One of our most successful methods for increasing link popularity is to offer “awards” (a gif that links back to our site). We create a strong incentive for the awardee to place the award on their site because the awardee perceives a benefit – he gets to tell the world that another site recognized his site as a quality site. One way we do this at NetMechanic is to offer “Star Performer” awards to Web sites that get 4 or more stars on their site when they run our validator tool over their site. This tells people visiting the awardee’s site, that the award-winning site is a professional site run by individuals interested in quality assurance and providing a good visitor experience. Remember to make it easy for awardees to place the award gif on their site. Have the snippet of code available so all they have to do is cut and paste it into their Web page. Even if your site doesn’t support an award, offer visitors a gif to put on their site. You’d be surprised how many people are willing to do something like this for a site they like. (Chris Churchill with NetMechanic)
Build a stand alone search engine or directory. Add your own sites, your clients’ sites, your affiliate sites, your own sites that are affiliates for others, etc. It's a great way to legitimately build link popularity for all your sites, even if they are unrelated. Some programs will even allow you to supplement your results with ODP. You can find search engine and directory programs at The CGI Resource Index (http://cgi.resourceindex.com/Programs_and_Scripts/Perl/Link_
Indexing_Scripts/) and The PHP Resource Index (http://php.resourceindex.com/Complete_Scripts/Link_Management
/Directories and_Portals/). You can also build a stand-alone themed search engine or directory, with a link to your own site. (Bill Gentry with Look Sharp Designs)
If someone wants to interview you for an article in your related field, say YES immediately! That person will list your qualifications with a link back to your site as part of your introduction. Plus, you’ll get added visibility and credibility for your Web site and online business. (Robin Nobles of Search Engine Workshops, Online Search Engine Marketing Courses, and the TNT-Guides for Successful Web Sites.
Although joining a banner exchange program would probably not improve your link popularity, you can improve your link popularity by starting your own banner exchange service. The concept of these services is that people sign up and agree to add special links to your Web site. Your server will then display banner ads on their pages. In exchange, you agree to automatically display a certain number of their banners on your own site and other Web sites within your banner exchange network. (Brent Winters of First Place Software)
If you have your own server, or if you can work out a deal with your ISP for extra IP addresses, register URLs and point them to the extra IP addresses and do the same thing described above. URL registration has gotten so inexpensive these days that cost should not even be a consideration.(Ron Gotcher with GotcherLaw.com)
If you offer a contest or sweepstakes on your site, you can get free links to it from the many contest and sweepstakes directories on the Web. (Eric Ward, President, NetPOST and URLwire)
Offer a small discount to anyone who agrees to post a graphic pointing to your site on theirs. Anyone who goes through that link will get a discount off your goods or services, and you'll get added link popularity. (Robin Nobles of Search Engine Workshops, Online Search Engine Marketing Courses, and the TNT-Guides for Successful Web Sites.
I have found that it is hard to handle the “mechanics” of building link popularity pages. It is very time consuming to add the links to a client’s site and follow up by sending an e-mail to the site that you would like a link back from. So I have developed a dynamic database link system whereby the client can add the link, logo, and description on their own without having to know any code. We also created for them the template e-mail that they can send to the other site’s Webmaster. This saves the client money and enables them to take over this function instead of me having to handle this task. (Steve Wilson with Worldsites.network) (Author’s Note: Make sure that the template e-mail is personalized for each recipient in some way.)
Host a Top Site. Top Sites can work for almost any topic. A Top Site is run by a cgi program. There are several ways to configure the program, but most rank by the amount of incoming traffic a site sends. Here's how it works. A site signs up for a Top Site. They add your link or button with their top site id in the link on their site. The link points to your Top Site via the cgi program. The referring site gets credit for the visitor. The more visitors that site sends, the better it ranks. An added benefit is that all the outgoing links from your Top Site go through your cgi-bin and are redirected to the site. So if you are worried about sharing too much PageRank (which I wouldn't worry about myself), you won't be sharing it by using a Top Site. You can find Top Site programs, some of which may be free at The PHP Resource Index (http://php.resourceindex.com/Complete_Scripts/Website_
Promotion/Top_Sites/) and The CGI Resource Index (http://cgi.resourceindex.com/Programs_and_Scripts/Perl/
Website_Promotion/Top_Sites/). You can also use the Top Site to generate some advertising revenue. Peruse other categories at the above sites to find advertising programs. (Bill Gentry with Look Sharp Designs)
Do you have a members-only Web site? Offer site owners free membership if they link to you. (Scott Smith)
Host your own Web Ring. All the links on every Web ring banner point to your site and redirect to member sites, your site if you host it. You can find Web Ring programs at The PHP Resource Index (http://php.resourceindex.com/Complete_Scripts/Website
_Promotion/Web_Rings/) and The CGI Resource Index (http://cgi.resourceindex.com/Programs_and_Scripts/Perl/
Website_Promotion/Web_Rings/). However, don't join a Web ring for link popularity purposes as all the links point to the ring server and redirect to member sites. However, they can be useful for building traffic. (Bill Gentry with Look Sharp Designs)
Do you have a discussion board? Invite other related sites to link to it. (Scott Smith)
If you give away something on your site, don't forget to try and get a listing from the sites that list sites that give stuff away, such as The Free Site (http://www.thefreesite.com). (Bill Gentry with Look Sharp Designs)
Write a review of a Web site, then tell the site owner it's theirs to post in exchange for a link. (Scott Smith)
If an established and respected writer, like Robin Nobles, asks you for a contribution for an article he or she is writing, always say yes (if you have the knowledge)! Established writers get published in a lot of places that you can't. The writers will always give you credit and may give you a link in the article as well. (Bill Gentry with Look Sharp Designs)
http://www.searchengineworkshops.com/articles/leglinkpop.html
