1st, grades
2nd, grades
3rd, grades.... then
4th, write your top 20 colleges often and include the assistant coaches.
5th, get on a team with a coach that REALLY understands the recruiting process. Most don't and will fill you with a line of b.s., even providing a list of past players at name schools. What they don't tell you is that many of those kids did it on their own with no help from the coach.
6th, play on a team where you get play time at exposure tournaments AND you're playing on fields at a time when coaches will be there, not 11PM on Sunday when the coaches have long gone.
Great grades NEVER hurt you and can only help. Average grades eliminate a lot of schools.
Story: playing at an exposure tournament with the bios in the box on the fence. The coach from Harvard walks up, takes a sheet, scans the info for all of 5 seconds with our coach and says "who's that, where is she?". Our coach said "that her", pointing to DD. What caught the coaches eye was a 4.43GPA and she commented "we can't take anyone who will lower our team average GPA" and DD was the only player that wouldn't have. Talks resulted. We visited Harvard. Great school but DD chose a better fit for her. The net/net point is that grades are a phenominal help. The college coach doesn't need to worry that their recruit will become ineligable after the first year because they can't cut the academics.
Take the SAT's mulltiple times and study for them. Grades, grades, grades....