How to improve website popularity

I was recently chatting with an online friend of mine on how to improve blog popularity, readership and Search Engine Optimization. He was also talking to me about me becoming an affiliate to different products on the net, and actually selling products on the internet.

Actually Anik(that's his name) is a self-learned SEO expert who now runs his own website on SEO and affiliate marketing. His advise was to refer to online forums for discussions on affiliate marketing and SEO opportunities and discussions. Discussing this with other webmasters help to a large extent.

A good example of such a resource, I would suggest will be to discuss SEO strategies - RevenueSource.com. If you participate in the site, you will observe the kind of quality suggestions and feedback you shall get. This is the way to go about to increase Search Engine rank and make a profit out of websites.