As mentioned before, you must invest in time building a presence online. 

If you dont have a budget , then you need to invest in time. You have to write articles and post on high PR sites. And these should be different sites. If you have been doing this consistently for a few months, google will update your PR when the next PR update takes place. Hopw this was helpful

There is a lot of good advice that has already been added as replies to your post. I don't know about any "fast" way to increase your PR. For me it has always been hard work, but rewarding. The key in my mind is the following : - Good clean content - Good relevant and high PR backlinks - Traffic is debateable, but I believe adds value. It takes a few months to see a change. Just keep on working at those backlinks, and usually within 3 months or so your work should be rewarded.

Your post was in August. It is now October. When I look at the page rank of your site it is a page rank 4. Am I mistaken? Or did you do something incredible to jump from 0 to 4?

You do not need to have a budget to get a high page rank. You can submit articles with your anchor text to article directories. Thisway  you can get one way backlinks,which will eventually land you high page rank. http://www.american-schools.net

Hi there,   As far as I know, Google only updates the Page Rank of a website by assesing its authority or being reputable. And also, the backlinks are one major factor for increasing your page rank.   Jack

Also bookmarking and sharing useful bookmarks on bookmarking sites can help buiding links.

High PR backlinks are considered as certificate of reliable site by google. More number of high PR backlinks to your website will relult in good PR. As we know, content is king for google so spread better content and build links to your site using directories, social profiles and more. Make sure that while doing this you don't spam and affect other users, instead share useful content and you will also be appreciated.

All the ideas listed are exactly what you need to do. Not just one of them but all of them. Get a lot of backlinks from sites all over the web by posting like everyone here has done with their web address listed .gov and .edu sites are great for backlinks due to the high PR of them You need to have links back from Twitter, Stumbleupon, Facebook, digg, reddit and you can advertise your facebook  page to get targeted traffic. You can also do the same on Stumbleupon.com.   Podcasts or some type of free informational giveaway is a great way to generate traffic but make sure you don't give away anything without getting an email address to build a list of interested potential customers.

You really do no need any budget to get high PR links. Focus on writing great content or make guest blog posts that have rich anchor text back to your website. This will ensure naturally occuring link fragments and possibly increase your PR.  You must remember that Google PageRank is not that important as it used to be. You should probably not use it as the primary barometer of your SEO rating, but take as a grain of salt.