A small Promotion project, HELP

Hello, through personal interest I need help on how I can promote a certain
link that would take the person to a website to sign up.

For educational purposes let's leave the specific link/website out of this.

What are some ways I can gain referrals? I've made a small webpage explaining the website with the referral link on it. I have the direct link to the website also. How can I promote this so that at least say 20 people sign-up a day.

(the website is very beneficial, interesting, and making an account is as simple as making an email account)

HELPPPPP

~Specifics ~

I've created a webpage/site explaining what the website I am trying to get people to make an account with is. On the website is a referral link. When a person clicks on the referral link, they are taken to the mentioned website's homepage to create an account.

Every created account on the website that has been made through my referral link gives me rewards (let's say 50 cents).

Now, I have submitted my webpage to most search engines, such as google, yahoo search, and bing.
I somewhat understand backlinks (more backlinks you have, the higher page rank of your website) -correct me if I'm wrong please. I've been going to various forums, blogs, comments, and leaving my link all over the place.

So far I have gotten 5 referrals through all this hard work... Also my website doesn't even show up on google... does it take a while after subitting the url? Help