Question 1, more traffic.

What kind of traffic do you want? Determine the word(s) people will use when searching for your page.   Put that word in your title (you can sneak in almost any word..."MYNAME - home for a great guitar"), in your URL if possible, as many times as you can in the meta words, and as close to the top of the first page as possible. You can use a marquee at the top of the page to change the first words every few months. People linking to you helps, but make sure you have worthwhile content so many people will link. Do several searches and copy the meta words of the top ranked pages. Try to get listed by official organizaions...The Real Estate Listings of Mytown, The Professional Orgaization for Myinterests, The Chamber of Commerce List of Local Businesses, etc. Possibly include a "hook" in your content. (If you're selling guitars, provide content mentioning famous guitar players or popular songs.) Most people shouldn't count on a website to generate business, but it sure is handy to use in advertising for people to go take a look at what's there.

Question 2, finding useful sites.

I can usually find anything I need by using specific words in quotes in Google. I often look at the Google results and rule out slow-loading (Geocities, etc.) sites. Look at the bookmarks and links at "official" sites or at a college student's site. Many times I just go to about.com and follow their links.

Question 3, dodging irrelevant data. This goes back to question 2.

Often when starting a search, I don't know the words to use. So I just start with general terms and pick up vocabulary buzz words from the first few hits. Also, learn to use the "minus" certain words as suggested above. Some of my best info has been from bulletin boards where I pick up the latest and newest in buzz words.

Just ask at Mudcat!