Creating a blog is an easy thing to do with a spate of CMS options being present. Whether you want to use Wix or Ghost or WordPress, having the right infrastructure counts. Yet there’s a lot that goes into the blogging game.

Choosing the right theme, and blogging plan is important. Then ensuring you have the right niche and appealing to the correct target audience is something else. The most important part is generating excellent content that is valuable.

But this isn’t all. It is very necessary to build and maintain relationships with the right influencers in your network. This is why blog commenting is mandatory. A competent commenting plugin is required at this juncture. Commenting on blog posts of those who are in the same space as you is critical.

There’s a great deal of advantages in commenting on blog posts. You get to — boost relationships with other bloggers, drive traffic, seek guest-posting opportunities, amplify your knowledge, build links, and attain expert status. One excellent post from Hyvor Talk Blog on this is aptly named How to Increase Engagements on Blog Comments with Images & GIFs.

Having said that it is also critical that you don’t commit a faux pas with blog comments. There is a certain etiquette to observe here. Comments can be flagged and downvoted for being off-topic, harboring discriminatory proclivities and for being downright rude.

If you have decided to become an authority within your own space, it is important you maintain a level of respect. Moreover, your code of conduct should be one which is respected among your peers and you are deemed ‘quotable’.

More logical mistakes that you need to avoid would be posting a fake email address and not using your full name. Another one would be posting comments to a blog that is irrelevant. This article covers a small area of this vast topic, but it is certainly a good starting point to learn more tips regarding commenting etiquette.