This is a subject affecting many businesses in Nottingham and elsewhere. It is will known that each inbound link to your website is seen by most search engines (and most importantly by Google) as a vote for your site and will enhance your position in the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs). How much it affects your position depends upon a number of factors.
If you have one inbound link from a major website such as the BBC, this one link can have a profound effect on SERPs. If the link is form one person's blog then it will have little or no effect. However, if there are links to your site from many small blogs they can all add up to great effect. So the answer is to get a few links from some very important and respected sites or as many links as possible from many small websites.
Aso, the text that is placed with the link can have an effect. If the websites links to yours by just the web URL (for example www.nquk.com) then an opportunity is missed. However, if the link contains a key phrase that you are targeting (for example web design nottingham) then that phrase is read by Google and can help you rise theough the SERPs not just in general but also specifically for that phrase. So try and get your all important key phrases into the text of the links.
Semantics are becoming increasingly important in terms of search engine optimisation. It has been popular for some time now to obtain inbound links from directories and link farms. However, as each day passes, this is becoming less effective. A website that covers many subjects is worth far less to you than a website whose prinicipal subject is related your your important key phrase. So for example, if Net Quality's website is in a directory about Internet services or web design, then any inbound link from there is more valuable as the search engines know, by the analysis of semantics that the two are related and therefore lend more importance to the link. If the inbound link relates to web design in Nottingham, it becomes even more useful as the location makes it very specific.
There is no simple way for Nottingham businesses to get lots of quality inbound links to their websites and nor should there be. It is something that you should always be building upon in a natural way. Building website content that is so useful it naturally attracts inbound links is one of the best ways to achieve this. It can be the start of something that will naturally build up and you will find your website gaining new inbound links naturally and without your knowledge. This is work that never stops and as search engines become cleverer at analysing the true quality of links between websites, it is work that will become increasingly difficult but never impossible.