Don't even think about submitting your site to a single search engine until you are ready to receive guests or visitors. The worst thing in the world (I think so anyway) ? is to follow a link to a website and only find a ?under construction? message or a front page with lots of links with ?coming soon? as a reward for my click.

Why did I come to your site? I want to either find out something interesting, look at something, download something or buy something ? not to be told to come back later when you are ready ? to tell the truth, I don't think I would bother coming back. Even when you tell me to come back because I'll remember and think ?been there before, it was a waste of time, full of coming soon stuff?.

If you have a blog ? don't leave the messages saying ?Just testing? or ?congratulations and welcome to your new blog?. Don't even think about writing ?Welcome to my blog, over the next coming few days I will be?? Just remember, the internet has no concept of time, but humans do. If I come to your site and find a ?Welcome to my blog?? post with lots of promises, but you don't deliver, why should I trust you with my time? My money? My business? The truth of the matter is, I won't.

I'm not going to go through a whole list of things that tend to put visitors off staying on a site ? but here are a few of them:

Broken links (always check your links before you upload to a site)
Awful color schemes (Yellow and Red? ? Try pastel colors)
Tiny fonts ? I like to be able to read without pushing my nose to the monitor.
Difficult navigation ? I want consistency and clearly labelled links

That should give you a bit to think about...