How many higher PR links do you need to make a difference?

I guess I just have a hard time thinking about all of these. Just seems a little odd to generate our own links and many links at that just to raise page rank.

 

1 good quality back link can give a 15 page site a PR3.

 

It's really to get the word out there what a great site you have Sites that let the world know they exist get more visitors. Whether you measure that in PR or in 'word of mouth' or in media presence (on or offline) doesn't really matter. A great book won't get sold unless someone or other makes a point of telling other people how great it is - that someone should be you, because you know how great it is. Advertisements and press releases and suggesting links to related websites are just ways to speed up that process. In the end it's an editorial decision on the part of the other website owner whether they want to link to your site or not. But if you want your site found, make sure people know it exists (in ways that you can live with).

Page rank is just a way google tries to measure whether something is popular. Trust rank is more important (though we don't actually know that much about it): tells google to trust your content. All these directories people keep telling us about on DP are really only going to help you, IF those directories themselves have trust-rank. So only submit to them if you want the easy road. The hard (but trusted) road is to find actual websites on the topic of your site, with links-pages and stuff like that - tell them your site exists and whether they want to look at your site.
Of course you can just sit still and hope your site gets found on its own speed -but that is very unlikely. You do need links to your site - whether they get there because your local newspaper wrote about you, or you won some award, or because a very popular webmaster just knows you and links to you - doesn't really matter. You do need links to your site: not for PR, but for getting the word out there that you exist.