Well here's the thing with search engine optimization.
Those who know it, don't say a word about it. It's hard to give SEO advice other than to do what you've been doing (reading up on it).
I'm no expert, but page relevance is very important (in terms of who you link out to, and who links in to you) as is peppering your pages with lot's of relevant text. They say meta-tags are a thing of the past but who knows, so I tend to keep them in, and again... relevant. Do you see a keyword forming here?
Best of luck Rachel.