Wordpress and Blogging | A bit of SEO

Hello.

I have a website mixupdate.com . Just a random blog. I am getting 1000+ unique visitors daily during the start of it after some SEO. But I feel my website's outlook and plugins are not what they should be..

I've seen sites like redmondpie.com and techcrunch.com

I don't know if they are using wordpress but techcrunch does say powered by Wordpress VIP. It has a great style : Menu's, Columns etc. This is what I want my site to be. But I just don't get what those people are using. So tell me how to cover up those differences between these sites.


One more thing is, I somehow don't have an Index page at Google. Don't know how to get it. So please tell me a way of getting that or creating it if I really don't have. Some websites have their menu inside Google like redmondpie.com . Also tell me how to get that please.


So I need to know the following :

1st thing about the Website Outlook & Plugins others are using..
2nd about the Index page and Menu at Google.
3rd about some useful SEO methods for a beginning.