The first thing you need to do is make sure your site is key-word optimized for the search engines. For a new site, using low competition words can help you to get placed high on some search engines and give you much needed targeted traffic. If you have a site with several categories, doing at least one optimization a day will slowly but surely build your business. With more than one category this gives you an opportunity to be placed on the search engine with each category and not just your front page.

Another way to help build targeted traffic and links to your site is a blog. You can have the blog linked to your site. If you update your site regularly and 'ping' your blog with one of the free pinging services, you will gradually build your traffic and business.

There are many sites that have free content that you can use on your blog. Once you've set up the blog and find the right ping service, this would only take you a few moments a day. When using free articles, be sure and use proper etiquette, giving the author credit for his writing.

The tried and true way to build 'free' traffic and links, is articles. You can write about anything you want or about the services or products your website distributes. If you're not able to write the articles yourself, there are a number of services available that can do it for you (you pay). Then post your article to as many directories as possible. Webmasters are constantly on the look out for good, new content.

The number of links to your site is critical in your placement with most search engines. Articles and a blog help build your site targeted traffic slowly. But to speed up your linking process, you could search and join some link exchange sites. The more links the better.