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A lack of sharpness in photographic images can be caused by a number of factors:
1. Camera shake, which is usually a result of the photographer causing some level of physical movement of the camera at the time of exposure.
2. A selection of shutter speed that is insufficiently fast enough to compensate for a moving camera or subject matter
3. Poor quality lenses is a very common cause of poor sharpness
4. Incorrect focusing is a major cause of sharpness problems
5. Insufficient depth of field to cover the scope of sharpness required
Camera shake can be totally eliminated by fixing your camera onto a tripod, using a cable release, using the mirror-lockup facility (if your camera has one), and making sure that outside influences such as wind, someone or something does not affect the stability of your camera at the time of capture. If you don't have a tripod, cable release or mirror-lockup, then you need to try and keep your camera as still as possible when pressing the shutter button. This can be as simple as leaning against a wall or tree to help stabilize you and your camera. Also practice your camera holding techniques to ensure you minimize movements as much as possible. Simple things like holding your breath when you press the shutter button can help.
If you are forced to handhold your camera, and/or you are photographing moving subject matter, utilizing a fast shutter speed will dramatically aid in capturing sharper images. Long lenses require a greater compensation in shutter speed than wider angled lenses, and a long held rule has been that the shutter speed needs to be at least the same fraction of a second as is the focal length of the lens. In other words a 60mm lens needs to have a 1/60th second exposure when hand held, whilst a 200mm lens would require at least a 1/200th second exposure.
Lens quality is very much proportionate to the cost, and there are very few exceptions. There is no way a poor quality lens will ever produce the same quality as a high quality lens. If you want high quality sharp images, then this will require high quality sharp lenses, otherwise whatever means you attempt to compensate for this, it will simply be a compromise.
Poor focusing is usually a result of rushed photography, a faulty camera, or simply poor eyesight. Apart from point and shoot cameras, most cameras have a feature which allows people to adjust the eyepiece to compensate for various levels of vision. Ensure that your camera is correctly setup to suit you. Also most modern cameras have auto-focusing, and therefore focus issues are generally a thing of the past, unless of course you have the camera focus on the wrong subject matter, in which case it is human error at play. Where you focus the lens is most important, so be sure to pay attention to it BEFORE you press the button.
Even if all the above parameters are in order, a shallow depth of field can negate all the important elements listed. Depth of field is the depth within an image from front to back that is sharp. If you fail to have sufficient depth of field in a landscape, then only part of the image will be sharp, and the viewers of your image will simply concentrate only on the part of the image that is sharp. So be sure to allow a sufficiently small aperture to give you the depth of focus you want. Also keep in mind the hyperfocal length, which is focusing approximately 1/3rd into the image.