First, you need to have realistic expectations. Web sites do not get in the top 10 in search engines over night. There is a lot of hard work that needs to be put into a site for it to rank high. I would grab a pen and paper and write down your main competitors. Then I would use the Google Toolbar to check their pagerank and incoming links to see how they rank. The higher the pagerank and more links pointing to your site, the higher your site will be in the search engines. Once you see how many links are pointing to their site and how good their pagerank is, you have an idea how much work is needed to get your site listed.

Link trading is the process in which you will get these links pointing to your site. You need to contact other similar, good ranked pages and tell them how trading links will benefit both sites, and then link to them, and in exchange they will link to you. The more pages linking to you the better, but remember quality, relevant high pagerank sites is what your looking for, you want your link to be on a pagerank 2 site as least, preferably 3+. Managing your link exchange program takes time, some software on the market can do this for you, some of the software is good, some bad. I would recommend adding the links to your site manually to start, until you get a better understanding of the SEO world.

Articles are another good method to establish links to your site. Unlike a regular link exchange which is just a sentence with a link, publishing an article you wrote will give other websites quality content about your business / products and also link back to your site. Most article sites do not require a link back to them, so when your link is published search engines count that link better then a standard link exchange because you are not linking back.

One-way links is just that, a link to your site, but in return you do not link back. Articles are great one-way links, but so are directories! There are numerous directories on the internet ranging from shopping to home improvement. You can go to these sites, and either for free, or a small fee you can submit your site to them. Having your site listed in the major directories benefits your site in 2 ways. First, you get a link back to your site, increasing your link popularity, and second, people searching the directories for your product may see your site and buy from you.

As you can see, getting your site listed in the major search engines will take some time to do, you need to manage a link exchange program, submit your article to publishers and directories, and maintain your current website, but remember if you take your time, and establish your presence steadily over time, then your website will begin climbing in the search engines, and you will begin to enjoy the benefits of increased traffic.