There are several ways to gain backlinks for the website; the most popular approaches are article submission and one way link building through directory submission. What you need to do is build up the list of good and updated directories that accept one way links and don't bound the webmaster to provide reciprocal links in return. Ideally you must not go for reciprocating as it's not very beneficial as SEO point of view; you ought to consider only one way link building. The most important thing when submitting website link in the directories is the appropriate category, always submit your link within your niche otherwise it will be taken as a spam link. Don't be a spammer by putting your links into directories blindly without reading as which categories fall in your niche, this may serve as a big disadvantage for the website. Make sure that your directory list is updated and all links are valid and have some page rank, no matter if you using any directory of zero page rank but try to get links from highly reputed directories so that to get benefit. Bad directory links won't do any good to your website and are useless in the search engine optimization.
Article submission is another good way and tool to build one way backlinks, today best article directories are Ezinearticles.com and Articlesbase.com, Ezine has strict guidelines for the publishers when it comes to quality copywriting. This portal is also a good resource to build link and drive traffic, you need to compose good articles in your niche and post them in credible article directories to create quality inbound links.