his posts and see if my concern is addressed anywhere.
But judging from the general tone of his articles, I probably don’t have anything to worry about.
Will see..
Thanks again for pointing me in the right direction..
Jay recently posted..Anna & Michael – Wedding & Reception in Kilburn
Keep in Touch, Jay – and we’ll see how things go