I think some of the advice on here is just plain bad. Sorry.

You do not want to link to "as many sites as possible", nor do you want to drop links around the web for linking's sake. Google has made it pretty darn clear, that was they look at is "relevant" links, or links that both contain your keywords that match the topic and keywords in the pages they link to and are linking from relevant sites. This is a site that is popular in terms of subject matter that is close or matches your subject matter. The whole idea is to drive people who actually care about the subject matter you cover to your pages with more information....and to keep them there, without bouncing if you can.

This not only makes a "better search" according to Google, it also happens to work for you! By using fewer links but highly targeted ones where people are actually looking for your product, content, or information, you actually increase not only your search results for your keywords, but you actually sell more product, or service. I know, as Ive been tracking the sucecss of my product sales for some time using Analytics at Google. At one point I was posting hundreds of links to and from affiliates and building large volumes and farms of links to my site. What did it help, other than maybe give me a little more traffic. Not much!

What helped both my search and sales for my site was reviewing the types of traffic coming in, versus what Google was giving me in search. As I dropped the affiliates and focused on a handful or very rich, very populare sites where I knew my customers were, my sales doubled and now doubling again. Also, it has allowed me to look at the buyers who found me and purchase using search. As I align my content with my relevant link partners with my keywords, its improving by leaps and bounds.

This applies to those of you trying to build large advertising revenue as well. The more targeted and niched your relevant links, and which align with your sites content and keywords, you can then better target the advertising and see better results. Ive made more money selling hosting and ISP banners (because they align with my customer base) than I have posting thousands of impressions and click-based ads on all my others sites. So, think about that. Dont go filling the web with irrelevant links to your site. FInd out where your focus is and get people wanting to link to you. The affiliate and link farm strategy does not work. Hope that helps! ~ Stormy