Building links is essential for great search engine optimisation results and while a handful of quality links might work for one site, another site might need hundreds to show any results.
Here are 10 link building tactics I’ve had some great experience with:
1. Turn your stock photography into creative commons – The idea is to take model images and product images you own and might have used in previous years and submit them under creative commons to stock photography sites such as www.sxc.hu. If asked, most users will mention the source in their credits so place a clear call to action asking to mention the source.
2. Offer a set of free web icons – Sites such as IconPot.com list a whole range of icons which are great for web development projects. They we only list icons which you can use for free on personal AND commercial projects AND without having to provide back-links/credit to the author. By offering a set of quality icons for free, you’ll notice that users will be happy to mention the source even though they’re not required too. To make the links as relevant as possible offer industry related icons.
3. Google search operator – You can use Google search operator to find quality directories and sites to submit your links. You’ll need to search a combination of searches for each keyword using keyword “submit url” / keyword “add url” / keyword “suggest url” / keyword “suggest site” / keyword “add site” / keyword “add website” / keyword “submit site” so for blue widgets, you’ll need to search Google for [blue widgets “submit url” / blue widgets “add url” / blue widgets "suggest url" / blue widgets "suggest site" / blue widgets “add site” / blue widgets “add website” / blue widgets "submit site"]
4. Do a guest post – Write a guest post relevant to your industry and normally you’ll get a link back to your site. To find guest post opportunities, search for relevant blogs or use the Google search operator [keyterm intitle:guest+blog+post]
5. How to guide – Write a short 10 step how to guide on a topic relevant to your industry and share your content. Mashable has a great list of How To Guides worth checking.
6. Redirect your 404 pages – Check your Google Webmaster and Google Analytics accounts for error pages and 301 redirect them to a more appropriate page.
7. Search for your domain take 1 – Search for sites, blogs and news stories mentioning your site by name, but haven’t linked to you and ask them to link to your site. To find these mentions, search Yahoo for [examplesite -linkdomain:examplesite.com]
8. Search for your domain take 2 – Search for website who mention your site using the anchor text ‘click here’, ‘find out more’ and ask them to revise the hyper link. You should bear in mind that some ‘click here’ links are needed as you don’t want the anchor text to appear over optimised so choose your battles carefully.
9. Get active! – Start participating and answering on topic questions at Yahoo answers and Google Groups.
10. Add fresh content regularly – Top 10 lists are a great start to generate quality content, for example [intitle:10 site:www.conversioncounts.com] 
Start building your links today