The top competitor for the keywords I'm going for only has PR 2, and I know that a lot of people here have been able to get PR 3 on their websites pretty easily. I know that submitting to directories is a common recommendation, which I've been doing, but it often takes months before you get listed and even on the ones that instantly list, Google doesn't seem to be picking up the backlinks. Do you have any tips on how to get PR3 more quickly?
Try to collect backlinks from PR 4 pages. Just 3-4 will be sufficient but all are theme based. Do regular directory submission. The content should be unique to. And rest of the thing is work according to the guidelines of the search engines.
Try to link exchange with same topic n buy link from pr5.buy 6months or 3months.for sure your pr is going up
Link building is time taking process or buy some high pr links. linkmarket.com would be good for you to exchange links.
If you are looking for instant backlinks, of course one of it is to do blog commenting on high PR blogs. Make sure that the page has high PR or else, it won't have any effect. The downside is that you really need to spend some time looking for these blogs.
I thought do regular directory submission on higher page rank directory.after some time u will achieve the higher page rank.
A couple of PR 4 links mixed with some other lower quality page links is usually enough. Beware though that just because your PR is higher than your competition doesn't mean you'll rank above them. It's only a small part of the algo.