They neglect a lot of the “old school” methods of building links in favor of the “flavor of the week” method of building links.

One of the most neglected methods I see is using directory submissions.

Well, this is very much and old school method and it does take some time and work to do well. Also, there isn't a lot of money in the directory business, so it tends to not be in the limelight when people talk about how to build one way links to a website.

That's really unfortunate because using directories can be a great way to improve your search engine rankings.

First of all, with just about all directories you get a one way link to your website. Some directories will want you to pay, and for really popular directories, the fee is worth it, but there are literally thousands of directories that you can submit your site to for free. So if you want a way to build links to your site for free, try this one out.

I try not to get too hung up on Google Pagerank, but for a lot of people, having a higher Pagerank not only means better search engine rankings, but it's simply a matter of pride. Getting links from directories can be an easy way to boost your Pagerank up a notch or two.

Getting in the higher quality directories can also help you get a better Trustrank score with Google. This is one of the algorithms that Google uses to rank your site, and it's especially important if you want to rank well for competitive terms. While most directories won't help you get a better Trustrank score, the best ones certainly seem to (Google never says which sites are in their list of “trusted” sites). I'd recommend getting yourself a Yahoo Directory listing and trying for a DMOZ listing until you get one.

And while you're not going to get rich off of traffic from the directories directly, you can get a nice little stream of traffic flowing into you site from directories if you are consistent and keep getting your site in more and more directories over time.

So if you want better search engine rankings and more traffic to your website, then be sure to add directory submissions to your war chest of link building methods.