Hey there hijaker! Wow, you got a lot of questions there... Let me try and give you a couple of links that will probably help you with some of the things you'd like to know, especially about SEO.
The first place is
http://www.webpronews.com - this is a "mainstream" marketing site that has been talking a lot about SEO on the past months. You'll find a lot of good articles in there - it's a good idea to signup to their newsletter and read everything as it comes out
My other tip is
http://www.seochat.com which, as the title suggests, is a site devoted to SEO. There are also some good articles there and these guys actually talk in plain english on their newbie articles, so it can be a great place to start!
Good luck on your quest for traffic!
Best Regards,
Thiago Dickman