In some worlds, a "links" is the oldest style of golf course. In the Scots language, it refers to an area of coastal sand dunes or open parkland. In our 21st century vernacular, "links" is the term for basic relationships on the Web. Link building is a vital part of Search Engine Optimization (SEO), and a method by which to judge the importance and ranking of a particular Web page. Building links means getting other website to have links to your website. The more quality links to your website, the more popular your website is, and the more traffic you have. Links to your site can be thought of as votes for your site in search engine ranking algorithms, but all votes are not created equally. If two sites are both well optimized for search engine performance on any keyword phrase, the search engine will generally rank the one with more link popularity above the other. Below is a list of options for building your links. 

* Create extensive resource lists for a specific topic
* Create a list of experts who might end up linking to your site
* Buy relevant traffic with a pay-per-click (PPC) campaign
* Syndicate an article (Ezine Articles, Go Articles)
* Syndicate a press release and submit it to PRWeb or PRLeap.
* Email friends with relevant news asking for feedback/a reference on their site
* Perform surveys and studies that make people feel important
* Submit your site to free directories like DMOZ and other paid directories
* Tag related sites on sites like Delicious.
* Get a link from your local chamber of commerce
* List your site at the local library's Web Site
* Submit a story to Digg that links to an article on your site
* If you publish an RSS fee with useful content, some will syndicate it
* Start a blog with regular posts and great content; comment on other blogs
* Hold a contest

Squidoo (http://www.squidoo.com/) is a popular publishing platform and community that makes it easy to create pages, or "lenses" online about a topic of interest. For authors, there is a category for Books, Poetry, and Writing. Your author's "lens" might include links to all of the books you have listed with Amazon. You can plug your author friends (and visa-versa) by including links to ones you admire. Other options are links to conferences where you may be the featured speaker, or a list of your best reviews. 

Reprinted from:

How to Build Links Fast 

by Aaron Wall/ Andy Hagans http://www.seobook.com/archives/001792.shtml)