A Brief Introduction To Link Popularity
As webmasters research various ways to get more traffic to their site one method that is gaining more and more publicity is Link Popularity. Link Popularity is the number of links that point to your website as measured by the search engines. In theory if your site has many sites linking to it then it is considered to be a valuable resource on the particular topic so the search engines will give it a higher ranking.

The Problem
As with many rules/laws eventually people found a way to manipulate it. Sites were created solely to build the link popularity of other sites. These sites are called 'Link Farms' and contributed to the pollution of search engine results. They increased the search engine rankings of many sites that did not deserve the position they received.

Eventually the search engines caught on to this deception and some such as Google adjusted their algorithms accordingly. Google now penalizes websites associated with Link Farms imposing penalties they deem appropriate based on the site and the scenario. Many people that felt the effects of this penalization were fairly innocent, well that is if you consider ignorance to be an alibi. They simply did not know that what they were doing was wrong; some even paid for SEO services and were victims of bad services.

As the search engines change their algorithms aiming to reduce fraudulent activities by webmasters, more and more ways are conceived to manipulate them, and so the battle continues.

An Honest Link Building Strategy
Getting quality links to your site from related resources is not always as easy as some make it sound. The key word here is 'quality'. It is a very time consuming process and involves the following steps:

* Search for quality sites that are related to yours.
* Contact the Webmaster of the related site.
* Wait for a response from them.
* Swap links if the response is positive.

There are also some automated methods of doing this that speed up the process, however, I would not recommend any of them and hence won't list them in this article.

So you have started your link building campaign and are hopefully seeing the results. Now you say this is great but how can I make this process more efficient and effective without risking your good standings with the search engines.

Here is the solution.

The Smart Way To Increase Link Popularity.
One thing webmasters are always looking for, and find hard to refuse, is good quality content. If you are knowledgeable on a particular topic that is related to your site, writing informative articles is a great way to gain your website additional link popularity. If you are reading this article and are not reading it on Li'l Engine SEO Resource then there is your proof.

If you don't consider yourself a writer don't worry, you don't have to be. Get your article in the best shape you possibly can and then have others, who you consider to be better at writing than you are, look it over. Make your edits and there you go.

How is writing articles efficient and effective?
Well-written articles do take time to produce but as you write more you will get better and will find that it starts to take less and less time. This method offers several more benefits than the linking method listed above. These are as follows:

* Articles are, in most cases, permanent additions to sites.

* Writing Articles demonstrates your knowledge of various industry related topics and this helps to build credibility.

* If users are interested enough to read your entire article then there's a very good chance that they will click on your link to visit your site in hopes of learning more or even just out of curiosity.

* You are able to include several links with articles. You can have several links in the resource box also known as the bylines as well as in any 'appropriate' spots in the article.

* You have the 'option' of including your affiliate links in the article if it includes information on that resource.

* You also get to add this content to your own website.

* If you include reprint information in the bylines then others that read the article, and feel it would be a valuable addition to their site, will add it and then it becomes almost viral. It spreads even though you are not doing a thing.

Link Building Summary
Building link popularity is a vital part to your search engine ranking and should be approached in either of the two methods listed above that you feel is more appropriate for your individual situation. The benefits from writing, however, far outweigh those of requesting reciprocal links in most situations. Hopefully this article has helped to shed some light on this and will encourage more knowledgeable people to start sharing their knowledge with others.

About the Author
Alec Duncan is the founder of LilEngine.com a Search Engine Optimization resource site. Visit Li'l Engine for search engine optimization tools and strategies and also check out Developer Tutorials for web development techniques and strategies.