The definition of a Blog according to Wikipedia is: "a Web site, usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, description of events, or other material such as graphics or videos.

Blogs are a great source of attaining traffic and Page Rank. In respect to SEO, Search Engine Optimization, Blogs fall into two categories "nofollow" and "dofollow" Blogs. We are going to look at the difference between the two types of Blogs, developing a relationship with Blogs writers, commenting that will increase traffic, Blogrolls and attaining In-Content-Links.

"nofollow" and "dofollow" Blogs

The most widespread form of Blogs is the "nofollow" Blog and it makes use of the rel="nofollow" attribute. This attribute is applied to any link that a reader might post in the comment section of the blog. The rel="nofollow" is a great way to prevent Page Rank from being distributed to just any site being advertised in the comment section of the Blog.

The second form of Blog is the "dofollow" Blog and these Blogs usually either moderate the comments to make sure that the comments are of interest and relative to the main theme or they have a high degree of advertisements from various sources which makes finding any useful information extremely hard. 

Developing a good relationship with a Blog writer is the first step to attaining relative Backlinks that do not contain the rel="nofollow" tag. In general it is easy to develop a professional relationship with a blog writer. All that is required is becoming an active user of the Blog. This usually does not require any form of registration. What is usually required is to actually Read, Subscribe and Comment on the Blog.

We can look at these three areas a little closer:

1. Blog Reading – I find that reading specific Blogs that are of interest to me, mainly SEO, ASP.NET, XHTML, CSS, and C# help me to stay up on the current trends in my field.
2. Subscribing – By far one of the most useful tools on the web is the ability to subscribe to an RSS or ATOM feed. The Use of a Feed Reader such as Google Reader will help you keep track of the Blogs and when they are updated with a new article.
3. Commenting – The ability to interact with the Blog community by commenting seems to be the reason why Blogs have taken off in popularity. People like for their voice to be heard and they can do just that by commenting on Blogs.

Commenting to Increase Site Traffic

It is not difficult to find Blogs that have over 10,000 readers and learning how to acquire traffic from those readers is a skill easily learned. Starting with a Feed Reader, such as Google Reader, is a must. The ability to know when Blogs are updated from a glance at your Feed Reader will prove to be a most valuable tool.

The whole idea here is to comment and to comment early. Comments on Blogs are sorted from first to last, the first comment being first in the list and the last being last. Commenting as soon as the Blog article is released is a sure way to put a link in front of all the readers of that blog. Readers of Blogs usually read the first few comments and then decide whether or not to comment or, if your comments seemed interesting, then they may click through to your site. On the contrary, if you wait to long to comment, most of the readers of the blog have already read the post and made their comments. If this happens your link may be buried in a list of thirty to forty comments and have very little chance that anyone will click through to your site.

Blogrolls

A Blogroll is a list of links that are used to form a connection between Blogs that are relative to each other. These Links usually do not have the rel="nofollow" attribute. A Blogroll is great way for relative Blogs to group together and form what would be considered relative link partners. These relationships are a great method for attaining traffic and page rank but still fall short of the In-Content-Links that we must acquire.

When approaching another blog that you are considering adding to your Blogroll, make sure that their Blog falls into nearly the same page rank as your Blog does. For example if your Blog is a PR 2, look for other relative Blogs that are of the PR2 or PR 3 range. Going out and trying to get listed on a Blogroll from a Blog that has a much higher Page Rank would probably be a waste of your time.

A Blogroll is a more formidable relationship and one should not proceed the same way as you would request a reciprocal link. Do not just write emails to a handful of Blogs and hope that they will want to add you to their Blogroll. Take the time to introduce yourself and let them know that you are a reader and subscriber of their Blog and ask them to check out your Blog. The first step should always be to develop a professional relationship and then an email can be sent with your intentions of being link partners by the means of a Blogroll. You will want to know if they are interested before you add them to you Blogroll because a Blogroll can detail hundred of links not just one as in a standard Reciprocal link.

Attaining In-Content-Links from Blogs

In-Content-Links are links that target a keyword or phase within the content of a given web page. While reading a specific Blog try to identify specific keywords or phases that would link to a specific page on your site. Then you can write an email to the Blog and request for the specific keyword or phase be converted to a link. To further your chances of getting your link request approved, find some keyword(s) on your site that would be relative to the Blog that you are attempting to acquire the In-Content-Links from and make a link to a specific location on that Blog. Having Many In-Content-Links will surely boost Page Rank and these links are also great at sending your site targeted traffic.

As you can see there is a lot that goes into attaining Backlinks from Blogs, but do not feel that these links are just too hard to acquire. A handful of In-Content-Links and being added to a few Blogrolls, that are relative, can be more valuable in terms of Page Rank than a few hundred Directory links, especially if they are coming from a High PR Blog. Here is a list of some recommendations on how to implement Blogs into your Linking Strategy:

1. Get a Feed Reader Such as Google Reader.
2. Do a Search for some Blogs that are Relative to your site and allow commenting. You can also look at their Feedburner stats to see how many people actually subscribe (remember you can attain traffic just from commenting on high volume Blogs).
3. Subscribe and read the Blog.
4. Keep up with the Blog by regularly checking your Feed Reader for updates.
5. Comment as soon as a new Blog Post is released as long as it is relative to your site.
6. Request for your Blog to be added to a Blogroll of relative Blogs.
7. Approach Blogs writers with In-Content-Link request only after you have developed some form of relationship with the Blog writer. I would say if they know you by name, you have a pretty good chance at getting a In-Content-link from their site.
8. This process will become easier as your site and pages begin to rank with some PR of their own. Remember…very few Blogs will link out to a PR0 site.

Start implementing the first 5 steps now and when your site begins to rank with some PR then begin step 6. Remember Blogs are a wonderful source of gaining traffic and Page Rank. So do not give up. Keep pounding away at this and you will acquire the links necessary to boost your site to stardom.