Write articles and place the links in your resource box, press releases, blog comments, trade links with other webmasters, network with others, link metro, leverage web 2.0 sites and authoritive domains as described in my blog at jamesdeannash.wordpress . com good stuff.
It just depends too on what type of quality as in value for search engines or value for direct traffic.
Only very few directories have any real seo value and signature lines are great for direct traffic. If your wanting traffic all of this is good stuff.
you can find a lot of ideas in the link building ideas http://forums.digitalpoint.com/forumdisplay.php?f=13
Never submit your website like linkmetro since through it you can get Unrelevent, bad one way links ( they do it to make request for reciprocal links ) which will prove harmful for your website.
Be aware of how many outbound links a site has on one page before exchanging links. Examine page source code to make sure links are not "nofollowed" in javascript, ajax, or redirected.
Good relevant backlinks can be generated by creating content worth linking. Try to blog or post about a list of useful information about your niche.
To get more backlinks is to submit your site directories, participate in forums and a lot of quality links to your site.
Procurement pages on .gov and .edu sites can be a good place to get a link if you actually provide goods and services
Write quality content and then create relationships with blog owners of the same niche. Eventually they find out about your site (pretty quickly) and they will link to your site.
You can get back-links by writing very interesting ,unusual, or controversial information and then submitting it to social bookmarking sites, this is called link baiting.
I myself did something alot different with linkmetro to gain high quality home page links..not actually used it to trade links..
Agree! You can give something away for free like a useful tool or be controversial about something that will cause a stir and have others looking..Viral marketing