Getting links through quality content, social bookmarking, blog networks, and link exchanges are all good things, but sometimes the links you get though such things does little to nothing, so I thought I'd give a few ideas that can change that...

First I'd like to say Social Bookmarking is the Prince (content is still king) and while reading through this you'll find out why...

Bite your own linkbait:

What good is having a fantastic article if no one is reading it? Getting the word out about your content can be as tricky as getting the word out on your main site, but it really does not have to be. If you have something worth reading, then there is nothing wrong with socially bookmarking your own work (though going overboard can get you banned on Digg so please read their policies). A quick Stumble thumbs up and you'll have at least one backlink, and a few readers (keep in mind outbound links there are nofollow). But down stop there, blog about your article, that'll be another link pointing to the main site, and possibly a few more readers. And it keeps going...

Chances are if you are reading this you are a forum owner, so start a thread on the article. Have them link back and forth from each other. Write your article and at it's bottom add in something like "If you'd like to discuss this article see here <insert thread link>" and in the thread quote 10-15% of the article to get the discussion going in the community with a "Would you like to know more" type of link back to the article. If you are a member of several communities within your niche, you can start a thread on each one.

If you do start a thread on several forums over the same article you have to be leary of duplicate content. So maybe rather then quoting the same bit in each one of them, maybe paraphrase several times. You may surprise yourself on how many ways you can say the same thing...and while you are paraphrasing, maybe just re-write the entire article and submit it to article directories. Be sure to include a link back to the main site (rather then the original article).

So now you have one FANTASTIC article that has spawned several threads on various forums as well as several off-shoot articles that are resting nicely in random article repositories. Is anyone reading them? Most likely, but why not help those along too... give each thread a stumble, and don't forget to add the other articles to the list as well.

So as you can see, it's not all about just one article, it's about what you can do to that article once it's written and up on your site. vBulletin-FAQ does this. Look on the main index and see how many of the articles posted here have threads about them, then search and see how many other sites have discussions based on these those articles (granted, not all the others are started by Joey).

Don't write something worth reading and hope someone reads it...help spread the word!