As Craig said but I would check them out with due diligence. .

I would not "trade articles" though. You can give them permission
to publish a short extract of your article and link it to your website. That gives you a backlink, which is great if they are a reputable or reasonable site for linkage.

Also make sure their site is in your niche or closely related. Google does not give much weight to backlinks where the niche of the other site is totally unrelated to your niche. A few won't hurt but too many 2-way unrelated niche backlinks is not a good idea.

The quality of backlinks is more important than the quantity.

~Jude

I know I'm not Kyle, but I would just think about this from a logical perspective. Do you respect the site asking you to link to them? Do you agree with the content in the article they want you to link to?

If the answer to both of the above is yes then absolutely link. I link to authorities in my site all the time without them asking me to.

That being said, if they are specifically requesting a link I would kindly request something in return. Tit for tat and all that.

It is no big deal. Most new websites get their application denied because new websites lack lots of unique content and enough organic traffic.

Besides, you will not make more than a couple of cents until you start getting a lot of traffic coming to your website. Just move forward with the training and you can reapply again in another few months.

Google has told you why you were denied. They're telling you that your site does not have enough substantial content to be approved.

I think the site looks great, it just needs about 10x more content before Adsense will be willing to approve. Write blog posts without affiliate links - Google tends to disapprove 'ad heavy' blogs.