Today if you want your site to survive in the search engines your going to need backlinks. Almost all the major search engines rank sites based on the number and the quality of backlinks. Besides getting a good search engine ranking with links, it also one of the most effective ways to increase a site’s traffic. So, how do you build your link popularity? In this article I’ll show you 5 simple steps that will help you build your site’s link popularity.

Step 1 – Determine the type of sites you want to trade links with. Focus on sites that are related to your site’s market, don’t go after sites that are not related, it won’t help your ranking that much. To locate link partners search with your main search phrases in the search engines. Example, if your site is about cars, you could search with phrases such as car repair, tires, etc. The sites you see on the first few web pages of the search results should be your main targets. Remember to stay away from direct competitors.

Maybe the best way to Locate quality link partners is by visiting the Yahoo’s directory or ODP because all these web sites were reviewed by humans before being listed. If you decide to use a directory visit the category that’s most related to your web site, if your web site’s subject is popular enough you should find more then one category that’s related to your web site.

To be continued…