link building campaign question

Hi

I would like to compare my way of working with more experienced SEO's on this forum especially
the part of link building.

I have an access database with about 200 free for inclusion directories and about 70 sites which are
publishing articles.

Usually I ask from them to write few articles from their area and I submit these articles on sites from my database.

If the customer keywords are competitive, then I advice them to get listed on directories
like business.com msn small business directory, yahoo directory and in bunch of smaller directories where
you pay once for a life time.

Since my customers are small business owners, until now I did not use press release sites to get some links, they
simply have no news to be worth to be presented. Am I wrong about this?

If these techniques are not good enough to get high ranking for desired keywords, what should I do?

Recommend them to buy text links from different link brokers?

What about reciprocal links? Are they worth the effort?

Any advice & recommendation is welcomed.

My advice would be to first check the PR of the article directory and then submit the articles.

Also add the articles on your site before submitting them . Doing other way round would invite duplicate panelty from Google.

Reciprocal links from quality theme based side would definitely help. But the best can be achieved with one-way links for your site.

It is always better to use Press Release. Write anything.. may be research snippets on the industry they are in ....just write.

Yes, press releases can be slapped together easily with little information. Take the latest information in the company... say a new hiriing or something and make a PR out of it.