Circling around your niche's sites, getting a fewer backlinks from the related sites is far better than having 100 of off-topic backlinks from other niche sites. What is Themed link building ? Themed link building is a process to obtain links from your niche's related sites. For example; You have a website for clothing, you may go after websites related to fashion industry. How to achieve Themed link building ? It's the same process you execute to obtain links from different sites. All it counts the links you obtain from your niche's related sites. Why it is important to have Themed links ? Search Engines care for the relevancy, so the relevant links you're receiving from related sites will ultimately boost your site's ranking.
Way to respond with absolutely zero connection to the ops post! As to the OP. Yeah Themed links or RELEVANT LINKS is what helps you rank. Getting High Page Rank Relevant Links has always worked for seo.