1. Control the center.
2. Develop your pieces. This means Knights, Bishops, Rooks and later Queen.
3. Castle as soon as possible.
4. Don't waste tempi. Instead of launching a premature attack see if you can develop a new piece. Most of the time it's better to develop a new piece than to move the same piece again.
5. Don't move your Queen out in the opening. There're a few exceptions, but most of the time it's going to be a waste of time and a bad thing for you. Why? Because the Queen is going to be a target and your opponent will be able to attack it and develop new pieces while you're loosing time moving the same piece, your Queen.
6. Protect your pieces, don't let them just hang there.
7. Knights are better in the center. A knight on the edge of the board doesn't control as many squares as the one closer to the center.
8. Don't play questionable openings. You might win a game or two, but it won't help your play in the long run.
9. In games with long time control use your time. Just because your opponent moves quickly doesn't mean you have to.
10. Use common sense. For example, if you play Bd3 in the opening and block d-pawn, you'll have troubles to develop your dark-squared Bishop, you'd need to move your d3-Bishop again and lose time. You won't be able to play d4 and control the center.
How to improve gameplay?
Okay thanks for the advice cavelorum.
The advice by cavelorum is sound but by far the most important thing at the very begining is simply to play a lot. It may take some patience but after a while you should almost certainly notice significant improvement in your play. Once you increase your level improving just by playing gets harder and then, if you are serious about chess, it may be good idea to add other forms of practice.
Another rather important thing none of us have mentioned yet: Analyze your games! You'll improve much quickly if you learn from your mistakes.
more games and more gamesfor us to learn more.familiarization and constant practice to achieve a n ext level of thinking or rating.
or someone else's mistakes... 
Thanks
I Am 8years first Comment (luck ) .I live in India,Uttarakhand But I Improving my Chess skills and Then I challenge my friend and In school Participation .I am now 14 years old.
Hi everyone! I'm fairly new to chess. I learned when I was young but never really got into it. I would like to know if anyone has any tips or ways to improve game play? I've lost all my matches except for ones on time and one by checkmate.