Composition ... the first definition of the word composition in Merriam-Webster's Dictionary is "the act or process of composing; specifically: arrangement into specific proportion or relation and especially into artistic form".
Once you learn how to technically operate your DSLR, you must then apply those techniques to composing an image that conveys what you feel or want to say - make an image that tells the story you wanted to tell, the one that drove you to pick up that camera in the first place.
Composition is not simple although it looks that way when you see an image that speaks to you. Photographers have a multitude of decisions to make about light, lines (leading or otherwise), balance, motion, space, focus, perspective, and framing. What stays in an image and what stays out? To make the images that are in your mind's eye, you will need to learn about composition and the rules that we all have had to learn, in order to know when they could be broken. Every painter must learn these basics as well in order to know when to use or when to lose one of these rules.
You could probably earn a degree in Composition, so it can't and won't be covered in just this one post but rather over several. For now, I'll leave you with the most important "rule" I've learned about composition, and that is "You are responsible for everything in your photograph." That means everything. So think before you press that shutter release button. Make your eye rove around the image in your view finder - look left, look right, look up and look down, persuse the perimeter. Is there anything that detracts from your subject? Can it be eliminated? Sometimes it's as simple as moving just a step or two to exclude something detracting or to add emphasis to your subject.
We all click so quickly in this digital age - it certainly costs us nothing, monetarily that is, but I would argue it costs us greatly in time - time that will be required to cull through mediocre images that probably shouldn't even have been taken, if only we had thought before clicking. Next time you go out to shoot, try to come back with half as many images as you usually do because you truly worked on composing the images you wanted.
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