The previous posts are right on point. The best place to start is with a clear focus of who you are and what your website will be offering others (what is your brand in clear terms). I’d also suggest reading “The Art of SEO”. You’ll learn how to research your competitors to see who’s linking to them and what keywords they are targeting. Keyword research and building a strong link-building strategy will be a critical part to your success. Once you have a strong set of keywords and you have a general idea of who you would like to target for links, you’ll then need to think about what kind of content you can develop to attract the attention of those you need links from.
To be a bit more specific to a site such as yours, it sounds like you are looking to build a website revolving around consumer complaints about products, brands, business, etc. Some likely places to research for keywords might be www.complaints.com or www.complaintsboard.com. Research them (and many other competitors) using SEOmoz’s Competitive Link Finder, Open Site Explorer, or other tools.
A place to work from regarding a link-building strategy may be in the form of a video broadcast that discusses some of the most egregious offenders (complaints) or bad brand PR. You could drive traffic to the site through twitter, facebook, and youTube campaigns to build popularity and interest. It is always important to put yourself in the shoes of your target consumers and try to visualize what they would want to gain from visiting your website and what might initially pull them in (link bait).
Anyway, I hope this helps you on your path to SEO success and if I can be of any further help, let me know.
-Ryan
