Thanks. I guess you could help by leaving a future comment if you feel someone deserves it. I think you're right that the proper recipient will show through.

Keyword research is about finding terms that are popular in search engines as they relate to competing websites. You want to be found when people search in engines. People here don't like google, but it's not the only search engine just the biggest.
Backlinks are thought of as desireable, especially when authority sites link to yours. They can, however, get you in trouble with search engines if you acquire them through certain means. I'll be blogging more about this on future posts. :)