Improving my credit score?

mcrfan

Does anyone know much about improving your credit score?
I have signed up to experian to see my report and forked out the extra £6 to see my score! My actual credit history doesn't look terrible on the report - there are only 2 late payments showing to my 2 catalogue accounts (happened last year). None of my credit cards and loans have late payments/defaults.
But my score is only 610 which experian say is poor.

I've got a catalogue account that is still open but have nothing on it - so will closing this improve my score do you think as it will then show as settled? Think I may give it a go.

But I did have a payment go through late on one of my credit cards in Feb - this is not showing on my report but will this be taken into account with my score?
I did have a couple of applications declined in January so I guess these are affecting my score too?

I am also rather annoyed as there are 2 searches showing on my report for an insurance company when I was shopping round for quotes on confused.com (didn't actually make a purchase)
I didn't know getting an insurance quote required a credit search? They seem to be duplicate searches aswell so I am going to ask Experian if there is something they can do about this, not impressed.

Any suggestions for how I can improve this?
I was waiting the standard 3 months after I had the late payment on my credit card so was going to try and apply for a new credit card in June but not sure now, going to have to keep an eye on my score.

Is it worth me trying to get one of the credit cards for people with poor credit scores to try and give it a boost? But if I get declined for one of those then that's another black mark on my record ahh!!

:mad: