Launched an SEO Friendly web Directory one year before, looking for tips to permote

we launched a SEO Friendly Directory before one year as www[dot]Yourowndir[dot]com. We did most of the work by ourselves to cut the budget. . now it is much improved and not half what it had been at first, and it's really great to hear someone say "well done" to us. Quite a few people have encouragingly told us that our website looks nice and it would take off if well managed. Praisal is dear to me, but the dearer is appraisal. I know it is far from being "really nice". Your suggestions will be invaluable to me because I believe there is still a lot room for it to improve.

Of course the most serious problem we are met with is SEO. Despite our efforts to promote it, there are still much less visits than expected. We targeted customers worldwide, but I have had no experiences in Internet promotion and feel very dazed these days, being afraid that I was wasting time. I am totally on SEO these days and hope I can make a difference in the near future. If you have any advice for this you will do me a great favor, since I am almost a sharp newbie in this respect.

Please offer your feedbacks whatever so I can work out the way to go on.

thanx a million
Raj singla