Link building is probably the most important part of search engine optimization. Search engines like Google or Yahoo use complicated algorithm to rank websites. There are hundreds of factors which can affect your search engine ranking. But one of them is more important then others - number and quality of links pointing to your website.

So what are the most common ways to achieve some quality links? One of the oldest solutions is directory submission. In these days there are thousands of directories where you can submit to. Most of them are free, some require link back to add your listing and some of them are paid. It is necessary to say that links from these sites have very low value unless they come from very reputable source like DMOZ or Yahoo directory. On the other side, you can very easily gain a lot of backlinks in a short period of time. When you submit to the directories you should keep in mind that many owners offer free submission only when they start the directory. As soon as it looks established then usually require payment for every listing or at least reciprocal link. With this in mind you should find some source listing promptly new directories and submit your website as quickly as possible.

Another way can be forum marketing. Sign up for niche forums, set up your signature and start making useful posts. You will get not only quality backlinks (some big forums have very high pagerank so a few links from such websites are invaluable) but also some targeted traffic. Some forum readers may click the link in your signature and others will visit your website later. By making quality posts you can become recognized as expert in your niche so people will tend to believe you and some of them will remember your URL.

Very popular link building method in these days are blog comments. If you are time from time visiting some blogs and have what to say, always post the comment. The comments come with link to your website. You can also search for some list of do-follow niche weblogs and visit these sites more frequently in order to make comments.

If you are good writer your can write an article and submit it to article directories. There are many webmasters looking for website content. To get what they need they are visiting article directories and reprint articles which they like. All articles include authors bio with 1 or 2 links to his/her website. So you will get at least one link from every article directory and every time somebody will reprint your article.

Follow these steps and when you gain some decent pagerank you can offer link exchange to webmasters of related websites. Create a special page with links and add some which you would recommend to your visitors. Then contact the site owners you link to and ask them to link back to you. In the email offer them HTML code of your link. You will save time to your link partners and increase the % of webmasters who will link back to you. From my own experience you can expect about 20 % success rate.