I know. I know. How many times have your eyes glazed over when told to get links to get high search engine placement?

Still Google makes a big deal of link popularity.

Plus links can bring additional traffic.

So here’s a proven plan of attack to boost your link popularity and ranking in Google and other search engines.

Step 1) Content Counts
Step 2) DMOZ It!
Step 3) Prioritize to Capitalize
Step 4) Action Plan: Unleash Your 4 Secret Weapons
Step 5) Contact and Ask!
Step 6) Do It Smart - Make It Easy

Let's go.

Link Popularity Step 1) Content Counts

Links are easy to get if you give people a reason to link to you.

While you don’t need a lot of content but you do need some. Five to 10 pages would be a good start. 100 pages would be even better!

Plus how does your content stack up? Is it useful. Unique? Even better is it fresh, current or changing?

For instance one site posts a list of current niche market articles from offline publications found online. Webmasters in that niche want to link to that page as a value added benefit for their visitors. Can you do something similar?

Content counts. So roll up your sleeves and get started on creating quality content before you even begin to think about going for links.

Link Popularity Step 2) DMOZ It

Once you’ve got enough content to show you are link worthy, snag a crucial directory listing. You want to do this since links from directories like DMOZ or Yahoo carry disproportionate weight with Google.

I favor DMOZ http://dmoz.org/ over Yahoo as it’s free. Since it may take four-six weeks or longer to show up (depending on if there's a DMOZ editor for your catetory or not) get that ball rolling. NOW!

Link Popularity Step 3) Prioritize to Capitalize

While things are percolating at DMOZ let the fun begin.

Since it is better to link to 20 sites with healthy PageRank and traffic than 2000 "weak links" you need to separate the men from the boys. Here’s how.

Go to Google, do a search on your prime search term and pick the top 20-25 sites returned.

Eliminate the likely less-than-helpful sites hosted on the likes of Geocities or Tripod.

Also forget about corporate sites like Microsoft.

Instead focus on high ranking, high traffic "mom and pop" type sites. Ideally sites with PageRank of 5 or above ranked in Alexa’s top 100,000 sites.

Track your efforts using a spread sheet that lists

• Website URL
• Site Name
• GooglePage Rank
• Alexa Traffic Rank
• Contact eMail Address
• Date Link Request Sent
• Added yes or no?

To get all that you’ll obviously need some secret weapons. Which are revealed in

Link Popularity Part 2

Or get

More Search Engine Ranking Tips Here