SEO: Organic Ranking w/o Spamming

[freeztar]

I'd be interested to hear people's ideas on this. I have several sites that I'm trying to promote through SEM and SEO. Right now, I'm focusing on SEO. I've read that one of the best ways to improve organic search rankings is to be linked and relevant across as many sites as possible. The better the ranking of the host site, the better the improvement in search ranking.

 

So, what's the best way to do this without spamming. I'm going the blogging route right now, but I feel like I'm missing something major. I do know about affiliate programs, but I haven't gotten there yet.

 

Any ideas or tips?