Google's Tools

This is stating the obvious to much of the masses, but Google's offering of tools is vast and great.  Most people are familiar with the insight Google Analytics provides and there is are also Adwords, Adsense, and Web Toolkit to name just a few. 

The one tool I am trying to get familiar with are the Webmaster Tools.  I have my site setup and verified and crawled by Google.  But, my site is still not indexed.  Most recently I tried adding my URL manually to Google to no avail at this point.  

I have read that at times it takes weeks even months to get your site indexed in Google and others say it is best to have your site linked on sites that already popular.  So, now I have a new challenge; learn the best methods for linking my website and what other techniques can I employ to get my website indexed by Google and people coming to my website.