If you want to improve search engine ranking of your web site,
you need to find a large number of high quality links from other
web sites. These are called inbound links. Gaining links from
high ranking sites that point to yours will increase your link
popularity in the search engines.

The most popular search engine Google, places great significance
on the link popularity of your web site. In fact, you can even
get listed in Google without submitting your site to them, by
getting other sites to link to yours. Finding many high ranking
sites that link to yours, will improve the search engine ranking
of your own web site.

Four effective ways to increase link popularity

1. Get your site listed in the search engine directories - first
submit your site to the human edited directories of ODP (Open
Directory Project - dmoz.org) and Yahoo (yahoo.com). Getting
listed in these directories will give your site a boost in link
popularity and improve search engine ranking in other search
engines.

However, this may take some time.

You can get listed much faster by getting links from niche
specific directories. Find these directories by doing a search
on the major search engines with the primary keywords of your
web site.

2. Provide high quality content - people will naturally link to
your site if you have what they want (i.e. articles, software,
etc). This will save you a lot of time searching for quality
links yourself.

Optimizing your content with well placed keywords, will improve
your search engine ranking dramatically. Search engines love
focused content.

Don't you love it when you immediately find what you are
searching for?

One way of achieving this is by writing and publishing articles.
You can include a link at the end of your article. When your
article gets published, you will automatically have gained a
link to your site.

3. Requesting links from other sites - request links from sites
that ideally have a high search engine ranking. Start by
including a link from your site to theirs. Include a paragraph
describing what your link is about. This helps achieve a greater
number of clickthroughs to your site.

Request that they do the same when linking to your web site. If
you provide this for them (with some of your primary keywords
included of course), and provide quality information, you will
have a greater chance of gaining a high quality link.

4. Write a testimonial - write a favorable review of someone's
product or web site. Include the benefits you received through
visiting their site. If that person wishes to use your testimony
on their site, make sure they include a link back to your web
site.

These are some of the best strategies you should implement to
increase link popularity of your web site. It will improve
search engine ranking and also boost your web site traffic.

About the Author
Herman Drost is the author of the NEW ebook
"101 Highly Effective Strategies to Promote Your Web Site"
a powerful guide for attracting 1000s of visitors to your web site.
http://www.isitebuild.com/web-site-promotion
Subscribe to his "Marketing Tips" newsletter for more original
articles. mailto:subscribe@isitebuild.com. You can read more
of his in-depth articles at: http://www.isitebuild.com/articles