Just take your time with keyword reasearch, work to get backlinks from quality + related sites, think about a few linkbaits and use social sites to make them go viral. It took me two months of work (A few hours a day) to get to top 30 for "seo". I expect to hit the first page in a few weeks time. All done with 0 investment. Obviously there are a few tricks i am not going to reveal but these just save you time really.
PS: Unique website helps a lot. Think outside of another proxy or arcade crap.