I can see how they can work(the traffic and link exchanges), but it is very time consuming. I think my time is honestly better spent learning about my company. I do believe articles, blogs and forums work well. I haven't done any articles yet. Not honestly sure how to go about that. Sometimes I think that maybe I am not ready to write an article yet. One of these days.

I do know that marketing and advertising is huge. There is lots of good posts here to learn from.