Off-site search engine optimization, the practice that places the emphasis on quality link building, stands out as one of the useful tools in Internet marketing. Despite a number of advantages, however, it has the reputation of being difficult to implement, enough to determine most SEO experts to turn away from it.

The main dilemma behind off-site SEO lies in finding the best way to exchange quality links with external sites, which is often quite a tricky task to achieve. However, one approach worth considering consists in utilizing a blog posting service. The following guide covers the main aspects that need to be addressed when you rely on blog posting services for off-site optimization.

1) Perform a thorough analysis of the blog network you’re planning to use.

The first step you should make is towards the general status, requirements and conditions, as well as features of a particular blog. Don’t make hasty decisions as you may risk ending up with a banned, useless blog. Also, evaluate the overall state of the blog, and look for a clean user interface, minimal number of those annoying pop-ups, etc. Remember you need to start your blog posting on the right foot, and the blog’s image plays a major role in this.

2) Focus on originality and quality of content.

Similar to most areas specific to Internet marketing, you should make a habit out of posting original, keyword optimized blog articles when using blog posting services, placing the accent on value of information. Well-structured, keyword dense blog articles will make sure you rank higher in search engine results, while quality content will earn you a solid reputation, as well as good credibility and popularity.

3) Only use embedded links with the right anchor texts.

Embed links within your articles’ text, use the right anchor texts and make sure you pay attention to the preferences of most search engines when doing so.

4) Carefully select between general and targeted blogs.

Take some time to decide whether it’s best to focus on getting links from general or targeted blogs. As a rule, it is easier to get larger numbers of links from general blogs, considering they encompass a broader spectrum of written content, from various areas of interest. However, remember that the traffic you attract via general blogs is less likely to translate into customers, as opposed to the targeted traffic obtainable via blogs in the same niche as your website. While targeted blogs may give you less links and less visitors, those whom you manage to attract are more likely to become customers.

5) Assess blog positions in search engine results and PR.

You may be surprised to hear this, but sometimes it is best to avoid guiding your actions entirely upon Page Rank and direct search engine results for a particular blog. This is because PR often doesn’t coincide with search engine positions and you might end up with some misleading information.
A better course of action would be to acquire a number of the blog’s sample urls first and verify their functionality in the query box of a popular search engine. If the blog is all right, then you will get results for it in search engines. At that point, you should continue to verify several random articles found on that blog to see where they rank in search engines’ hierarchies. The ranking returned for your searches should act as a benchmark for that blog’s prominence in search engines.      

6) Blog promotion issues.

Keep in mind that successful blog posting breathes through efficient promotion and whenever you find well-supported blogs, you should definitely stick with them. However, considering blog posting services generally use public blogs, the main problem you will come across is that you have no direct control over the promotion of those particular blogs. In fact, don’t be too surprised if you find out there’s no one at all to take care of the promotion for some public blogs, as there really aren’t any direct benefits in doing that. Therefore, the major drawback with using blog posting services lies in the lack of real promotion, which in the end is something you’ll have to try and compensate by strengthening other areas instead.