Reciprocal linking does not have the effect it used to.

If you are asking for links right now, stop sending automated link requests. Instead, focus on getting natural links from related sites by using ?link bait?, in other words, content that is worth linking to because of its value. When offered a link from partners, make sure their page doesn't have more than 100 links already in it, look for 20 links max when possible, and also that their site is related to the theme of yours. At last, check that you are getting traffic from the link, or drop it.

Article swa and article partitioning.

Engage in article swap with link partners, and break articles in parts to create a series of them for your visitors to follow (partitioning). Include comments when applicable in all articles (in a different color to distinguish, hint: blue) since it gives visitors great commented content and overcomes duplicate content penalties.

Your internal linking structure.

You want PageRank to be passed to your traffic pages, so avoid absolute links to About Us, Privacy Policy, etc. Here the have a good combination of absolute and relative links is a must. Use absolute links within your content areas, not in you navigation. The PageRank score is directly affected by this. The ?run of site links I filter includes internal pages now, so keep this in mind. Also make sure you have a relative link to your home page from every page. You should link to directories or portals that are authoritative as far as your external links. Always use your targeted keyword phrase for the anchor text. It is also wise to vary your anchor text when linking to your internal pages and it always should match your unique phrase.

A few more words on PageRank.

Any PageRank of less than 4 is not counted by the algo. That explains why Google shows much less back links for any domain than other search engines. You need to gain good incoming related links, not just any links. Again, the less is more I concept could be applied here as well. Few good quality links always out weight lots of low quality unrelated links from other sites. Outgoing links are viewed from a different angle, and are related to ?the theme I of your site. There is an optimal ratio between the qualities vs. the quantity in links. You need to get as many links from pages with a high PageRank and a low number of total links in them.

Your link campaign goals.

Set yourself some achievable goals when it comes to links. Be realistic, and try to get one link exchange, article swap, directory submission, forum comment, etc. per day. Verify quality of all links, and use the no follow I link attribute or directly remove all links from any site with 100 or more links on their page that is not an authority site.