If you want to improve your website’s traffic, you might wonder whether comments are essential for SEO.
*Updated 8/6/2024
Well, you're in the right place–this blog post will discuss if comments can help your blog's Google ranking. We'll also look into other ways you can help your site gain more visibility, so make sure you read this post to the end before adding comments to your website!
How Does Google Ranking Work?
Google's algorithm for ranking websites is complex and changes over time. Some key factors generally affect how high your website appears on search engine results pages (SERPs).
These factors include the quality and relevance of your content, how well you optimize your site for search engines, and how much traffic you generate.
Another factor often discussed is the role of user engagement–how often people interact with your site after finding it in search results. This can include actions like clicking through to your site, spending time on your site, and bouncing back to the SERP (also known as “pogo-sticking”).
Some people believe that comments are a form of user engagement, so they must improve your Google ranking. But is this the case?
Do Comments Help Google Ranking?
Unfortunately, there's no easy answer regarding the role of comments in SEO. In general, though, comments are unlikely to impact your website's Google ranking directly.
This is because the primary goal of Google is to provide high-quality, relevant results that meet searchers' needs and interests, and comments do not necessarily serve this purpose. They may help build community or foster discussion, but comments don't typically add direct value to the site itself.
This is supported by data from HubSpot, which analyzed over 100,000 blog posts to determine the relationship between comments and page views. It found that a higher number of comments on a blog post does not lead to a higher number of views or backlinks.
However, there are some indirect ways that comments may help with SEO. For example, they can signal to search engines that your website is active and popular, which can be important for improving your rankings.
A lively discussion around your content can also lead to more social media attention and backlinks, which can help improve your SEO.
So while comments may not directly impact your website's Google ranking, they can benefit other aspects of your SEO strategy. If you think moderating comments take too much of your time and energy, check out our post on disabling WordPress comments.
Can You Use Comments to Improve Your Website’s Ranking?
Although enabling comments on your blog might not help its ranking, commenting on other websites can because search engines consider many factors when determining which websites to rank for specific keywords.
One crucial factor is the quantity and quality of backlinks pointing to your site.
Making valuable contributions to other blogs and forums can help you generate more links–remember to leave a link to a relevant blog post on your website in your comments.
Keep in mind that the links generated via commenting on other websites will be “nofollow” links, which are not as valuable for SEO as “dofollow” links. However, a healthy backlink portfolio contains both nofollow and dofollow links.
By regularly contributing your expertise to online conversations and communities, you can help boost your site's visibility over time. You can also use social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter, as well as LinkedIn groups, to generate traffic and backlinks.
Are There Any Other Ways to Improve a Website’s Ranking?
You can do several things to improve your website's Google ranking, and it's a good idea to invest time and energy in them. These include:
- Optimizing your website for search engines involves adding relevant keywords to your website content, improving your site's load time, and making sure your site is mobile-friendly.
- Generating high-quality content means creating informative, well-written, and relevant content for your target audience.
- Building high-quality backlinks involves getting other websites to link to your site.
- Investing in paid advertising–while organic traffic is significant, it's also helpful to invest in paid ads on platforms like Google Ads and social media networks.
Wrapping Up
Comments are unlikely to improve your website's Google ranking, but if you're looking for other ways to improve your SEO strategy, consider adding backlinks from high-quality websites and using social media platforms to generate more attention for your content.
