As a general rule, get linked from websites within your particular discipline. This is important for two reasons:
1. The more people see you linked to within a particular discipline, the more impressed they are likely to be, as Web linking is akin to word-of-mouth. If people see links to you on lots of other websites, [...]

The most important place to submit your web site is not to search engines, but rather to search engine directories. Smaller and even large search engines regularly add content based on the directories. If you have a local site, make sure you submit to Yahoo local directories and online yellow page sites.