The key to getting good rankings is good content and patience. Good content is required to get the kind of links (and quantity of links) you'll need to rise to the top. Even with that kind of content, you are starting off behind everyone who launched ahead of you and you have to play catch up. This takes time and some work to do.

You'll need to start off by making sure your on page factors are optimized. Once you have done that you can begin an offpage campaign which pretty much consists of growing your incoming links preferably from ontopic sites with good anchor text in those links.

Truly CONTENT is the king. So better to concentrate on making the sites CONTENT RICH. Moreover normal backlinks are not sufficient. Any site requires good quality and relevant backlinks to get higher SERPS.

I would suggest you to have keyword rich unique content instead; also try to post articles in relevant blogs and article directories. Signup and provide answers at different forums/blog.
Lastly keep patience...