There are many things you can do to try to raise your site's rank and a lot of them are free.
Here the key is working on getting other people to link to your site, and the best way to do that is to create killer content. Whatever your subject, people will always recommend something they enjoy and find valuable.
Also, continue your research in writing great content and how to build links to your site. The "Link Gathering Resources" page of this site has some good starting points.
One specific group that likes to link out are bloggers. The first blogs weren't all personal journals but some of them were link blogs, providing recommended links to sites that they thought others might like. Find blogs with your interests and become part of their community. Comment on their sites and link back them or use trackbacks if you have a blog of your own. Eventually they will find you and possibly link back to you.
A good place to find bloggers and maybe get your site linked is to find some link directories, especially those that are human edited, like our sister site Blog Universe. You can find more directories listed on our Resources page.
Another method of getting good inbound links is to purchase them. Text Link Ads is a company that has many different sites which will link to you on a monthly basis. Their directory is broken down by category and can be sorted by cost and rank.
For people reading this site, I have been able to make available a great offer from the people at Text Link Ads. Sign up via the ad below and you will be credited $100 to spend on sites linking back to you. This is a great way to test the market and get some valuable targeted traffic to your site inexpensively.