Many bloggers freely and willingly link to other blogs that publish content they like or just plain think their readers will be interested in. They also let others know when they disagree with content. Bloggers tend to view the web as a community. Their approach to the web is more sociable than webmasters who see the Internet as a collection of business competitors.

There are dozens of effective ways to maximize your blog popularity, and get backlinks, whether your goal is income or just an active readership.

-- Make sure you host your blog on your own domain rather than a free service. Wordpress is the most commonly used free blogging tool. And, did you notice, I said it's free! It's open source and is easily installed if your web host offers Fantastico as a built in script library.

-- Provide pertinent, thoughtful comments on other people's blogs - or simply let the blogmaster know you publish a blog on their topic. That first introduction could be the beginning of a theme-based link exchange that's 100% natural.

-- Be sure to post to your blog frequently. At the minimum, you should post two times a week, and preferably more often.

-- Link from your blog's home page to your static website once your blog's PR matures. By doing this, you can maximize the impact of the high PR of the blog by linking your home page with good anchor text.

-- Include the equivalent of a sitemap and/or a "most popular" page. Because virtually all blog software lacks a real sitemap and strong link structure, PageRank tends to "sit" on the home page and not infiltrate into your internal pages.

-- Submit your blog to directories. If you have a working RSS feed (which Wordpress adds automatically), also submit to directories that accept feeds.

-- Most importantly ? never engage in comment spam. In blogs, comment spam is usually done by posting frivolous, "me too," or irrelevant comment on other blogs, just to get your link some exposure.

Getting links from blogging should be just one part of your overall link strategy. The links you receive are, after all, just a special type of reciprocal link - and as such, could take a hit from an algorithm update just like any other link tactic.