Expanding to SEO....tips?

Hi to everyone,

I am coming from 2 years of posting (successfully) in all sections of craigslist, i know about google, HTML, IPs, emails, blocking and restrictions (of course...craigslist), and perhaps i am an IT guy

i own a website just pulled up and i want to put it on the top of engines and/or drive some targeted traffic on it.

Considering that I ADMIT that i am a total newbie in this field, what do you guys advice me? what programs? what the techniques are?

i know people can get pissed off by newbies in this forum (and honestly i get pissed sometime too), so if you are pissed off reading this post, please ignore it, i just need advices and tips, thanks!

seobook.com there are some useful tools..

A lot of reading, talk about SEO in #makecash (IRC) here are some tools

Market Samuari
SUPER keyword tool, best application I've installed for a while.

SENUKE
Very powerful, helps me a lot and speeds EVERYTHING up.

xRUMER
If used correctly, A LOT of money is to be made with this amazing application!

all of the answers so far i agree with. If you are new to html then prepare to make your chair fucking warm friend, warm as no i mean hot, not warm

Being new to seo I think it's best that you start by trying to optimize a low competition keyword first and after you get the hang of it go for the more competitive ones.