How to climb in the major Search Engines - little things that make a big difference

[Biggs101]

Over the past year or so, I have mastered the art of sales to end users. I continue to sell, almost every day to end users - but I am now also turning towards development so I can cut down on some of my pitching and enjoy a little residual income from small sites.

I have a small network of around 25 sites that are all LIVE since a few months. Most have very good searches for the actual term of the domain with lots of paying advertisers and good PPC potential. Most are getting a little daily traffic and occasional clicks.

My question is the following: most of the content/page titles/site description/meta tags/image tags revolve around the best search terms for each site - that part I have managed to learn. Now, I really need to find a solution in terms of article submissions to the right places, creating links on related sites, backlinks etc. to help the sites enjoy higher rankings and thus more traffic. If anyone could take 5mins and fire over some good advice it would be greatly appreciated. For ex, is EZineArticles a good place to start (article submission with links)?