One really important thing that no one has mentioned yet is the AGE of your domain. if you 'start with a new site that has never been indexed' you may be making things more difficult due to the domain's age.
Where possible, try to use a domain that has been around for some time, just check to see what type of inbound links you have already.
SEO (search engine optimization) is not just a one time thing. it is an ONGOING type of work, an industry on its own, that if done properly over a long-term can yield very rewarding results.
Now, great sites provide great rankings... the most important thing aside from inbound links to your site with the anchor text you are trying to rank for....is CONTENT. Why would people link to your site if it was not full of great original content and information about your niche?
Write 300 words of Content for each keyword you are looking to promote, have it on its own page with the appropriate URL Structure
i.e. www.domain.com/directory/sub-directory/k…
You MUST have different titles for EVERY SINGLE PAGE.
You MUST have different META DESCRIPTIONS for EVERY SINGLE PAGE.
Make a SITEMAP.
make an HTML sitemap, and an XML sitemap with differing priorities where the homepage is 1.0 and the other pages are ranked from 0.1-0.9 depending on the 'importance of the pages' where something like a privacy policy is 0.15 and the 'services' page is like 0.85 or something along those lines.
Sign up for Google's Webmaster Tools and then you can check to see what people are searching for to find you, as well as see any duplicate titles or meta descriptions.
Make a blog in /blog and setup plugins (blogged about this recently)
http://www.wpromote.com/blog/2008/07/24/…
Or just hire an SEO firm to do this for you.