oh god!!!!!!!!!!!! You just went head in with a niche that has plenty-o-competition! For starters. Google the all-in-one seo plugin for Wordpress. And install it. That will get you started.
Well here is how you can begin: 1) Make sure you change your URL structure to contain the post title. 2) Make Sure your post title on single.php is contained within <h1> tags 3) Make one or two keywords on a page stand out in bold via the use of <strong></strong> tags. 4) Make sure you get a good internal linking structure going, through the use of related posts, linking inside posts 5) Burn your RSS feed via feedburner, its run by Google search for it 6) Submit your site to Technorati etc.. 7) Download up smart pinger i think it is try googling it 8) Create a robots.txt file to prevent duplicate content issues 9) Sign up to Google Webmaste Tools for free to monitor your sites progress within Google 10) Download category base killer plugin 11) Go on other sites and link back to your site with the anchor text "student loans" or whatever your keywords may be 12) Also be sure to read this post by Dan Schulz Wordpress SEO