I have delayed this post until the last minute, because I had a dilemma over commenting on blogs. I had set myself a target of 100 comments per week, which I managed for two weeks, but struggled to find time for anything else.

There’s no point setting resolutions that I don’t think I can achieve. I’m not sure I can maintain commenting on 100 blogs per week, so I was going to have 50 as my target which would be easy. But perhaps TOO easy,  so I am setting 75 as my target. Hard enough, but achievable.

When I first heard  ‘Piper at the Gates of Dawn’ by Pink Floyd, I was excited, I knew from listening to this that music didn’t need to have any boundaries, it could go anywhere, it could progress. Progressive music was born and many bands experimented with it.

John Lennon tried psychedelia with ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’ and avant garde electronic music with ‘Revolution No.9′  but the Beatles were constrained by the 3 minute pop song format. For music to progress it needed room to expand. The concept album gave a broad canvas, and as usual the Beatles were ahead of the game, with ‘Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band’.

I started my blog traffic drive on 27th November, and was tempted to delay this monthly report by a few days, just to get under the 200,000 Alexa figure. But here I am, my traffic has improved according to the Alexa ratings from 307,525 one month ago to 200,267 now.

I have done this by concentrating on just two things. I post 4 times a week (Monday, Wednesday, Friday and the weekend), and I comment on 100 blogs every week.

I have only been commenting 100 times for a couple of weeks, so I’m expecting that a full months worth in January will produce more traffic.

It’s not easy. In fact it’s hard work,  but if you want traffic to your blog, commenting is one of the best and most reliable methods. My Alexa rating has improved from 307,525 one month ago to 201,458 now, and I have only increased my rate of commenting for the past two weeks. 

100  comments a week is a massive commitment and I wouldn’t suggest trying this unless you can work full time. I’m a full time blogger and even I have struggled to make 100 comments. Here is my first two weeks progress:

Monday 20
Tuesday 20
Wednesday 10
Thursday 14
Friday 30
Saturday 6
Sunday Day Off

Here’s my rundown of the top three Christmas hits.

Coming in at number three is a one hit wonder, with a great oom pah beat and anti-war sentiments…………………..Jona Lewie and Stop the Cavalry:

Dropping one place to number two is a beautiful Christmas message from John Lennon. He already said that ‘All you Need is Love’ and pleaded to ‘Give Peace a Chance’ now he’s hoping that ‘War is Over’ :

And at number one, the greatest Christmas song ever written. Composed and sung by an alcoholic genius, Shane MacGowan of the Pogues, with the late Kirsty MacColl in a duet with some distinctively un-Christian lyrics…. ’A Fairytale of New York’:

How on earth can you make 100 comments a week, and still have a life?

We all know that leaving comments will get traffic, BUT I’m not commenting a lot BECAUSE…………………………………………………………….. (fill in your reason here).

Making comments takes time, so you have to have a system or process that is time efficient. Here’s my system:

FIVE STEPS  to Commenting Nirvana

1) Find a 100 Blogs. This is easy, there are millions of blogs. Just go to Google and enter your interest or niche with ‘blog’. For example “Gardening Blogs”, “eBay blogs”, “Internet Marketing Blogs” or even “Blogging Blogs”. You won’t have any trouble finding blogs, but how do you choose? What’s your criteria?

We are constantly told to make a plan if we want to achieve anything, whether with business or in our social lives. The first plan I ever made was to be a genius in two years time.  

I was 12 years old and fascinated by the Theory of Relativity. “Einstein must be the cleverest person in the world,” I thought , “I wish I could be like him.” Then my prayers were answered.

On TV I saw an advert for an Encyclopedia called ‘Mind Alive’, it would be published in 100 weekly parts, and available from a Newsagent. “Great” I thought, “all I have to do is read every word and I will be a genius in two years.”

I’ve already advised that you should comment between 50 and 100 times a week. That’s a big time commitment, so here’s an example of how powerful a strategy this is: 

I was browsing through my Alexa account and discovered that Robyn-Campbell.com was sending me 50% of direct click through traffic, compared to 20% from Twitter and 16% from Google. How is Robyn-Campbell sending me more visitors than the mighty Twitter and Google?

I was definitely curious so I went to Robyn-Campbell.com and discovered that I had left a comment on her blog, way back on the 4th August. I must admit I had forgotten, this was during the 100 Comment Challenge and I was commenting all over the place.

#2 Commenting
I first became aware of the power of commenting in August 2010,  with Jacinta Dean’s Blog Comment Challenge. This gathered 100 bloggers into an agreement to all comment on each others blog in a month. My own post had a total of 203 comments (half were my replies).

Traffic Tripled
I checked Google Analytics before the start of this challenge and I had around 900/1000 visitors per month, at the end of the commenting challenge I had over 3,000.

A ‘picture is worth a thousand words’, and many people rely on TV news to keep up with current events. Visual images are powerful, but can be very deceptive.  I was first aware of visual deceptions while on holiday in Berlin in 1987. 

I wanted to see the Brandenburg Gate, but as I walked towards it I noticed that the whole road had been blocked by American Tanks, with US  soldiers operating a checkpoint. Most people were turned away, but a select few were let through. These were all American passport holders; US diplomats, US servicemen their wives and families.