Every link that leads to your site or from your site, improves its link popularity. This is most likely the best way of maintaining relevance on the Internet and leading traffic to your site.

Link popularity rankings can be determined by the check list we provide for you here. This will allow you to gauge just how popular your site is on the search engines.
As mentioned previously, the three components that lead to link popularity are internal, incoming, and outgoing links.

1. Internal Links

Internal links are those that navigate the user within the site in question. They can be used to link to related items, or to progress through the site map.

Search engine spiders can be influenced by creating cross links between those pages on your site that you feel are most relevant or important. Cross linking can be set up to navigate back and forth, which is what the spiders will identify as those important pages.

Cross linking also forces spiders to index these important pages for speedier referencing. This is most helpful when a particular page is placed far from the home page, five or more clicks from the home page.

2. Incoming Links

Incoming link popularity is the amount of links that lead to your site and its ensuing pages from other websites that have related content. These incoming links usually take two forms:

• Links From Sites You Control
  Building several small websites with related content to your crown jewel is one way of establishing valuable cross links. This keeps the control in your hands over the peripheral sites and it connections to your main site.

In these peripheral sites, you will want to use key words that work within the main theme and then create the links along these lines.

This comes into play when web surfers use major search engines like Google, which weigh heavily the text used within links.

• Links From Sites You Do Not Control
  There are three ways of finding sites that link to yours:
  
  Links that lead to your competitors
  Search engines have the capability to tell you the sites from which links originate. It is done easily by keying in"link:domain.com" or "link:www.domain.com" into the search field. In each of these examples, just replace "domain.com" with the applicable site you have in mind, and you will then see the sites that link to it.
  
• Link from Web Directories
  Web directories should not be overlooked as ideal places for establishing links to your site. Those listings on these directories that are in your same category or genre are perfect places to place a link to your site, as web surfers will see the relation between the topics will likely seek a different view point that your site may provide them.
  
  The best approach we have found is to post a link to all of those sites in your category on your site. Once you have done that, initiate communication with the Web master for each of those sites, explaining the benefits of providing links to each other's pages. It amounts to a symbiotic relationship.
  
• Find Sites That Accept Site Submissions
  Site submissions are another source for valuable places to put a link to your site. Those sites that accept submissions can be found by entering in any search engine the following: "add url" "your keywords".

Of course, you will want to replace the "your keywords" with those terms you wish to be recognized as your theme. Include the quotations marks to limit the results to those sites that concern the exact topic you desire.

To further your options, you can using a multitude of other "add url" alternatives. Here are a few examples:

add site, add link, add a url, add a site, add a link, submit url, submit site, submit link, submit a url, submit a site, submit a link

To find site submission pages by their actual page, try the following arrangements:
addurl.html, addsite.html, addlink.html, addaurl.html, addasite.html, addalink.html, submiturl.html, submitsite.html, submitlink.html, submitaurl.html, submitasite.html, submitalink.
add-url.html, add-site.html, add-link.html, add-a-url.html, add-a-site.html, add-a-link.html, submit-url.html, submit-site.html, submit-link.html, submit-a-url.html, submit-a-site.html, submit-a-link.
add_url.html, add_site.html, add_link.html, add_a_url.html, add_a_site.html, add_a_link.html, submit_url.html, submit_site.html, submit_link.html, submit_a_url.html, submit_a_site.html, submit_a_link.

When searching .html, try these other versions: .htm, .shtml, .cfm.

3. Outgoing Links
Links that extend from your site to other sites of related nature are considered outgoing links. They can actually dru up more traffic for your site is your employ certain techniques.

When sites are connected by concepts, search engine spiders will pick up on the keywords that are shared by each site, the host and the linked-to site.

Those sites that give the impression of being "authoritative hubs" can gain much traffic by "suggesting" other sites via links on the host site.

Link Keywords
The naming of the links that are either outgoing from your site or used for internal navigation is crucial in maximizing their utility, and therefore accomplishing their purpose. Pervasive use of the keywords is a very good strategy to make the topic of discussion in the site plain as day to search engine spiders.

Keywords should appear in the page title, headers, and in any links from/to the page, without exception.
As a for-instance, a page that presents ideas on "link popularity" should be title something along the lines of "link-popularity.html" or "link_popularity.html."
However, be careful not to introduce new compound words into the English language. That is to say, do not jumble the keywords of your page into one, like "linkpopularity" or "creditcrisis."

In these examples, the hyphen and underscore were omitted, but they should not be under real circumstances. This technique ensures that each work is identified individually by search engines. As a further insight, there is no advantage to using either the hyphen or underscore; each accomplishes the task equally well.

Also play close attention to the keywords in the links, using them liberally. By now, you should get the point.
Link Quality

When seeking to maximize your search engine viability, there are also qualitative considerations along with the quantitative. It simply does not suffice to have a bunch of links to your site from sites that do not experience lots of traffic themselves. You should aim for those sites that are popular or have a high position in your industry.
Major search engines like Google, frequented portals like MSN, directories such as Yahoo!, and news sites like CNN are prime ground for linkages, in addition to more topical sites particular to your area of interest.

These big name sites are viewed upon favorably by search engines. They lend credibility an legitimacy to your site.

Incoming Links Mistaken As Link Popularity Boosters.  In trying to improve your standing in the Internet, you may face two obstacles that create confusion as to their merit in improving your site traffic. These links can sometimes not live up to their promise:

• Pay-per-click links, usually created as ad revenue for the host. Examples of hosts include Overture and Google AdsWords Select
• Affiliate links, such as ones from Commision Junction

Because these links do not directly take the web surfer to your site, they can be perceived as misleading and create bad associations with your site. Even more important, they don't necessarily improve your traffic, which was the point in the first place! The host is sure to benefit from the tracking they do of the traffic that crosses their path.

There is one way of surmounting this potential hurdle, and that is my hosting the affiliate program from your own server. Your site would then be the go-between, which will give your site a big boost.

Link Exchanges
Beware of link exchanges and link farms!! This point cannot be emphasized enough.

These sites are networks that cross-hatch linked pages that are already heavy in traffic, and they only benefit these pages, not the sites that sign up under auspicious terms. Be careful!

The best search engines are now savvy enough to pick up on link farms, and relegate them to spam status, which might as well be purgatory for your site.

Conclusion
You would be wise to not underestimate the power beholden in link popularity. This will be reflected in search engine results for those searching the ‘Net. Proper technique in improving your link popularity can actually serve as a sole source of improvement in your site's traffic. Bottom line: do not neglect the steps in improving your link popularity.