Old standbys:
-Pick keywords with low SEO competition (under 100,000 results from a phrase search, rival pages have few authority backlinks).
-Buy aged domains (use as the actual site url, or set up 301's to redirect traffic).
-High PR links from related actual pages, with low outbound links
New standbys:
-Pile up on social signals (going forward, likes are more important than links)
-FRESH content, on larger sites (30+ pages, create a mechanism to add new posts, dynamic are better than static sites)
-Domain Authority and Page Authority are more important than page rank (DA/PA > PR).