Backlinks are still the biggest ranking factor in how Google Bing or most other search engines work meaning to rank well SEO-wise you need the right kind of backlinks such as from say Microsoft.com or apple.com to take it to the extreme for quality sites.
Directory links should be done to help let Google know what country or niche you want to rank in for example if you are trying to rank in the UK would it make sense to get most of your Cititians from sites coming from Mexico and in the Spanish language?
The answer would know since this makes Google think your site should rank instead in Mexico and in the Spanish world instead of the United Kingdom and in the English language since directory links are mostly decided to boost brand reputation or help Google learn what niche or niches your site may be in such as like Health or software or another niche a like.
Some of the sites can be high quality allowing you to rank for like 100 to say 1000 keywords if the site is good enough quality some of the time. https://www.techcrums.com/best-digital-marketing-agency/
You must make sure your site content directory-wise is all unique if not it can sometimes only allow Google to index one of your one links out of 100 in some cases but not always so give it unique or at least spun content all the time .
How can we get high quality backlinks?
Buy them is normally a good option but be aware if it’s cheap or seems to good to be true it is probably and stay away from sites like Fiverr if it’s for client site since like 95% of the SEO stuff is sold on Fiverr is crap or hacked backlinks for the links sold on it overall or just resold other Fiverr stuff often as well.
You can with some training be able to get high quality guest posts yourself but you need to make sure your emails are high quality and your offer is attractive to all the webmasters you could if not you will get a lot of nos or charged more money over you sounding like a spammer in some of the cases so focus on being the best possible email sender when possible or pay someone to do it for you when possible. https://www.techcrums.com/when-to-hire-a-digital-marketing-company-and-what-to-expect-from-the-digital-marketing-company/
Do Profile or Forum links work anymore?
The answer would be yes but look for ones which come from sites which have at least 50,000 monthly traffic per month and rank for at least 10,000 keywords to make sure thye come from high quality sites not just spammy rubbish which is often what most SEO people do short term or long term for why they often make no money or little by being lazy or inconfident often.
Forums aim for sites that rank for over 75,000 keywords when possible and get minimum of 25,000 you can find a lot of these sites in Eastern Europe often such as Ukraine or Russia so check there but you must speak either of these languages to get accounts accepted normally.
