Even if you don't have any unique visitors to your site and the search engines are unaware you are there, most business' are still driving some sort of traffic to their sites through word of mouth or traditional marketing methods. For this reason, I recommend beginning with what you already have before expanding into some of the more advanced forms of SEO such as network marketing, social media optimization, Pay Per Click or (ppc) advertising, and so on. First things first, we can learn alot about a site by simply looking at the analytic. For beginners, I recommend google analytic for a good solid trusted analytic data dispay. Find out where you stand so you can track where you've gone. It is the single best way to see from an informational standpoint where and why traffic is coming to your site. We will discuss the analytic in depth later on. 

Do a complete site overview and find if there are missing links, misspellings, or sections that really have nothing to do with your site but were thrown in at one time for one reason or another. Many times the only way we can improve is by looking back at where we came and discover the directions that are working, not working, or static. If you would like a good site that teaches you some simple basics on a checklist for site fixes (besides youwebnit) go to