Links are the single most important aspect of SEO. Generally speaking, the more links you have back to your site, the higher your ranking will be.
Of course, nothing is ever that simple. There are links, and there are links. Before launching into a discussion about the best ways to generate links, let’s first discuss what kind of links you should be trying to generate.
When deciding whether to display your site in its search results, a search engine looks to see if you’re part of a credible network of related sites. This means that the ideal kind of links are
those that:

•    come from relevant sites (sites which use the same keywords);

•    come from important sites (have a high ranking);

•    include your keyword as part of the visible link text;

•    include varying link text (not the same link text each time); and

•    come from a page that links to few other sites.
When a search engine sees a link which satisfies most or all of these conditions, it says, “Hey,
this site must be credible and important, because others in the same industry are pointing to
it.”

How do I generate lots of ideal links?

There are many possible ways to generate links. Some are dubious (like auto-generation
software, and sites set up by webmasters simply to host links to their other sites) and I won’t be discussing them here. Others, like those discussed below, are legitimate.

NOTE: Link generation is an ongoing (often tedious) task. You need to be dedicated and
systematic. In other words, you need a strategy. Take a look through the link generation
alternatives discussed below to see what suits you best. Then put your thinking cap on and get
creative. It’s a new and very exciting field; there are undoubtedly many undiscovered ways to generate links. This chapter is just a starting point.

Add your site to DMOZ & Yahoo Directories

The first thing you should do is add a link in the following two directories:

•    DMOZ Open Directory Project (http://www.dmoz.com/add.html) - “…the largest,
most comprehensive human-edited directory of the Web. It is constructed and
maintained by a vast, global community of volunteer editors.” DMOZ does not charge for submissions. NOTE: This is the same as the Google Directory.

•    Yahoo Directory (https://ecom.yahoo.com/dir/submit/intro/) - Yahoo charges for
submissions (at the time of writing, the submission fee was USD$299).
The search engines regularly crawl these directories in search of new links, and they value these links quite highly (largely because the directories are human-edited).

Check where your competitors’ links are coming from
Next, check who is linking to your high ranking competitors. This method takes a long time, but you’ll be surprised where some of their links come from. To check on the links of your
competitors:

STEP 1)     Go to Google and search for your keyword.

STEP 2)     Make a note of the top 5 competitors who appear (write down their
domain name).
STEP 3)     Return to Google and search for the first domain name in the list (i.e.
type “www.competitorsdomainname.com” in the search field).
STEP 4)     Google will then display a screen which says, “Google can show you the
following information for this URL:” At the bottom of the list of option is
“Find web pages that contain the term
"www.competitorsdomainname.com"". Click on this option.
STEP 5)     Google will display all the pages it can find that link to your competitor’s
website. (TIP: If there are many results, bookmark the search results
page as this process will take a long time - possibly months.)

STEP 6)     Visit each page (TIP: Right click on the first result and select “Open in
New Window”. By opening a separate window to see the page, you won’t lose your search results page.)
STEP 7)     Try think of a way to get a link to your website on the same page (TIP:
Avoid sending them an email as webmaster receive a lot of SPAM and
your email will likely go unnoticed. Try calling them instead.)