See if this looks familiar:

Excited blogger joins Steemit.com with the expectation of making money from writing about what he or she loves. Said blogger puts up a wonderful post worthy of mention by the local Historical Society, gets no upvotes, complains the system is rigged, and leaves to grace some other site with his/her presence.

Have you ever noticed something like that happening on here?

Of course you have. It is a daily event.

For whatever reason, we all believe that posting article is the most important aspect of steemit.com. Certainly, without content creators, we would have nothing to upvote so it is crucial. However, at present there are over 20,000 daily authors so content is not our problem. Certainly, more is welcomed and your content should not be omitted. Steemit is going to get hundreds of thousands of content providers in the future which is wonderful. However, unless one comes here with a large following from FB or another site, content creation should not be your primary focus.

Also, as much as I discuss upvoting being key, the truth is with low SP, your vote carries little weight. This is compounded by the fact most newer people push their voting power down to single digits so even a 1 cent vote becomes worth almost nothing.

Alas, where is our newbit going to make an impact?

The other day I wrote a post about the value of commenting as it pertains to Google rankings. My understanding is that the Google bot cannot separate an article from the comments. It is only focused upon content and the keywords in that content. Therefore, I suggested that it is best for all of us to leave as many comments as we can. This will help the ranks of Steemit.com which creates a snowball effect. The better the ranking, the more organic traffic received from the search engines, further increasing the ranking.

Obviously, something is working. Last weekend Steemit.com hit 1, 000 in the US in Alexa ranking.

Look at it now:

That is very impressive. This site moved up 221 spots in roughly 6 days. Another few months should see the ranking closing in on the top 100. With 20,000 authors a day posting content, the size of the site is growing exponentially. That said, we still need commenting from each person for the site to really leverage all it can out of each post.

Each week, as being part of @fulltimegeek's delegation committee, stats are compiled showing what each person did. One change in the past week was the addition of length of comments left. In the writeup sumarrizing the week here is what @abh12345 had to say:

@taskmaster4450, who has written comments totaling a humongous 128,915 characters - amazing!

Here is the full article:

https://steemit.com/stewardsofgondor/@abh12345/stewardsofgondor-have-you-been-spreading-the-christmas-cheer

I bring this point up, not to brag, but to stress the importance of quality comments. There are so many writing "great post, thank you", that is gets a little frustrating. While any comment is appreciated, it is best to put a little time into it. Now, I do acknowledge that many who are commenting come from places where English is not the primary language and, for that, I do love all your comments. However, that is not true for everyone.

So why do you want to spend the time writing quality comments?

To start, especially if you are new, you want to be seen. This is how people will get to know you. Remember that epic post you wrote that nobody voted on? Odds are few even saw it. The primary challenge with being new is you are not on anyone's radar. Hence you need to "piggyback" others. Commenting enables you not only to garner the attention of the author but whatever following he or she has. This expands the number of eyeballs who potentially could be draw to your blog.

The second benefit is interaction can take place. While I cede that the commenting on comments tends to be poor on here, it is something that some of us do engage upon. It is really how "conversations" take place. Again, the goal is to be known and start developing the interactions which will be lasting. It takes time and repetition. Simply because someone commenting on what you wrote does not mean they will head over to your blog. In fact, there are many that I comment on their stuff, they reply, yet I do not think they ever read one article I wrote. Nevertheless, they know who I am (partially because there is a chance my comment is longer than the article itself 😄 )

Finally, quality comments mean MONEY. This is crucial to understand. People will upvote comments, hence earning you SP. When we look at the paradoxical cycle we find ourselves wrapped up in on Steemit, I help others by increasing my SP which raises my Voting Power. By commenting I enhance a person's article which helps them and possibly earning myself some extra SP which can be used to upvote others. Therefore, the money you were seeking for the marvelous article you wrote did not arrive because it was paid in the comments section. There is a lot of gold hidden there.

There are a couple schools of thought on this which I need to explain.

The first is how I approach it. In my articles, I upvote every comment. The amount will vary based upon what I feel was put into the comment but each one gets an upvote from me. I came across a number of authors who do the same thing (that is where I got the idea). The ones not voted are those which are seriously over the top AND those by people who comment regularly, upvote themselves yet do not upvote the article. Those people are just scalping upvotes from me. Outside of that, I feel that every comment is worth at least a couple cents for the effort, which does add up over time.

Another approach is often used by those with some serious SP. They are not spending the time going through upvoting every comment. Instead, they only use their VP sparingly which means higher vote percentage each time. This is where some serious money can be made. I have received upvotes on comments paying $6, $8, even $11 just for that vote. Now I admit it isn't a regular occurrence but it does happen.

Would you like me to let you in on something? There are many whales who read the comment sections of posts. I will tell you there is a much better chance of someone with a lot of SP finding you there than him or her coming across your post, especially if you are new.

In conclusion, yes leaving quality comments takes time. It is often difficult to read and article and then add to it. At the same time, most of your comments will go unanswered and not upvoted. There are only a small percentage that get any response. Accept that as part of the routine. Ultimately, you are posting not for a comment back or money, but to add to the original article. The rest is gravy.

I will relate something that happened the other night. There was an article I read which I commented upon written some a long-time member on here. He had a rep over 70 (which isn't the reason why I commented). After leaving the comment, I went about my business cruising around Steemit. About 30 minutes later I check my replies and he posted something. So I went back the article and commented. This went on for about 90 minutes containing a 5 or 6 post by each "conversation".

That part I really want to emphasize is that was a night where I had some VP left to use up before I went to bed. Thus, I was voting at a decent level on each comment. It turns out I was upvoting each of his comments at 28 cents apiece and he was hitting mine at 18 cents. As you can figure out from the math, I took in a buck while he reigned in $1.50 for the exchange. While neither of us got rich off it, with SBD being inflated, my payoff for that exchange is roughly $6 since the price of STEEM is over $3.

Not bad for a few paragraphs.

There is a lot of gold (STEEM) in the comments section. Go mine some for yourself.

If you found this article helpful, please upvote and resteem.

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