Make sure you activate the Empress Band too. You said it doesnt help much so im not sure if you did this. Equip it, go to items and look at the Empress Band. There will be a timer on it. When it gets to 0 you can use it (its only like 10 15 seconds or something). After that an icon will come up at the top of the screen letting you know you have a "buff" and this icon will say EXP on it. If you use it at level 1, you can get to about level 4ish in about 30 or so minutes if you kill fast enough.

Also, make sure you sell crystals and everything as stacks. Selling individually isnt worth it. I normally tend to sell a stack of 12 crystals for 1k gil at the AH. They always sell, since 1k is the average going price and everyone needs stacks for rank points.

Also, make sure you keep Beastmen Seals. You will need them later on in the game, maybe months from now, but youll need them. It will take about 60 of them (at a time) to do an event so saving up hundreds is a good idea. These can stack 99 at a time also.

If you run out of inventory room while your questing, make sure you auto-sort your inventory. This could open up several new slots by putting stackable items into stacks automatically.

Plus, try and stay up to date on gear as well. If you have to farm to get enough gil for an item, its what you gotta do. Once your about lvl 20+ some people might point out that your under-equiped for the area your xping in.

Anyways, thats all I can think of right now. Have fun and safe adventures.