SEO Series Batch 9 - External Linking

SEO Series is back on track and today's topic is about external linking. External linking is another important factor in your SEO optimization. With every external link your blog becomes more and more popular on the web meaning that it gets higher search engine results and more importantly - more traffic.

Even though you can't have an impact on every external link pointing to your blog, you still have a chance of getting some external links to your blog which you CAN control - control the linking (anchor) text, that is.

How to get desired anchor text for your external links:

1. Exchanging links with other bloggers - allows you to ask for desired anchor text
2. Submitting your blog to web directories where you have editorial control and you can specify how your link will look like
3. Getting listed on partner blogs and sites
4. Optimizing your post title - if you use a great title your post can be picked up by someone where you usually get the credit for it + the post title as the anchor text
5. Buying links on other blogs which gives you complete editorial rights and you can specify the desired anchor text.
6. Running a contest on your blog will bring you external links with the anchor text you specify in the contest rules.

After you have done that, your external links depend on the webmasters that post them. The best influence you can have on that is to optimize your post titles in the best possible way.

One last thing, external linking very much depends on your content. With high quality content you will have no problems at all in getting external links.