Inbound links are essential to any good search engine optimization strategy because they help determine how well your site ranks in search results in the big three search engines. The more other sites link to your site, the more likely your site will show up higher in search results.

How do you get inbound links?
The best way to get inbound links is to create content that people are interested in. Over time other sites will link to you. However, relying on this approach alone will take a long time before you see improvements in your search engine rankings.

Here are some tips to get links to your site right away.

1) Submit your URL to directory sites. There are a lot of directories out there that will list your site if you submit your URL and a description. Some directories, like DMOZ.org, will list your site for free. Others charge a fee. Your link will generally show up faster with paid directories. If you decide to submit to paid directories, I recommend only submitting to directories with a page rank of at least 3. Because there are so many paid directories out there with high page ranks, it’s probably not worth paying to submit to a directory with a PR of less than 3.

Here is a list of directories:

Dmoz.org
Dir.Yahoo.com
Galaxy.com
Joeant.com
Skaffe.com
Web-Beacon.com
Zunchdirectory.com

2) Create content on web 2.0 sites. Below is a list of recommended web 2.0 sites that will let you to post content with a link back to your site. All these sites have a high page rank in Google so you are likely to get a bigger boost with a link from a secondary page on one of these sites than a link a secondary page on a site with a lower page rank.

Here is a list of web 2.0 sites:

Squidoo.com
Hubpages.com
WordPress.com
Blogger.com
Ehow.com

3) Buy a link. This is an easy, sure-fire way to get quality links. The downside is buying links can be costly. Another downside, Google is rumored to be cracking down on this so they will give you less credit for a purchased link. It’s hard to know how successful Google has been in this effort because it is difficult, if not impossible for them to know if a links is purchased.

Here is a list of places to find someone willing to sell you a link:

Text-Link-Ads.com
TextLinkBrokers.com
LinkAdAge.com

4) Add a comment to a blog post with a link back to your site. Most blogs out there allow visitors to add comments to blog posts. Most of these blogs also allow you to include a back link to your site in your comment. This is not as straight forward as it seems because most blogs automatically stick a ‘no-follow’ attribute in the HTML tag of your link. The ‘no-follow’ attribute tells search engines not to give a site credit for that link. The reason most blogs have this enabled is because of the potential for abuse by spammers using automated comment posting software that will submit a bunch of junk comments.

5) Create a WordPress theme. There are several sites out there that will let you design and sumbit a WordPress theme with a link back to your site. The themes on these sites have a ‘Designed by’ or a ‘Created by’ link back the designer’s site. The unspoken rule is anyone can use the theme as long as they keep the link in place.

This strategy can potentially get you a large number of links to your site if people like your theme and use it on their WordPress blogs. Creating WordPress themes requires some knowledge of website development and some web design skill. If you don’t have these skills you can always hire someone on Elance.com or Getafreelancer.com. I have found skilled web developers on both these sites with very affordable rates.

Here is a list of sites that will allow you to submit WordPress theme:

6) Become a guest blogger. A lot of bloggers out there welcome guest bloggers as a way to add more content to their blogs. To find blogs related to your site go to blogsearch.google.com and run a search.

7) Submit to article directories. Article directories will let you submit articles with a link back your site. Others are allowed to use the articles on their sites which will result in more links back to your site. This strategy can potentially get you a large number of links if people download and use your articles.

Here is a list of article directories with high page ranks:

EzineArticles.com
GoArticles.com
ArticleDashboard.com
EasyArticles.com
ArticlesBase.com
ArticleSender.com
ArticlesFactory.com
ArticleBeach.com