your kind on pools is not always well received.. small guys can get lower earnings.
what you should do is see if solo mining is appropriate based on your hash power and the target coins network hash rate.
if you can do half the network on your own then stay off pools or maybe just run your own pool for only yourself.
spread your hash around.. look into that
not much to it.. get miner programs installed and pointed at a pool or your own wallet / daemon.. that's about it.
bear in mind there is two types of pools.. normal ones usually stratum supported or P2Pools.