newbie search engine questions

[brubio]

I have a few hopefully simple questions. I am a newbie to search engine submissions. Let me explain what I am having problems understanding. I have a Real Estate website for my company, I am also a bit of a techie. I have added my website to most search engines for the past 2 years. My rankings are horrible. (my keywords are good, but very low placements) I am depending primarily on my keywords and that's all. I have added a spider note on the bottom of my home page. I have not seen any improvement as of yet. If you could comment on this, plus I was wondering if anyone out there has some information on the following questions I have.

1: "need some high quality links into your site from other sites. what are incoming and outgoing links" and ideas on what kind of links they would be? also, I am familiar with html. would I just simply add a http link on my home page. I hear people have thousands, how is that done? are they white-on-white??
2: I have heard that adding a weblog to my site will help rankings. what is involved in adding a weblog? is there freeware out there? or is it code?
3:What are blogs. It was posted "include lots of links to other blogs, news sites, etc. In turn, that naturally encourages other blogs and sites to link to your blog pages" again please, I need help understanding this as well.

If any of you would also like to suggest any reading material on these subjects, would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you in advance.
Bill

[Whit]

In answer to your questions.

Incoming links are links on other web sites that lead to your site.
Outgoing links are links on your site pointing to another site.
A link exchange is when two sites agree to set up links pointing at each other.
I am not sure what you mean by "spider note". I have never heard the phrase and couldn't find any information on it when I did some checking.
DO NOT use text or links colored to match the background of your site. This is a form of spam and many search engines will delete your listings for it.

http://new.blogger.com/about.pyra[/url]] What is a weblog/blog?
A blog is a web page made up of usually short, frequently updated posts that are arranged chronologically-like a what's new page or a journal. The content and purposes of blogs varies greatly-from links and commentary about other web sites, to news about a company/person/idea, to diaries, photos, poetry, mini-essays, project updates, even fiction.

There are a number of blog tools available free of charge.
http://www.blog.com
http://sourceforge.net/search/?words=blog

Hope that helps