Backlinks are the lifeblood of your website - they give you authority in the eyes of the search engines and will rocket you up the search listings. The best backlinks you can get are from enthusiastic bloggers who love your site - they can link to you in a post, raving about your site or add you to their blogroll as a favourite site.

But what about a new site that wants to get out there and make it's name known? How do you get links from other sites if no-one know who you are or that you exist?

One of the easiest ways of getting backlinks and readers to your website must be commenting on other blogs. Don't get me wrong, it's a time-consuming activity so no easy task, but you can control what blogs your comment appears on and (sometimes, if the blog will allow it) the anchor text linking back to your website.

So commenting on blogs basically has two benefits:

1. You will gain those all important backlinks needed to give your site authority (as long as the links are dofollow - more on that later)

2. People will see your comment and decide to check out your site and you have an instant readership!

It's all too easy to spam a webste with comments. Any blogger will tell you that 'I agree' and 'great post' are the worst kind of comments that can be left (although an exception to this would be a regular reader and commentator who just wants to touch base but has nothing to add to the conversation.)

So where do you, the new reader and commentator, fit into all this?

You have to add to the conversation. 'Great post' just won't cut it - if you agree with the writer say why and expand any relevant points. If you disagree, brilliant, you can really add to the conversation. Any blogger worth his salt will welcome intelligent comments.

Making intelligent comments also brings you to the writer's, and other reader's, attention. If they like what you're saying they'll follow the link to your blog to see what you're writing about and hopefully you'll pick up a few loyal readers along the way.

Basically a 'dofollow' link is one that will get spidered by the search engines so that link will be counted towards your authority. A 'nofollow' is the opposite - it will be ignored by the search engines and will not contribute towards your authority. That's the theory anyway...

It's supposed to only be Google that takes notice of 'nofollow' instructions, and if you compare your Google links to your Yahoo links you'll certainly see a lot more on Yahoo (although Yahoo updates on a more regular basis so that will account for some of the discrepancy), but I often see links that are supposed to be 'nofollow' appear on Google.

I guess the truth is that no-one knows exactly what the rules are or how often they change.

No, not at all. As already mentioned, some 'nofollows' do fall through the Google net, and they're ignored by the other search engines altogether. And who knows when Google will change their rules on this.

Don't forget you're also commenting to get people to your blog so if a good, popular blog in your niche is a 'nofollow' you'd be silly to ignore such a good networking opportunity.

If you do decide to leave 'dofollow' comments only there is a 'Dofollow Movement' which is a community of bloggers that have set their blog comments to 'dofollow'. Just do a search on 'Dofollow Movement' and you'll find loads of blogs. There's also Courtney Tuttle's D-List to get you started.

Backlinks to your site need an anchor text. This is the text that someone clicks on to reach your site and when commenting your anchor text will (usually) go in the 'name' field.

The best type of anchor text to have is your targetted keyword. The problem with using anchor text when you comment is that some people think it's spam (I have no problem with it myself, but some do). You'll have to decide whether you should use your anchor text or your name. If anyone else has obviously used a keyword then go for it, if not then it might be best to stick to your name. The webmaster can delete your comment if he thinks it's spam so it's better to have a backlink with bad anchor text (ie. your name) tan no backlink at all.

Do comment on blogs relevant to your niche

Don't spam

Do leave intelligent comments

Don't just stick to 'dofollows' - you'll miss out on some great blogs

Do leave keyword anchor text where possible

Don't get offended if someone deletes your comment - just move on to the next blog