Struggling with the search engines? You're not alone.

Every internet home based business entrepreneur knows that good search engine positions are an excellent way of driving targeted traffic to a website. But if you are spending most of your time doing "onpage optimization" by building hundreds of pages stuffed with keywords, meta tags and the usual SEO techniques, for the most part it would be true to be said that you are wasting your time!

Sure, onpage optimization might get you a good search engine position on less competitive niches, but when it comes down to competing with thousands of established websites, onpage optimization alone can barely make your website jump a few spots in most cases.

What you really need is a linking strategy to increase your websites link popularity. First, make sure you link all of your webpages together using anchored links with your keywords. Make every webpage tightly focused and link to it from every other page in your website using the appropriate keywords in the link text. Once you have your webpages properly interlinked, it's time to go for incoming outside links.

You need to get other websites linking to you with your keyword text. Searching for link partners is a tedious task, but there are several ways you can automate this task. I wouldn't go for full automation, however, because you want to review your link partners for inappropriate content. Semi-auto link exchange programs such as linkmarket (www.linkmarket.net) make exchanging links easier, but you still get full control over your linking strategy.

The key is being consistent with your link exchanges, and doing some keyword research before blindly starting to exchange links. Start targeting your less competitive keywords, and as your search engine positions begin to rise, go for better keywords. Do it gradually and naturally, and search engines will reward you!

A good link popularity campaign should be aimed at the long term. Results can take a few months to show up on search engines, but don't let this discourage you! Keep working on your linking strategy, and some day you will get that dreaded #1 spot on your favorite search engine(s).