Getting in top i sreally a hard work and it takes 60-80 days to be appear on major positions.However it all depeneds upon that you how efficiently you work..SEO is all about thinking and developing new and new techniques.Here is a free resource available www.site-optimization.net
decent resource, but in can all be summed up in one word: backlinks! With a few small on page things (title and H1 mostly, and some good interlinking pages), backlinks make all the difference