I've noticed a trend in the links back to my websites lately. It seems like the comments I make on other blogs, and the dofollow links I make on other posts have been some of the most powerful links I've gotten.

I'm not sure about the reason for this, maybe because usually there aren't too many outbounds, theres content on the page (as opposed to a links page, blech) and I try to make it a habit to only comment on PR1+ dofollow blog posts.

1. Here's a great way to find niche blog posts with PR related to your industry. Lately I've been working with Fast Blog Finder. You give it a keyword and it trolls blog posts for dofollow blog posts you can comment on. The trial is limited, because it only searches 50 blogs at a time. But when you use general keywords with the full version it will come back with 1,000+ results and usually from that I can get a mixture of PR1-PR5 dofollow blog posts (around 30-40) to comment on. It beats Google searching.

2. And the "Thats a great post, keep up the good work!" comments never work. Mention something about the article, keep it relevant and around 20 words. This might seem like a no brainer but I still see a lot of comments like this, and I'm suprised some of them still get approved. I once hired someone to do blog comments for me and she did 20 of these kinds of comments. I think about the approval rate was 2 or 3 in 20 - it was dismal.

3. For the anchor text (your name) I don't use a blatant keyword like most people do. I never approve comments on my own blogs of people who comment with the name "Cheap Blue Widgets". When I comment I insert some of the keyword, but make it more of a name like "Blue Widgets Guy". I discovered this tactic from an SEO company in Hawaii that was doing this. He was commenting with the name "Hawaii SEO Guy".

Anyone else have any tips for dofollow blog commenting?

Good tips. I agree with all of them. A couple more tips.

I an found a few 'topcommenter' blogs. (It's a plugin that rewards the top 10 commenters on a blog for a given month with a sitewide backlink on the sidebar.) Many blogs with this plugin only require 5 or 6 comments in a month to get the top spot. I find it worth a little extra work.

I also track my commenting work in a simple excel spreadsheet. It only adds a few sesconds of work and it gives me great feedback to boost my approval rate. IE - I learn to skip blogs that over moderate, learn which sites lets you use strong anchor text, etc.

Finally I've tried the free fast blog finder before but was never impressed enough to drop $50 on it. It takes about 5 minutes to return 50 blogs on my keyword of which somewhere between 0 and 2 are even dofollow. Have you had better luck?