I would suggest submitting to directories for more links. I would suggest SEOMoz for checking your site's stats (back links etc). SEOMoz is down at the moment but hopefully it will be back up soon
I use the following Firefox plug-in http://www.quirk.biz/searchstatus/. Actually, writing nice articles, in general, having a good content usually should help you to improve the situation with the backward links. You may try to post your articles in the directories, and blog’s. Actually, you could also try to get backward links from forums, if you add the link to your website in the signature and if a forum allows follow-ups.
For increasing the backlinks, you must focus much on directory submissions. For checking the links, use the following syntax: link:"URL" in google and msn linkdomain:"URL" in yahoo