Conduct Keyword Research
Start with the broad keywords you would eventually like to rank for, then research longer tail variants that support those keywords and think about how you can write unique content that supports each of those long tail variants from different angles. Try not to be too greedy with the broad terms either. If your website is for a pizza restaurant in New York, concentrate on first being highly ranked for pizza in the local neighborhood, then once you have achieved that continue to work on being highly ranked for pizza in New York and so on. Too many times I see people trying to rank for a term like "pizza" right off the bat. That just leads to frustration because the number of competitors is so high.
Also, when researching the keywords be sure to focus on ones that actually have some search volume. Another thing I see all the time is people excited about ranking for 100s of keywords that don't matter. You can actually rank a page in about a week for some obscure term no one will ever look for.
Once you have great content and a decent amount of it, start sharing the content in natural ways to start attracting back links.
Use the services here on BHW for backlinks and articles