So you want to brag to your friends and associates where your website is ranked on google, msn, yahoo, and so on? Well to be perfectly honest, you have a lot of work ahead of you. One of the best ways to increase your rank is by building your link popularity. For those of you new to link popularity, all of the major search engines now use this measurement to help rank your website within their results. This measurement is done by counting all of the links from other websites that are currently pointing to any page on your website. But they also go a step further. They give each link weight based on relevancy. Meaning that if you have a website selling shoes, the more websites with links pointing to your shoe website that offer related information or other footwear products, the higher your link popularity will be. So now that you know what Link Popularity is, read the following tips on building it and watch your rank, and in turn, your website traffic surge.

Get Started Locally!
1. List your site on your local library's website.
2. Get a link from your Chamber of Commerce.
3. Join the Better Business Bureau Online.
4. Submit your link to relevant city and state governmental websites.
5. See if your suppliers or other business partners might be willing to link to your site.
6. Offer to exchange links with other non-competing local business that have their own website.

Directories Abound
7. Submit your site to DMOZ and other free submission directories (it doesn't hurt and is very easy).
8. Get your website listed on paid directories in your industry.
9. Create your own directory based on subjects from your industry and link back to your own website.

Some Things in Life are Free
10. Depending on your products or services, take advantage of using Craigslist to post your links.
11. Answer and you shall receive! Go on Yahoo! Answers or Google Groups to answer questions related to your industry.
12. Submit an industry related article to Wikipedia and include a link back to your site for additional references.
13. Use forums to help others and leave a signature link back to your website.

There's No News Like Any News!
14. Submit an article to an industry specific news site. Be sure to include your contact information and url at the bottom!
15. Create a newsworth (and interesting) press release and submit it to PRWeb and the like.
16. Trade articles with other webmasters. This will help build relationships and additional linking.
17. Do a study or survey to make a group feel important, then contact websites related to your
survey and allow them to participate and link to the results.

If You List It, They Will Come
18. Create articles that list ways to solve a problem in your industry. People really love these types of resources! ;)
19. You can also list experts in your field with information about them. These authority figures may be thankful enough to link to you.
20. Be a myth buster. This is another type of very popular list to build (Top 20 Myths of My Yada Yada).

Tell Em' What You Think!
21. Write a review on your website for a new, industry specific product or service.
22. Be a product reviewer on Amazon.com and include a link on your profile along with other products you recommend.
23. Review other websites in your industry on Alexa.com and include your url.
24. Use ePinions to review products and services and leave your url.
25. Purchase a product or service from a related website, then submit a positive testimony along with your url to that merchant.