A study by Nature.com has found that research papers that have a long reference list at the end are well cited.
The research suggests that scientists who reference the work of their peers are more likely to find their own work referenced in turn, and the effect is on the rise, with a single extra reference in an article now producing, on average, a whole additional citation for the referencing paper.
There is a ridiculously strong relationship between the number of citations a paper receives and its number of references. If you want to get more cited, the answer could be to cite more people.
Citations, which in the online world are known as links, are hard to get but are very important for your search rankings. Cite more and you’ll get more citations.