I get a fair number of comments on my blog and together they make up a significant amount of good unique content. Is there any way to do SEO for these comments so that more traffic is driven to my site through them?
I think comments are also taken by google.but have no idea how to do it ? I think deep link building may help.
i think the best way is to reply on specific comment with a blog post....so it will get a <h2> tag title and will get better emphasize
This is nice point, i would suggest to give reply having targeted keywords for that particular page will help you to increase keyword density for that page.
short and simple answer is comment is also a part of SEO it can help us to get traffic and gain back links
Well, those comment can help if their comments contains your targeted keywords.But if they are diferent , maybe google say : spam !
Well I guess you really have no access or way to get the comments edited and optimized. But just like Hershey said, with these comments having your keywords could somehow bring effect and help in SEO.