First thing you should do is to make sure your website is SEO optimized.
Backlink from quality sites could certainly improve your site's natural ranking, but if your article doesn't add value to those quality sites, why do they bother to link to your site? Also, if you are talking about the same article submitted to hundreds of sites, no quality site will take it because duplicate content is a big no no for Google ranking.
Like everything else in life, you get what you pay for.
Speaking of pay for, you can also try to increase your paid Google ranking. Here you are using money in exchange of your efforts of writing hundreds of articles, negotiating with quality site owners, and submitting tailored articles to those sites.
