As you know from reading anything here, building backlinks is one of the most fruitful things you can do. Backlinks:

• Build ranking in the Search Engines
• Drive direct traffic, too (don't discount this one)

Put don't put all your backlinking eggs in one basket. Many IM guys try one tactic and that tactic may work – for now. But what if the Big G catches on?

For example, linkwheels are pretty popular. The idea is to get backlinks to a "money page" by writing articles and submitting them to popular article directories as well as Web 2.0 properties like Blogger.com.

One popular linkwheel method goes something like this:

• Write article. Put in two links – one to your "money page" (the page you ultimately want visitors to see and act on) and one to a Web 2.0 property.
• Write a second article or post with 2 links again, this time one to your money page, the other to the first article (prior bullet).
• Repeat, always linking to your money page with one link and with the other link pointing to the last article you posted.

This is all fine and good. What you're doing is building the rank and PR of the articles and posts to Web 2.0 properties (by backlinking to them) as well as getting a ton of backlinks to your money page.

However, linkwheels are pretty easy to spot. Especially if you do your linking with the same properties and in the same sequence every single time (so, don't do this).

What if Google decided that it would discount – or worse yet, disregard - any backlinks from linkwheels? Not that they would or have plans to, but what if they did and this was your only (or primary) backlinking methods?

You would be screwed, plain and simple.

So what I do and wholeheartedly recommend is to diversify your link building methods.

5 x 5 A System for Building Backlinks

I have a very simple system that I follow every day until I'm comfortable with my website's position in the SERPs. I call it a "5×5" system, very similar to a very popular strength-training system in the bodybuilding field.

Here's what I do (every day), put very simply:

1. I make 5 comments on other blogs. I don't necessarily care about PR or whether they are "do follow." I just make 5 value-added comments. One tool I use for this purpose is Comment Kahuna.
2. I make 5 forum posts in relevant forums. The purpose here is two-fold: One, I get the backlink, and Two, I build credibility in my industry.
3. I use "Angela's Backlinks," a very popular service that gives you roughly 30 high PR sites you can visit to get a backlink each month. (I know, 30 sites is only good for 6 days of backlinking here, but I have been a customer for quite some time and each month I can go through old packets to fill in 5 a day for a month). I highly recommend this service! Especially for a brand-new site. There really is nothing better than getting 30 very high PR backlinks when you first fire up a website.
4. I submit my site to 5 directories a day. There are a host of sites that have nifty indexes of literally thousands of web directories. Just find the appropriate category and then find the "submit URL" button. I used to use Directory Submitter by Brad Callen, but it seems to have been taken down and I lost my original copy. But everything you need is on the web – you just have to find it.
5. I make 5 submissions to social media sites like digg, StumbleUpon, Facebook, Twitter, and the like. A good "meta" social bookmarking site is Social Marker.

This is the bare minimum that I do with a new website. I also write a TON of articles, set up dozens of Web 2.0 properties, etc. I'll write more on this later. This will give you a really good start on building backlinks to a brand-new blog.

If you do the math, you'll have 750 backlinks by the end of your first month. Not bad. In fact, good enough to rank very high in the SERPs for well-chosen long-tail keywords.

I do have a few tricks up my sleeve for automating some of this, but I'll leave that for another post. If you want to learn more about any of this, just leave a comment.

I'm convinced that for "small sites" like what most of us have (we're not google or wikipedia), backlinks are the key to getting high search engine rankings. Of course, relevant backlinks matter, too, but the single most important thing is quantity of backlinks.

Here's a strategy I use to get TONS of backlinks to my sites. I call it Backlink Building Wheels.

Step by step:

1. Write an article for an article directory like ezinearticles.com or GoArticles.com (here's a good starter list of article directories). I like goarticles.com because it's quick, easy, and the search engines love it. Place one link in the body that points to a page or post on your site. At the end of this, you'll edit this article to complete the wheel. But for now, just place one.
2. Write another article that is similar to the first one and publish it in a blogger.com blog (free easy setup). In it, place two links – one to the page your want to promote (the SAME page as in #1) and one to the actual article that gets published in #1.
3. Write another article, this time on Live Journal. Two links – one to the same page on your site, the other to the article in #2.
4. Repeat 5-8 times. I use GoArticles.com, blogger, Live Journal, Squidoo, hubpages, and wordpress.com.
5. Go back to #1 and put in another link – this time to the LAST article you posted, thus completing the "Backlink Building Wheel."
6. Using social bookmarking services like ping.fm, promote all of the articles above.

This is a very productive strategy for getting relevant backlinks to your site. It may sound cumbersome, but once you get the hang of it, you can create one of these wheels in less than 15 minutes. Time well-spent for getting quality backlinks, if you ask me.

This strategy works well with other backlink building services such as Angela's Backlinks. Simply use #6 to promote the relevancy of each backlink you get.