I would suggest looking at and submitting to around 200 or so search engines if you are doing it on your own. You can check out any search engines ranking based on usage (traffic/hits/Etc) at alexa.com to help you decide the best search engines to submit to. Note: Interesting that Yahoo has the most hits of any search engines, not Google. After doing your homework and deciding who to submit to, you may want to also look at "pay per click" advertising. The first place to go is Overture.com to look at what key wordsa are being searched. Ovwerture will also allow you to view the current bids for the key words that make the best choice for your website content. I believe Yahoo is offering $50 of free clicks just to get you to use the product and see your return on your investment with them. Another place to look at would be trafficleader.com. This company is on the board of directors for Yahoo and they actually write the "secret Codes" (algorythmns) that positions you in the natural results.

Linking to other websites is definitley a plus to drive more traffic to you. Look for other business partners that serve your prospects. For example, if you sold windshield wipers, you could partner with aomeone that sold other auto parts or even similar industries like a car club. Use that same networking from the real world into the virtual world. If you would like to find some strong networking groups locally check out http://www.bni.com – If you only have time to network with one group, go here first and then your chambers second.

I would also tell you to get some advertising on yellowpages.com. This is an online yellowpages and they are getting over one billion hits per year. They have partnered with AOL, Yahoo, anywho, switchboard.com and many other sites that your advertising bleeds over into. They also have a link next to your name that will link the consumer directly to your website. Remember these people have already made a decission to BUY and are looking for someone to SELL it to them, unlike a search engine that is usually used for people that MAY BUY.

Here is another site I would suggest to you that may help- http://www.gosmallbiz.com. This site has experts in the fields of marketing, online marketing, Human Resorces, insurance or anything that a small business would have questions about.

One last gold nugget- make sure your website was NOT designed in "frames"…Its hard to the search engine spiders to index.

I hope this helps! Best wishes!

I submitted to google once, and i’m listed. if you start bombarding them, they will probably delete you completely. it takes about a year for your page to start getting recognized and for your site to get regualr and substantail hits. if you build it they will come….