Links are no doubt one of the most important things to have to improve your rankings in Google and the other major search engines.   So how do you go about getting them?

1. Paying For Them:  I do not recommend buying links.  Many in this industry consider paying for links cheating.  If you build a good site links will come.
2. Link Exchange:  If you are a local business and other firends or business in the local community have websites it is always a good idea to trade links.  Trading links is a great first step to a online relationship.  After trading links I also recommend looking for other ways to cross promote on and offline.
3. Link Letters:  Many website owners who cater to a simlar audiences as your site will be willing to put a link to your site if they only knew about it.  I find sending an email to these webmasters informing them of your site and why you think there visitors will find your site useful is a great way to get links.  Make sure you send your emails on Sunday night. I find emails open on Mondays get a much higher responce rate.
4. Submit to Web Directories: Do continuous directory submissions for your site.  Rotate the anchor text you use.
5. Article Submissions: Submit content to other sites.  Embed links within the content.
6. Social Networking: Build pages with content and link on soical networks.  Look for ones that don’t use the nofollow tag.
7. Link from .org and .edu sites: Offer free services to schools and non-profits.  Most will give you a link in exchange for your help.
8. Social Book marking: Make a profile and add your links to at least 10 of the soical bookmarking services.