We all would love to do that.  There are simple tips on how I got my blog to achieve very high popularity level in my previous post but Wayne Hurlbert has some tips that would seem almost counter-intuitive but I think he is right.

What is important about Hurlbert's theory is that outgoing links are as important as incoming links.  During last six years that I have been publishing online, what I have seen that during the early days of the Internet, people were so eager to put links.  The situation has reversed.  Many shortsighted publishers do not want to link (fearing that they will lose a visitor or help another site become more popular), or some want to get paid for linking by selling them or some wants a link in return.  But what I have found is that if you create a great experience for your visitor by pointing them to great websites, not only will they love you but so will search engines.  And that means higher pagerank, more traffic, and more income.