How to link build correctly?

I don't have a link building strategy as such but my site benefits, I feel, from the work I do as "the career expert" and "job search expert" on closely related (but not directly competitive) sites. I get quite a lot of visits because of it (sales not so many, sadly ).

it seems to me this is an approach all of us service providers could use to our advantage.

I disagree Linda. (always like to buck the trend).

You have Googles ideal linking strategy, you generate content. This content then generates links, completely natural, and ungamed.

Now the trick is to get this content to drive more targeted traffic, and from there hopefully conversions. If you're getting the traffic but not the conversions, then maybe it's time to do some analysis and try and figure out why? Can you track your sales funnel, see where the issue is?

Just done this exercise myself, and found our validation email was causing a bottleneck

If you are doing SEO well and not using any kind of paid links then it is known as organic SEO and always provide natural results and search engine like it. One can get top rank in SERP by building non paid links. No doubt free links are effective but these should be quality links.