As a relatively new cacher myself, I found that reading the forums, gave me an advantage when I first started out. I didn't know about bison tubes, "evil" hides and special-made containers. If it wasn't for reading these forums, some of the caches I have found, would be DNF's.
If I don't find something within the first 5 minutes, I stand there and look around looking for clues that don't "fit", check my coords, read previous logs, decrypt hint, etc. Like most others said, ask myself "where would I hide it?"
Happy caching!