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Most sites say 90 days but the small print is that they will get you on page one for your brand name not your #1 key term or they will get a Google local page for you and get you ranking that way. It can take a while to rank well, depending on the keyphrases it can take years, and for the very long tail stuff just a few days/weeks. Links are still very important and you need to create good quality content on your site and then let sites that would be interested in knowing about that aware of it in the hope they will link to you. Be careful with your link building, Google is dishing out penalties left right and center. Get a link in some big directories like dmoz and yahoo. Get a facbook profile and twitter, Google loves social as well. Try to update them once a week. Even with just a small post. Write good content and interlink where possible to create a good internal flow. (don't over do it) It all takes time but all of a sudden it just happens and you start ranking well.