I'm new to search engine optimization and link building and all the other stuff that goes along with promoting a website, but I'm trying my hardest. Alas, I want to work smarter, not harder, so that's why I'm enlisting the help of this forum... so much knowledge and help... it makes me teary-eyed just writing about it. Down to business. I have submitted my site to countless directories. I haven't been doing reciprocal links simply because most of the articles I've read have advised against it the new grand scheme of things. I have paid for some directory listings such as botw.org, seoma.net, and sbd.bcentral.com. I have been using Yahoo!Search Marketing for several months now. I have created blogs and submitted them to blog directories. I have written articles and submitted them to article directories. Yet, my page rank waivers between 2 and 3. Is this normal? For all the work I've put into the site, it seems like I should have a higher page rank, but again, I'm new. I would appreciate any critiques of my site and any help or suggestions to improve my plight. My website is www.bendmortgagegroup.com Thank you for any help or suggestions.
Don't worry that much about PR... worry about visitors! Still, missing in the list of things you tried is getting one way links from related sites, those will benefit you much more than reciprocal links.
If you do that with quality sites providing good information and from which your visitors will actually benefit, then GO FOR IT!
What is the best way to go about doing that? Do you email the related sites asking them to link to you?