Getting webmasters to come to you:

Having lots of useful content on your web site such as informative articles, online tools, studies, etc will make another webmasters what to link to your web site knowing that you will not only help their site's traffic and link popularity, but adding content to their own web site.

Sometimes you may even get webmasters that like your site so much that they will link to your homepage or to certain web pages that they think their visitors will find useful because this adds to usefulness of their own site by providing useful links.

Keep it clean by avoiding tricks (Blocking access via robots.txt to robots, linking out with JavaScript, etc.) meant to keep your site from transferring Page Rank to other webmaster's web sites and link to your links page on every page of your site.

Sometimes you will get requests for link exchanges with web sites that are not related to your site’s topic, these sites should be ignored and you should focus on only related web sites.

Yes, it can be done. Here are 7 ways that a site can acheive increased link popularity without having to exchange links:

Directory Submissions - Submit to Open Directory and other sites like JoeAnt and Gimpsy. These are all human reviewed directories, therefore search engines will consider that your site must be of pretty good quality to be listed in them. Submission to these sites is free, but there can be quite a wait to get reviewed, since editors are unpaid volunteers. In addition to a link popularity boost, a listing in Open Directory will get your site listed in other Open Directory powered sites like Google's web Directory, AOL's web directory and many others.

Tips For Directory Submissions:

Editor Check - Is there an editor for your desired category? If not, consider applying. For Open Directory, this can give you power to add your site much more quickly.

Link Title - Don't try any tricks to get keywords in your title if they are not in your company name. This will get your listing edited if listing is approved or rejected outright. The title must be your official website or company name.

Description - Again, don't try to insert extra keywords here, it could backfire and your description will be edited or your listing rejected. The description should be short and concise. Just tell what your website offers and give some product or service examples if appropriate. Again, keep it short!

Be patient! - It may take weeks or months to be reviewed. If you've submitted before and are still not listed, try writing a polite note to editor of category to see if there was a problem.

Paid Submissions - Paid submissions to quality directories and portals is also a good idea. It is well known that a listing in Yahoo directory area will give you a good Google PageRank boost. Listing in Yahoo directory area is $299, so skip this option if your budget is limited.

Pay-Per-Click Search Engine Submissions - Google lists results of many smaller pay-per-click search engines. This can help link popularity if your site is listed in these results for your important keywords and phrases. There are hundreds of these smaller PPC engines that offer a free advertising credit just for signing up. Take a jaunt on over to PayPerClickSearchEngines.com for a good list of them. Submit listings under all your important keywords and phrases and include keywords in your title.