A post on one of my health blogs has managed to get on page 1 of Google! Wow! Well, it is to me anyway 🙂
So I've started wondering, is the number of comments the cause or the effect, do you think? I really am interested in hearing readers' opinions, because I'm BAD at SEO and keyword research.
In fact, isn't the present trend supposed to be for concentrating on adding content / information, rather than over-optimising your posts? In which case, this particular post shows that method has worked!
So to clarify: a rather controversial post of mine attracted quite a few comments (23 at the time of writing), over a fairly long period of time.
Do you think it got on page 1 of Google because it attracted comments, or did it attract comments because it was on page 1?
The keyword phrase scores “Low” competition, and there aren't many searches – 480 per month. It was one I wrote because I genuinely found it interesting – and it's not monetised in any way (other than the general monetisation on the blog).
I suppose it couldn't have been the Google position that got it the comments when it was “new”, and it's a pretty old post. So perhaps the comments dripping in over time have helped it move up, which is encouraging.
The other thing about the comments on this particular post is that they have been fairly long and very relevant posts. Not the usual “Great post, good-bye,come and see my blog” stuff. People genuinely taking the time to share their experiences – because this is a health complaint that affects many people who probably don't even think about SEO etc. They just want information to something that's puzzling them.
Sorry, I don't have the answer to this – and if I did have, no doubt tomorrow there'd be another update beginning with “P” to change it all!
But it has encouraged me to see my post on page 1 of Google; and I'm hoping it is a good incentive and argument for those daily few minutes spent commenting on blogs we find interesting.
