For a new site, I usually start with submitting my website details to the search engines then to the web directories. This is a one time task because submitting more than once will cause to the banning of your site from most of the directories and it unloads some weight off my shoulders when I see that i am done with the submissions since I know i wont be doing it again. I also keep a track of the submissions so if after sometime, I see there are new web directories emerging i could still add up to my list and to make sure i haven't double submitted to a single web directory.

The second approach i have is creating an article and about my products and or my website and submit the article to the article directories. This is actually an unending tasks, because when you finished submitting your article to all the article directories in your list, you can just come up with another article and start submitting your new article to the article directories. With one submission you can get a minimum of 3 backlinks. This method is also cool if you are promoting like 2 to 3 websites at the same time. According to some sources this is a really effective way of earning good quality backlinks.

The next approach for me is forum signature linking. Though it seems it is kinda easy to, but for me this is the hardest. You might be getting instant backlinks but thinking for what to write and what forums to concentrate on is the hardest part. I guess those who are really comfortable with writing will enjoy this method best. For this method, just make sure the forums you are joining don't use rel=""nofollow"" attribute.

Another good approach will be blog commenting. In this approach all you have to do it to find blog posts related to your website or to the product you are selling then join the discussion and place a link going back to your site. The hardest thing in this approach is finding a blog post related to your website.

The new technique now is the social bookmarking, In this approach you have to create an account on a social bookmarking website and tag links of your website. This is really easy and fun to do, you can even do this after you have finished the web directory submissions since it is also a one time job.

But the best method for me is media marketing. This method is kinda time taking and is the hardest for me. In this method you have to create an online community where you can reach them directly and convince them to use your service and have them promote your websites to the non-users.

Link building is a really time taking job. You have to make sure you continue on doing link building even after you have a nice place in the search engine results. Because if you stop your ranking will also go down. Aside from being time taking, link building is also a really boring time. That is why most webmasters and site owners don't spend their valuable time just to do link building. They usually outsource someone to do it for them so they can save lots of time or money. You can find plenty of sites that offer link building services. Most of the sites only specialize in directory submissions. I prefer virtualinkers for manual directory submission service. With virtualinkers all you have to do is to provide the data needed for the submission and nothing else. While they are working on your directory submissions you can do other important things and still get the best results.