First things first. Remove the portfolio section as they are thumbs of templates (still say your company name on them.) If he hasn't had any clients yet thats cool. Throw some simple sites together or something but don't go out there with pre-built templates claiming them as your portfolio (Baaaaaaaad for business).
Secondly there are many ways to promote your site - I had a slight advantage where I actually had a city portal site that brought in a fairly decent amount of traffic and I slapped a banner on it. But what you do is look for all the city directory sites. ie. (city.com, yourcityexplorer.com, hellocity.com etc...) and see about slapping a link on those sites. Also check for web design directories. Check with sites that offer local web hosting or computer related sites in your area and see about a Link Exchange. Keep all link exchanges relevant.
Then read my tutorial on
Top Ten Steps To Website Optimization it will help you help your buddy obtain page rank.
Key point here is word of mouth advertising by means of linking with affiliated and common sites. Make sure you create a link section and a site map. Blogs and Forums also help page rank.
Finally - update content. Search engines like fresh content!!
Best of luck!
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