You seem to have the right morale but you are planning on killing it. Aiming for 1 million unique visitor is not bad so long as you are realistic about it and you set a realistic time to achieve it. I hear you talking about not using classified, blogs and so on. There are so much you can acheive with those two when done correctly. First you need to optimize your site. This part can be done by a SEO firm but the rest can be handle by your self except if you have some money to throw around. You need to create a blog and have it integrated to your site. So that any blog post you make will be building your a fresh page on the search engine. And content is the food of the search engine. You need to build back links using blogs, online classified, social networking, forums, directories, link exchange and many more. There you have a good marketing tips for FREE.
If you choose a top SEO company you're probably going to pay a hefty price tag. Just make sure that you do your diligent homework before selecting someone.