[mjtaylor]

Are quality and reciprocal links diametrically opposed? I don't think so. Link exchanges are not the ticket to the top that they once were, and having reciprocals as a large part of your backlink strategy is not what I recommend. But links with relevant sites can be perfectly natural. You might create a resource for users linking to other local businesses or tools that are helpful to your audience. It is perfectly natural to ask the other webmasters for the courtesy of a returned link, and some will give it to you, some won’t. If you added the resources for the right reasons – useful content for your visitors – whether you get a link back won’t matter. It also makes sense to exchange mini articles with relevant sites. You each add content of value to each other’s site and get a contextual link back. Good for the users, good for traffic and good for SEO.