I mean no offense by this, but if you've read most of the threads on this forum then you shouldn't need to ask this question. I'm no SEO guru, but from what I've read on here I know there's enough info to send you on the right path.. It's just down to you to read and imply what you learn. No one is going to give you there exact method to rank a site, Take tips from every thread you deem worthy and mix it together. Trial and error mate. Try something, if it doesn't work step it up to the next level and try something else. When you begin to see results you know what you tried worked and to scale it up.
From what I read though it's more to do with social signals now being facebook, twitter, =1's and so on, backlinks from web directorys and other similar sites still count but are not as important. Tiers aswell I beleive work wonders and can stop your site being penalised. Also check out a user on youtube called Matthew Woodward, i beleive he is a user on here aswell.
As I said I'm no SEO guru and tbh wouldn't really be able to give you any tips other than above. But if you're worried about something not working and causing a neg affect on your site I believe Google has a disavow tool to remove un wanted links.
