Hello everyone.
i have 2 main websites:
Website 1 SDDesign.biz
Website 2 ClanThemes Themes Shop

SDDesign.biz have been on a PR of 5 for almost an year now. It doesnt go up or down. The contents of the website changes everyday with new posts, users and activities. But the PR remains to be the same. Also i believe the website isnt getting as much hits as it should. But SDDesign.biz is very popular in the nuke design world. So my guess is its not SEO properly. The site being powered by Phpnuke is itself a barrier for SEO and phpnuke can only go so far when it comes to SEO.
So what should i do now to improve the ratings of the site?

ClanThemes Themes Shop is my phpnuke gaming clan themes shop. it is also a widely known website in the phpnuke community and has been online for over 6 months now. Initially i didnt have any PR but then it jumped to 4 and it is stuck there as it is.
The shop is powered by zencart. and it does come with a variety of options for SEO. i have tried to utlize them to my best ability but i believe thats not enough. Everyone who buys from there says "the site could do so much better if people knew about it. it was very hard to locate" - what should i do now?

The sollutions to these problems may be hidden in hiring a SEO Expert. and i have tried that as well. All the give me is various levels of SEO and then the fees for each step. Nothing solid.
So what should i do? Just leave it be?

Also in both the website Google adsense didnt do Good at all. it was so poor that i turned google adsense off. it wasnt even making 5 dollars a month. but with so many users shouldnt it?
i have tried various position, read thorough a lot of blogs, articles - but nothing seems to be give the desired outcome. or can there be websites where adsense simply doesnt work? but i have seen websites with only 2K users but making 300-500 dollars a month from adsense.

So what are my ways?
i would appreciate any ideas and help.
Thank you.