“Local SEO” service for my web business...

I have my own website but have never been able to place top 10 in the search engines. I have read about SEO and even tried to optimize to achieve better positioning without any results.
Can anyone point me to the right direction? I really don't know what I am doing wrong. I am not a professional developer, I am self taught, but have been writing html for years.

Any help will be greatly appreciated..