I'd like to give you some basic guidelines to follow so you can slowly and effectively build links back to your website in this post Google Penguin filter age.
I've mentioned the Google Penguin a few times, but let me just quickly recap and say that it's a filter Google is now using to figure out when you are unnaturally building or paying for link schemes.
In times past, if you wanted to rank highly for the phrase "engagement rings" you would use a variety of techniques to create links with those words as the anchor text of your link. But now you're more likely to get higher ranking when you have information about engagement rings on your website and you link to it with the simple anchor text of "click here."
That information on your website could be a blog, educational article, or a newsletter archive; anything as long as it provides information about engagement rings. Letting people know about that information, and linking to it, requires some new strategies, which are actually old methods from 1995!
One simple way to tell people about your website is to post comments on forums and jewelry blogs. Each forum/blog will have different requirements for commenting, some require you to create an account, some require you to log in with Facebook/Twitter, and some allow you to post anonymously.
Given the chance, I recommend that you log in with your Twitter or Facebook account before posting a comment. Once logged in, your comment will post to your Facebook timeline or to your Twitter. That social activity increases your visibility to others, and could increase your followers.
On the other hand, if you can post anonymously or if you need to create an account, you should be completely transparent in who you are and what you are going. In that respect, each time you post a comment somewhere you should leaving your full name, store name, and your website URL.
You shouldn't use long URLs in your address, but you could use a 301 URL redirects to control where people land. You could also include a short tag line in quotes to explain who you are.
Example:
Matthew Perosi
Perosi Jewelers
"Amazing Color Sapphire Selection"
http://www.perosijewelers.com/acss
The "acss" part of that above example website address would be controlled on my website and it would 301 redirect the visitor to the sapphire selection page or some other page. If you don't want people to land on your home page then this 301 shorthand method of URL redirecting is very convenient. You will need to ask your web programmer for help setting up the 301 redirects.
Before you comment on a blog, make sure that it's a good website and that the comment will eventually be worth something to you. One way I measure good websites is by looking at their Google PageRank and AlexaRank. I use the Quirk Search Status extension for Firefox (download it here: http://quirk.biz/searchstatus/ ).
Once that's installed in Firefox, you should keep a lookout for websites with PageRank 3 or higher, and AlexaRank of 2,000,000 or lower. Websites falling within those 2 guidelines will generate enough traffic to make a difference for you, and it's those sites you should try to comment on, or somehow socially engage.
So there you have it: Transparency in comment posting, linking to social sites when possible, and making sure you are commenting on high traffic sites will build some links back to you, but more importantly, increase traffic over time.
