SEO for a Successful Web Site

Hi Keith,

Thanks for visiting my blog!  Your question is a good one and can not be answered with a simple yes or no.

First, the links you make to a site are NOT important - what is important are the links that are pointing to your site.  The ONLY thing that makes those links beneficial is if those links pertain to your particular industry.  For example:

If you can get another real estate agent to link to your site, good.
If you can get a real estate agent in your same state better. 
If you can get a real estate agent in your same city best.

This covers the portion of your question that deals with good links, now let's address the next part "sites that are being updated regularly."

Sites are ranked based on several elements.  A couple of the biggies are amount of content on the page (over 1,000 words are preferred) as well as updated content.  Both of these factors help to determine the site's relevancy. If a site links to you, it's content is relevant and the content is being updated regularly, then yes the incoming link is helpful.

There is not one single thing you can do SEO wise to improve your rankings dramatically.  Think of it as a recipe in a kitchen - it takes several ingredients combined "just so" to make it a perfect dish.  And more than likely you will find hundreds of variations in recipes for one single dish...just as each SEO consultant you meet will probably do one or two things differently.  What's important is finding an SEO specialist that will modify the recipe until your site does well.

I hope this answer helps!