A start in SEO.

A long time since I posted here. I have to admit my attention has been grabbed by the necesity of finding things to do that may secure me future contracts.
My latest project has been UpSpainNews which is a directory of start-ups from Spain. One thing puzzled me about this site - why was my website not in the first few pages of Google search? It is (so far as I know) the only web directory specifically on Spanish start-ups in the English language. Of course you can come across some of those entries if they are listed in Crunchbase or in AngelLists, but my listing is fairly unique. Yet Google doesn't recognise this if you search for "Spanish start-ups".
So the last week or two I've been looking into the murky world of SEO. The first thing I realised I didn't do, was to put relevant meta-tags on my web-site. I've now entered a line in my html code as follows:

<meta name="description" content="A directory of Spanish start-ups, the best way to read up on those start-ups in English" />

With luck, the Google robots will pick this description up in the next week or two. It means that when my page is listed on a google search, the description will be shown as above ie "A directory of Spanish start-ups, the best way to read up on those start-ups in English". Instead of the current text which is "About this site · Directory of Startups · Company entries; General Up news; Contact. Startup of the week. Screenshot. Adtriboo - source talent! Internet jobs" and is obviously a mish-mash from the site text.
That in itself won't put me on page 1. I also have to get more backlinks to the site, and (perhaps more importantly) get articles published on other sites that link back. I have made a start by donating articles to EUStartUps.com and hope to continue along this line.
I hope to edit this article in a week or two with better news on my Google page ranking.

EDIT 5 Jan. The google bots have updated their records, and my site now makes it onto Page 2 for the search "Spanish startups". Also, I come in top of Page 1 when I search on "Spanish startups directory". :) In order keep this good position, I will now try to build up links on high ranking sites, and perhaps continue to write articles for other sites that link to my site. I've made a start with this entry Spanish start-ups to look out for in 2012. Happy reading!