there is no answer for that. when you get enough traffic...

I´m not stopping because I have enough traffic, I wish that was the case! I´m stopping as it seems to be a lot of effort for little results. I see I have 2 roads to take, either stop the build and take a rest or pick up the pace of link building. However, increasing the pace of what i´m doing now would be risky.

Any other suggestions?

Link building should be an on going process...there is no point to stop. If the techniques you used are not effective you should try coming up with something new.

You might try taking a short break after these points are taken care of:

* You've examined each back link to each competitor that shows up on the first page or two of google's search results for the keyword(s) you are targeting.

* You've determined the value of each of those backlinks in terms of how much each one benefits the competitors place in the SERPs

* You've evaluated the value of the content on those competitor's sites to understand what's earned them those backlinks

* You've created content that is worthy of back links of equal or greater value than those of your competitors'.

* You've identified additional sites that are likely candidates for linking to your content-of-value.

* You've done a good job at contacting each of the sites that are good candidates for linking to your content-of-value and negotiating a link from them.

Until you've taken care of those things, it's not worth wondering whether or not your link building campaign has created any value yet--or whether you should take a break yet.

I'm very new to SEO and I'm just reading this thread and want to know more.

You've examined each back link to each competitor that shows up on the first page or two of google's search results for the keyword(s) you are targeting.

What is a backlink? Is that a link that links back to your site? So a forward link would be a link that links from your site to another site?

Also for this comment:

You've done a good job at contacting each of the sites that are good candidates for linking to your content-of-value and negotiating a link from them.

what are the negotiating tools with this kind of thing? Do you pay someone to have your link up there normally? Do you just reciprocate the link? Are there are incentives for them to link to you?

David.

Continue link building. And good content of course.

Concentrate on the optimizable on-site ranking factors, create exceptional, compelling, intelligent and unique content; make it important.

Leave off-site influences determine themselves naturally.