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.

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Tip #8 — Don’t Put Off Building a List

Many people think that they can put off building a list until they are more “established” or until [enter your excuse reason here]. This is a mistake. Even if your traffic is low and you're brand new to online business, you need to build those relationships from the very start.

If you ask established Internet entrepreneurs what their biggest regret is, many of them will tell you their regret is that they did not build a list sooner. It doesn’t matter what your online business is – selling ebooks, offering a service, affiliate marketing, creating adsense sites, ecommerce, blogging, or direct selling – you need to build a list.
 

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Yet another great way to get traffic to your opt-in page and your website is to submit videos to sites like YouTube. There are many people who browse for videos on a variety of different topics. The description area of your video can contain a link back to your website. If your video is compelling enough, people will likely click over to visit.

One thing that many people forget to do is put a call to action at the end of the video. This is a great way to increase responses to get people to visit your website. You can even make it clear that there is something available for free if they do visit.

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Yahoo Answers is yet another way that you can get traffic to your website. People ask questions on this site on a variety of different topics – and you can provide answers. Yahoo Answers also tends to rank highly in search engines like Google, and people who need answers can search all the old topics as well as start new ones!

This is great for you when you leave an expert answer with a link to your website. Keep in mind that Yahoo Answers strives to keep the spam away, so make sure that the page you have linked to is actually helpful and relevant.