It’s no secret that link building is an integral part of SEO. The more links a website has, usually means it ranks higher than a similar site with few links, right? Wrong. Having a large number of links sure seems like the main goal, but in reality, the best practice is to not get the most, but the best links. This means that links from quality, trusted sites with decent page ranks are worth a lot more than twice as many link from half as good websites.
Now that you know this, you can stop sending numerous emails to friends (and strangers) asking for a link to your website from their blog and focus on links that can really help you: from reputable paid directories and high-quality, related websites. Link-swapping and partnerships may take more effort than submitting to every free web directory you can find, but it will pay off with much more valuable inbound links.