• The value of potential links vary. The most valuable links are .gov and .edu links. These links are close to impossible unless you are a legitimate company; therefore, if these sites are linking to your site, the search engine knows that you site must have something of value on it. Even if you are a legitimate company, there are few ways to get these kinds of links. If your product can somehow benefit you local government you may want to contact them about some sort of a link sharing agreement.
• The next most valuable links are from sites that are involved in the same topic or product type. For instance, if I wanted to sell solar panels, a great link for my site would be a non-profit site that teaches people the benefits of solar power. The best way to find these sites are to search the web for related sites, and contact them about sharing links.
• One thing you need to keep in mind is that you want all the links connecting to your site to have relevant keywords in them. Sometimes people will set up their links like this:

                       If you want a free necktie click here

• This is not good because the link text is only "click here." If one of my keywords is free necktie, then I would want my link to look like this:

                       Do you want a free necktie? 

• By having my links set up like this, I will rank higher on the search engines because they will know that this link is only for people wanting a free necktie.

Links to your website can be generated by many different ways. Some of the most effective for me are these ideas below.

• ADD This-Go here first and set up an account. This company allows you to create a share/bookmark button on your website; for instance, the button right under this. You can put this button on any page you want, but it could be a waste if the page is not one that people will get excited about. In the future it may be different, but right now, people usually only share sites that have very helpful content (like this page), if you offer free downloads, or if your page helps some kind of a charity.
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• YouTube-Make a YouTube video about your product and link the movie back to your site. Movies that generate the most traffic are ones that teach internet surfers how to do something. Other good movie sites are: Sell by Video and Meta Cafe
• Publicity Wheel-This is by far the coolest website for promoting online. You set up an account and earn "publicity points" by putting their adds on your website. If you get the most points in your categories (i.e. shopping, technology, business, etc.), your add will be placed on all affiliate websites for a week.
• PayPerBlog-For a small fee you can pay a blogger to blog about your product. They will write an article about it, link to your site, and send traffic to you all for as little as $5.99. SocialSpark is a similar site.
• EHow-If there is something that you can teach people about your product, get an account at eHow and write an article. You could choose to teach people about your product, teach them how to use it, or teach them the best places to get it. Also, if your product is information, you can post parts of your content to spark peoples interest. I've actually posted this article on EHow so you could read about how to start an internet business there too.
• PRLog-If your product or business is involved in anything that newspapers or news agencies might be interested in, you can write an article and post it on this website.