Exposed

I have been trying to improve the quality of my photo's for sometime and at some point I had an epiphany and decided to try and improve my exposure control.  So far it seems that when I focus on exposure I do get a better photo.  It just seems that some people are taking FAR better photos, and I am wondering how they are doing that, beyond the fact they might have better equipment.  So today I decided to start changing my F/stop to a higher number, I usually try to keep it low, so that it increases the blurred background, but maybe I will get better exposure at times with a higher one, we will see.