Trying to understand all of this

Hi. I want to think you guys for helping confused affiliate marketers like myself.

I had already created a blog before I found you guys, and I was wondering if I can use it the same way you use squidoo? I have already created some articlebase articles and linked to a page on my blog, though the keyword of my blog post is not the same I use in my article.

I'm also not getting many views on my articles. Are they suppose to appear on the first page of google without quotes if I do my keyword research right? Right now they appear on first page with quotes, but no one will find them like that.