Things to consider when getting links

I have already mentioned that it is crucial to get your link placed on other sites. The reason for that is if a site is linking to you, it is a sign for Google that the owner of that site considers your site to be a valuable resource. Yahoo doesn't seem to value backlinks this much, but Google does. Google uses the same philosophy that you would. Would you link to a site that is low quality and does not provide valuable content to its visitors? I doubt it. Linking to a bad site would decrease your own reputation, hence, nobody would do that! What Google does is it regards link as a vote. In other words, when webmaster publishes a link to your site, he is voting for you in search engine. That's why link distribution is a very important step in search engine optimization. 

However, there is a number of factors that should be kept in mind when getting other websites link to yours. Have a look:

1. The amount of links: In general, the more pages publish your link, the better. Each link will bring you some traffic, so it's always good to have plenty of them. However, when it comes to search engines, it's not always about the quantity, but also about the quality of links (I'll explain it in a minute). It's a good habit to distribute your link to as many pages as possible. There is a number of ways to distribute your link. Perhaps, the simplest thing you can do is email the webmasters that run good sites/blogs in your niche. Tell them about your site and explain why it is worth linking to. 
2. Page rank: So now you know why the quantity is not enough. Placing your link on the page that has a high page rank will bring you way better results than just spamming around the internet. What you want to do is to have your links published by websites that have higher page rank than your website has. The reason for that is search engines values such links significantly more than just an ordinary link. Smart webmasters that own a number of sites work hard to increase page rank of one of their sites. Once it starts ranking high they link other sites, so they get a better listing too. This is an effective strategy ensures fast rise in page rank. 
3. Link exchange: I'm not sure if you know this, but link exchange doesn't help much when it comes to ranking high. Of course, it brings you fresh traffic, but it doesn't really affect your page rank. Google values one-way linking, which means that your link gets placed on other site, but you do not return the favor. 
4. Page title of page linking to you: The title of the website that links to you plays an important role for Google. A link published on a website that has your main keywords in title is given more weight than just a link on some arbitrary page. 
5. Number of links on a page: Link becomes more valuable when there are not many links on the same page. You must have come across those partner sites with lots of links and banners all over the place. Google doesn't like those sites and doesn't give much weight to links published on sites like that. The more links a page has, the less importance is given to your link. 
6. IP address: Search engines gives more weight to the websites that are linked to from different IP Addresses. If all your backlinks are coming from the same IP number, there is a big chance that all the sites linking to you belong to one person - you. 
7. The anchor text: It is very important that the text used in the link contains your main keyword or a keyword phrase. For example, a link with anchor text "click here" won't be as effective as "Cheap Stock Trades". The text used as anchor will help to rank high for this specific keyword of phrase. If you notice that someone linked to your site, make sure the anchor text makes sense. If not, don't hesitate to contact the webmaster ask politely that he changes the anchor text. 
9. Do-follow link: In order to prevent spam overflow, most blogs and forums use nofollow links. Those are the links that have no value for search engine. It means, that usually it makes no sense (in terms of SEO) to post your link in forum signatures and blog comments, because they will be ignored by search engines anyway, and it won't increase your ranking. Just to let you know, there are high ranking forums and blogs that allow dofollow links, but those are rare. Hence, your job is to make sure that your link on other page is dofollow. Once someone places a link to your site, have a look at the html source of the site and check whether your link is dofollow. For example, those are dofollow links: 

   http://sitemonetized.com">Monetize your site
   http://sitemonetized.com" rel="dofollow">Monetize your site

   Here is how nofollow link looks like:

   http://sitemonetized.com" rel="nofollow">Monetize your site

   The above link has “rel” attribute set to “nofollow”, which makes it "invisible" for search spiders. This kind of links does not serve any purpose in SEO.