Promotion or Clutter?

I read a good article by Scott Jangro on his blog entitled "Voices Carry. Watch the F-bomb!" with some words for the wise on carefully selecting your blog titles when you know you're a member of these types of link exchange widgets. I was surprised that I was the first to Digg the story. It's a good read, so I recommend it.

I digress. This particular article perked my interest because in the last week or so I've joined several link exchange engines, BlogRush, MyBlogLog, BlogCatalog, and BumpZee to be exact, and understandably each one requires a reciprocal link on your blog to spread the word. It's just how they work... others link to you, you link to them. You scratch my back, I scratch yours. Honestly it's only fair.

So, I oblige. But as cool as widgets can be, they're getting to be a bit overwhelming. I've come to notice that there's a fine line between promoting one's blog on all available channels and cluttering up the sidebar with a million widgets that your readers will most likely avoid anyway. Maybe if I had a wider format template... but I haven't found a wider blog template that I like.

I know there are some people out there reading because Feed Burner tells me I have 6 subscribers.... this is your chance to tell me how to do my job! Any thoughts on which link exchange is best? Tips of the trade to share with me? Help me out!