yup. stick a web address in forum profiles, get a link back to your site on as many other sites as you can. try and get the link text to include a keyword or 2 if poss
google sees links to your site like a vote for your site - the more votes the higher you get
if the site that has a link to your site is itself a high ranking site for that particular set of search terms, that is like double or treble votes
don't go the daft route of thinking that hiding loads and loads of the same keywords on apage somewhere willg et you more attention - it will but they'll assume your spamming and delete you from google altogether. I did some work for BMW a couple of years ago, they'd tried spamming keywords to get a higher ranking on google - google deleted the entire BMW domain from its search results
BMW offered them a blank cheque to get re-instated google said no ta, we don't need the dosh, but did a agree to wiping the slate clean and letting them start from scratch again
with a new site, it'll take a few weeks till you start seeing any results in google rankings, then a slow move upwards if you do it right.
I went to town on the optimisation of the blog and get top spot on loads of different searches now, and page 1 on loads and loads more. Got to the point now that I make a new blog posts, its usually on google within an hour or 2
can make a big difference what you create the site in as well
beware on-line build you own site things, usually a pile of pish when it comes to SEO. decent CMS systems aren't too bad though