To help you determine the best steps to become search engine relevant you will need marketing research tools. These free tools can help you determine weaknesses in your site and help you develop a plan of attack.
Goggle Toolbar - This tool will help you see if your site is being indexed in goggle and can also tell you what your external links are. Once you use this tool more, you will rely on it for many other things.
Quest Funnel Web Profiler - You can use this free tool to analyze competition to see what they are doing content/site wise that you are not. Really helpful for determining site theme.
Copyscape - This free site helps you make sure your content is original. This is very important to the search engines.
Check Server Header - use this site to check for bad redirects and other header problems. Search engines only like 301 redirects if any.
Google Analytics - Analyze your sites traffic to identify weak areas. Learn everything about your visitors. This tool is also free.
The best tool is you. Build your site's content and make your site the most resourceful site about your topic.
