The short answer to this question is yes. Before delving into the particulars however lets make sure that the basics are covered.
Why have backlinks and what are they?
Backlinks are hypertext (i.e. blue line) links that point to a particular page on your website from another website. These are seen by Google as a vote from the originating site indicating that the destination it is pointing to has some value. Whatever text the link has also tells Google what that page may be about. So if you have ten links pointing at your page that say some variation of "dog training" then your page may appear in the search listings for dog training. Other factors apply here too so don't get too wrapped up in this explaination, it's just cursory.
Google loves to use backlinks as a voting mechanism. The more links that say dog training from various sources the more likely it is to rise in the search results page for that search term. As long as the links are of decent value (not from spammy sites) Google will count them, raising your ranking and therefore increasing your amount of visitors to your site.
How do you build links?
The hard way to do it is to ask. You look for other websites that are somewhat related to your topic (not neccessarily compittion mind you) and attempt to contact the webmaster for the site. You offer the webmaster something useful on your site that they might can use such as great content that thier readers might could use or perhaps an application or program that is available. Alternately you can have an article written to give that somehow relates your website's topic with the other webmaster's topic and include links back to your site.
The up side to this is that you can come back with some high quality links which are very beneficial. The down side is that it is a huge amount of work involved. Between contacting webmasters that may ignore you to following up ensuring link placement to making sure that the content is relevant and interesting... it can be a daunding task.
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Is there an easier way?
There are two ways that can make the effort easier. First is using a service that does it for you. This would be like you hiring someone else to find and create the links for you. This usually can be quite pricey and you have little control over where your links go.
Second is using a software sevice that automates the task for you. There are many versions of software out there that can provide this task, however none of them are equal. There are at least four traits that you need to look for in order to get your money's worth.
Multiple IP addresses
Google loves variety. The more spread out across the internet the better.
One way links
Even the resemblance of reciprocal linking may hurt the linking power. Make sure that there are no required links back from your site.
Slow growth
Google loves to penalize for unusual activity. Make sure that the addition of links to your site are a few at a time so that it appears more natural
Customized links
Make sure that you can put your keywords in the links to your site. There is little use of backlinking if you can't tell Google what your page is about through the link pointing back at you.
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back link builder