Link Popularity is also becoming very critical and also often misused technique to increase ranking in search results.  Link popularity is a measure of the total number of web pages linking to your web page as found by a search engine both qualitatively and quantitatively. The greater the number of sites linking to your web page, the higher the link popularity of your web page. The more popular the linking sites linking to your web page, the better your site will rank in search results.

Link popularity refers to a web page and not the entire site. If you set up your link popularity technique to point to a single home page, then the other pages on your site will fair poorly in the search results.

The concept of rewarding incoming links to a webpage was originally championed by Google, but the term “Link Popularity” is now more broadly used. Google PageRank is Google’s proprietary technology, but Link Popularity is used by all major search engines in one way or the other.

Not all links are equal. Some links count more than others. Links from important web sites have a greater effect on your link popularity and your search engine rankings. A link from www.yahoo.com or www.dmoz.org to your web site has more value than a link from an unknown web page.

It's also important that the web site that's linking to you has a similar topic as your web site. If you are selling jewelry it would be awkward to have links from a website focused on cattle. Or if you are selling business consulting services to large companies, it would be more awkward to have an incoming link from a directory of shoe stores, unless of course you provided the business consulting services to that site or company. That brings us to the next point- anchor text.

The most important anchor text is the text on the link itself. If your site is referred as <a href=”http://www. JoeConsultingService.com”>Business Consulting Partner</a>, it would have better effect on search engine ranking for business consulting keyword.

First, look for sites, which have similar or complimentary themes as your website. They target visitors who might be interested in your offerings.

Second, look for sites, which rank well in the search engines for the keywords you are targeting. Find out which sites among them may have a complimentary relationship with you.

Third, find out who is linking to your competitors. This may give you some clues to some good linking partners.

Fourth, think of what are other sites your target customers might be visiting regularly. If you sell college books, find teens related sites because you share the same target audience.