how can I get better??
There are so many ways to improve your game,focus on tactics is a great one but it has to make some sense. Try playing in a club or even online is good, important is that you write it down so you can get over the games have been played, find where It went wrong and what you should have done better even if you won.
You need books to study seriously!Tactics is core knowledge to know but there are very limited pattern's that one need to know.To see long conbination one just need to get better.
My suggestion is to to look some books written by Fide trainer's or some who are recognised coach.The russian,ukrainian coach's are great at basic and advanced chess lesson's as they have very long tradition in teaching.So may be look for a books written by them.May be start with 'soviet chess primer'.Though i am not very high on it at my level.
Mr Pizza guy, if improvement were "easy" enough that gosh darn' it- lots of tactics guarenteed a 2xxx -
well then many would be 2xxx.
myself I think tactics are but the beginning of improvement. learning to avoid them in your game is at LEAST important- and for many reasons, the puzzle format doesn't create good thinking patterns.
THEN there is positional chess, and learning how to find meaning in moves that isn't tactical.