How Do I Get More Hits for my Website in Google?

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I've got a real estate website and need help getting more hits. It's gotten slow this time of year. On the other hand, my peers in a competing firm are getting swamped with phone calls from all over the world asking about their properties. Even in the winter, they're out showing houses. They get swamped with leads from their website. And this is supposedly our low season. I've heard of Google AdWords, optimization and pay per hit. How do these work? What's the difference among them? Does anyone have a recommendation of how to increase my exposure in Google?