Gauging link popularity is a practice that most search engines use when they rank sites for specific keywords and phrases. In order to keep their clients happy, search engines are always developing ways to make their results more relevant. In the last couple of years, Search engines start giving more weight to Links between sites with similar themes because they see links as a vote of confidence and trust for your site and, consequently, they tend to have a positive effect on your site positioning.

What's Link Popularity?

Link popularity is the measure of inbound links to your web site. Your Web site's link popularity is calculated by counting the number of links coming into a particular page, and gauging the quality and relevance of the links. This includes pages linking from within your site as well as from pages on other sites.

Link popularity is an important factor in determining your site's importance and it's a decisive factor in your web site's ranking in major search engines like Google, MSN, AltaVista, Inktomi, and HotBot.

There are two ways on how to increase your link popularity.

1 - Link exchange or as known also reciprocal link or link swaps.

Link exchange is an agreement whereby two webmasters agree to link to each other from their respective sites.

There are many ways on how to exchange links such as:

- Exchanging small ads with other related web sites - This method is a good way to promote your product or service and yourself also.

- Articles Exchange - It's the most valuable method and becoming a very popular mean of exchanging links in a more natural fashion. Writing quality articles and exchange them with other websites' partners will do a lot to your business success.

How to Find Link Exchange Partner Sites to Improve Your Link Popularity?

Look for sites that are related to your site theme in some way but not necessarily similar, and see if they might be interested in exchanging links.

- You may do searches at your favorite search engines for keywords like " link exchange", ad swaps", "link trade", "articles exchange", etc. plus your most relevant keyword phrases to the product or service you offer. Example: " link exchange + dog training". Don't forget to include the quotation marks to narrow your search.

- Find targeted sites in the web directories, such as Yahoo!, LookSmart, or the Open Directory Project.

- Visit articles and ezine directories and find publishers for articles exchange.

How Get Webmasters to Link to Your Website?

- Select some websites related to your area of interest.

- Make a list of the sites and publishers you want to contact.

-Contact your potential partners and inform them that you have linked to their sites and request a link in return. Don't forget to use a personalized email explaining why a link exchange would benefit both sites.

2 - Inbound Links or as Known Also Natural Links or One-way Links.

Inbound links are links from other websites pointing to your website without to have to link them back. One-way link building is a great way to improve your link popularity and ranking in the search engines. One-way links are more difficult to obtain than traditional reciprocal links, but pay off in securing solid long-term search engine ranking results.

How to Get Inbound Links?

- Submit your website to the major directories - A listening in the directories will help you increase your link popularity and they have a lot of influence over search engine results.

- Become an authority in your industry - There are a number of specific ways you can show your expertise. One of the best ways to show your expertise is to write about your subject of interest.

If your site will be really interesting and valuable it will get links natural way. Other webmasters will link to your website, discuss about you and refer to you.

When another website votes for the quality of your website by placing a link pointing back to it, you are obtaining natural linking. The more you can build upon helpful articles, quality content, FAQs, free service, white papers, etc. the better reason for webmasters to link back to your website because of the interesting information.

- Submit articles to ezine/newsletter publisher and articles directories - Write high quality articles in your area of expertise and allow others to post them in their sites or publish them in their newsletters will increase your inbound links.

- Participate to forums and discussion groups - Participate in the discussion groups or forums as an expert who gives good advice and place your website link in your signature file at the end of your postings. If these forums postings are realized and remain online, search engine continue to see them and the links they contain.

- Build blogs - Blogs are good places where online users find good content. Building a blog will benefit you in many ways such as...

Search engines love blogs for their fresh content. If you build a blog with quality content, frequently updated and you host it on your website will boost your pages rank (PR) and will attract webmasters to link to.

You may also build as many blogs as you want and host them with a hosting service. Increase your inbound link by providing links from your weblogs to your website.

- Submit your blog(s) to weblogs directories - Submitting your blog(s) to weblogs directories will increase your inbound links dramatically.

If you follow these steps you will get trusty websites to link to your WebPages, your link popularity increases and enhance your over all search engine positioning each time the search engine robots or spiders come to index your web pages.

The best thing about this form of web promotion is that it's literally FREE and is the most cost-effective way to improve your link popularity.