SEARCH ENGINE TIPS AND TRICKS:

Our first advice would be; get a FREE keyword check to see where your website is right now in the SE's.

Make sure your main index page is content rich with text, links and images. 
Never use a 'splash page' or an 'Enter Website' page.

Don't use keyword stuffing techniques, i.e doorway pages, invisible text etc
And always use relevant keywords, download our software to help you..

If you have to use a database i.e. php or asp, always make sure that you keep it to a minimum, and only use it if you have no other option. Always keep as many pages as possible as static pages. 

Don't submit your website until it is ready. Make sure that all pages are full of text and complete, without any 'under construction' stuff.

Don't ever use the free submission programs available on the internet. Whilst there are some that may be good, it's very hard to tell which ones they are.
Submitting to 100's or even 1000's of search engines may well get your website, removed or black-listed at best it will simply get your email address on thousands of spammers mailing lists. 

Also remember that some directories like Yahoo only accept one submission, and if you exceed this in a limited time frame the human will block all your further submissions. Some search engines accept 5 URL submissions per day like Altavista, others only accept 2 per month, or 1 per day. The key is to know which ones allow how many, how often. Then just when you get the hang of it, they change the rules again.

'Monthly Submission - still necessary?' - Absolutely yes. Google and Fast are the only search engines in the 'we're the biggest and best' war. Everyone else like Lycos, Inktomi, Dmoz etc may remove you if you don't keep your listings updated or request their crawler to visit your site on a regular basis. The number of pages that have to be searched through slows down the search engine process. If your site is not getting sufficient number of click-through's to activate the crawler on its own, you need to request it.
The only problem here is some search engines have maximum tolerances and if you over-submit, they will remove your website!

'Watch those inbounds!' - When you get another webmaster to place a link to you on their site you need to make sure they place keywords in the linking text.
This increases ranking for those keywords and is called 'anchor text'. Always remember that the reverse always applies in search engine optimisation. Having no keywords or irrelevant keywords in the linking text can 'lower' ranking. So if anyone is linking to you with the words 'click here', 'this is a great site', 'visit our sponsor' and so on, get them to change it or remove it before it causes problems. See our Google tips on reciprocal linking dangers!