Obtaining incoming links to your website fulfills two main objectives. Firstly it increases the traffic you could potentially receive to your site because the more links you have the more traffic you should receive, and secondly, by obtaining links from pages with a good page rank you can increase your own page rank which, although not the deciding factor, will help boost your ranking in the search engines.

Listed below are ten ways in which you can obtain these sought-after links.

1. Exchange Links With Other Websites

This process, known as reciprocal linking, is common place on the internet, and is something most webmasters do. However, while it's something you should do, it's important to note that search engines place more importance on one-way links than two-way or reciprocal links.

2. Submit Your Website To Directories

This is a good way of getting one-way links to your site (if a reciprocal link is not required). There are numerous directories you can submit to, offering both free and paid submissions. When deciding on whether paid submissions are worth it, you should look at the page where your link is expected to appear and see if it has a reasonable page rank, and the number of other links that appear on that page, with the fewer the better.

3. Build A Network Of Websites And Interlink Them

When building multiple websites it makes sense to interlink them, preferably from a home page link for maximum benefit. This can be very beneficial if each of your websites is on a different server, but be careful if they are hosted on the same server, as the search engines will think you're deliberately manipulating their results, and will most likely prevent you from achieving higher rankings.

4. Write Articles

This is a very powerful method of obtaining a lot of incoming one-way links to your site. By submitting your articles, which include the all important resource box with the link to your site, to multiple article directories you can pick up backlinks from not only these article directories but from other websites who pick up your articles and include them on their website or blog.

5. Write Press Releases

Writing a compelling news-worthy press release about your site or related topic, can also result in multiple websites and news sources picking it up and linking to your site. This is a very effective way of obtaining numerous one-way links very quickly, but doesn't offer the long-term benefits that articles do.

6. Create A Blog

Blogs are very easy to create with multiple websites offering free services, so there is no excuse for not creating a blog related to and linking to your main website. You could post anything - your thoughts, articles, or affiliate program reviews, for example, but make sure you include a link to your site in the links section, and at the end of each post if appropriate.

7. Leave Comments On Blogs And Guestbooks

You've got to be careful with this method that you don't abuse it and start spamming other people's blogs or guestbooks. Leave legitimate comments, and make it look like you actually have something to contribute. For example, just saying 'Great Blog!' and then leaving your link is rightly considered to be spam, and will also damage your reputation in the long run.

8. Post On Forums That Allow Sig Files

Sig files are the line(s) that appear at the bottom of each message and act as a discreet way of advertising your site. You won't get a great deal of benefit in terms of page rank, as most forums do not have a high page rank for their threads, but you will build up a good number of links, and as forums generally tend to get spidered by the search engines regularly, they will follow the links to your site and subsequently spider your site on a regular basis.

9. Write Testimonials

By writing and submitting testimonials to websites that you have previously purchased products or services from, you can get high-quality links to your site, often from the home pages of the sites in question.

10. Buy Links

The final way to obtain incoming links is by simply buying them. This can have a dramatic effect on your page rank and subsequently your search engine rankings if you can get links from PR6+ sites, however the only problem with this is that most links for sale are often for a set period of time, usually a month, and so you have to keep buying them to maintain your higher page rank and rankings.