The Virtual Handshake

This week, Jason Alba is doing a series of posts about his blogging secrets. This is a great guide for how to effectively build relationships and your personal brand with your blog.

One of the tips that came up in the comments on his Day 1 post was the matter of using a signature in your post when you leave comments on other people’s blogs. Typically, if you leave your name and URL in the comment posting form, it ends up linking your name to your site, e.g., Scott Allen points to TheVirtualHandshake.com (or LinkedIntelligence.com or Entrepreneurs.About.com, depending on the context). However, that’s a) usually at the top of your comment – people don’t scroll back up once they’ve read your comment, and b) it’s non-obvious that it actually links to your blog.

Jason explains, as well as sharing his hesitation about using comment signatures:

ALso along these lines, I have since started to leave a new signature:

Jason Alba
CEO – JibberJobber.com
.. self-serve job security ..

I’ve been trying it out, and with different tag lines. Putting a URL in the comments makes it really easy for readers to just click over to my website, and the tagline makes people curious.

Sometimes I’ve hesitated before putting the signature on the comment, especially when no one else is, but I figure it’s better to risk than pass up the chance, and if someone says they don’t like that then I’ll make note of it and leave the signature off for later comments.

But Pete Johnson reassured him, sharing the success he had after learning the tip from The Virtual Handshake:

As I learned from Scott Allen (and am writing about later in the week), the post signature is huge. On one techie site in particular, I got 10x more traffic when I went from this:

—Pete
http://nerdguru.net

to this:

Pete Johnson
HP.com Chief Architect
Personal Blog: http://nerdguru.net

The second one even got me an unsolicited email from the editor wanting to know if I wanted to write a case study based on HP’s web architecture, an opportunity I wouldn’t have dreamed of otherwise.

This is a great example of co-opting a brand. “Nerdguru” isn’t a household name, but HP.com sure is. Pete is able to leverage his position to build his personal brand.

But what if you don’t have a big-name brand to co-opt? Even a simple signature can serve you well. Which is more likely to get your attention and make you click?

Scott Allen
LinkedIntelligence.com

or

Scott Allen
Linked Intelligence – Home of 80+ Smart Ways to Use LinkedIn

Or how about:

Scott Allen
TheVirtualHandshake.com

or

Scott Allen
Coauthor, The Virtual Handshake: Opening Doors and Closing Deals Online

*Sigh*

I need to remember to follow my own advice!