Link building is the most important step in any SEO strategy. Without it, you’re not going anywhere.

Quite simply stated: The more related links you have pointing into your site the higher your will rank for your key words and phrases.

A simple yet grueling task, link-building is easy to do, but it does take effort and good old-fashioned hard work.

Here are a few good places to start when considering your link building strategy:

Social Networks

While posting a link on facebook might not help you in the SERPS, some one else seeing your post and sending through their twitter and posting it on their blog will.

In other words, get your content everywhere. The more eyes that see and like your stuff, the more chances you have to acquire a backlink from a fellow blogger/webmaster.

The Blog-o-sphere

Reaching out to bloggers who share similar interests is a great idea. Offer to write a guest post in exchange for a back link. Another way to get the attention of bloggers is through the use of linkbaiting and social news aggregators.

Link Baiting

The art of link baiting is something that I truly enjoy. Creating an article that gets a lot of attention is a thrill that is second to none. Hitting the front page of Digg, Mixx, or Yahoo Buzz will drive thousands of people to your site. Webmasters and bloggers frequent sites like these for ideas on new posts. I once picked up a link from msn.com for one of my clients by using the link-baiting method.

Web 2.0 Properties

There are tons of sites that allow you to create your own information pages. Sites like Squidoo, Hubpages, Wikidot and more. Use these sites to create mini-networks. By creating this pages and building links to them monthly, you will drive juice to your site.

Article Submission sites

There are several of these types of sites on the internet.  A few examples are: ezinearticles.com and goarticles.com

As you can imagine, creating links out of thin air is a never-ending process and takes alot of work.  While some webmasters choose to do it all themselves, smarter webmasters choose to automate and outsource the manual labor side of linkbuilding.  It’s a grind to say the least. But your hard work will payoff in pure traffic.