First of all avoid using cloaking mechanisms. This is automated software that doesn't work unless it knows the IP address of a search engine spider. Cloaking is a form of SEO deception that serves a unique, optimized page to the search engines, while presenting a completely different page to surfers. Most major search engines will penalize or ban you altogether if you use this tempting black hat SEO technique that often backfires.

Also you should avoid using professionals that guarantee you a number one position or first page rankings. There is no such thing as this guarantee. To be safe always ask what techniques your would-be SEO firm uses to achieve a good positioning for your site.

Don't use software that automatically submits your sites on a weekly or monthly basis, since it might penalize you in the long run. You can be considered a spammer so you if you submit URLS too often so you don't really need to submit more than once.

Don't entrust your site to people that will submit it to ?thousands of engines.? There isn't that many search engines in the first place. You will be submitted to link farms.

Keep Flash technology out of your site. As far as your rankings in the search engines go, the best way to develop a site is in using standard technology, such as HTML. Text written in the HTML format is proven technology that all search engines have long recognized and approved, since the beginning of the Internet. Using the right technology will always help your site attain a good position in the search engine ranking pages.