Are either of these link building options good?

[Pride]

I'm just starting to do link building for my site. I plan on doing press releases and articles, but I also would like to know if the following will help my site in the SERPS:

Does leaving comments on blogs help at all?

How about posting at forums related to my sites subject matter?

Thanks for your help.

[AussieWebmaster]

forum link drops are never liked... some allow signatures but most of those are no follows

[beu]

To add to what Aussie said, lots of blogs also nofollow comment links.

It's best to focus on content that's of value to users and not spamming forums and/or blogs.

[Pride]

Thanks for the answers. And just FYI, I have no spamming intentions.

[AussieWebmaster]

good man... then you should do well

[amitbhalla]

I think both are good but you should focus on content that's of value to visitors and no spamming there.

[pchieng]

If forum links and blog comments have nofollow tags, what is the point in posting in them in the first place, from an seo perspective i mean. Is it only for the traffic? If you say something relevant, users will be more likely to go visit your site?

[padhamanabhasharma]

seo perspective:

forum -> no because of no follow links
blog comments -> no because of no follow links
directory submission -> yes, because one way incoming link
article submission -> only to one page per article instead of all bunch of article directories