1. Raise Pagerank using Google's Backlinks Tool

This technique is very effective but requires lots of searching. How to employ it?You basically need to find sites similar to yours and check their backlinks in Google. You can do that using the Google Toolbar or by typing link: http://www.similar-site.com in the Google search box.

You then go visit each site that links to them. Most link pages listed there have a pagerank of 4 or greater, the ones with lower pagerank generally don't appear, although I've seen some of the come up. Some of the links you find listed may be directories the owners of the similar site have submitted their pages to or resource pages of other sites.

It is hard to get backlinks anyway, because you have to e-mail people, fill in forms e.t.c, but this strategy gives you the places where you can get them, almost effortlessly.

2. Raise Pagerank using Seo Guy's Pagerank Tool

To further improve pagerank, you can also use this great tool created by Seo Guy here, to search with keywords and set a limit of the minimum pagerank the sites in the results must have. For example, if your site sells widgets, then you may want to find pagerank 5 and higher pages with the word widget in them.

For better results, you might want to search for "widgets"+"add url" (or any other similar phrase such as add a link, submit site e.t.c) so that you are sure the webpages that appear in the results present a linking opportunity to you.

But then again, you've only found the places. Now you must send friendly e-mails, fill in forms, perhaps register for stuff e.t.c. But at least, half the work of raising pagerank is done.