To improve your chances online you'll need effective internet marketing for your business.
Here are a few tips to get you started.
If you have a new web site and need it to be indexed then don't bother to submit to search engines but ensure you have a link from a site that is searched on a regular basis.
This is because the entire internet is indexed by the big search engines by their spiders (little programmes that go out and search the web - they move from one site to another by the links to other sites) so get a link from a popular site - not only will this get you indexed faster, you may even get visitors from the other site!.
By far the best way to improve your rankings is to ensure you have as many links as possible from other sites to yours. Ensure that in the link text are the words you wish to be found by.
If you are just starting on the internet, a quick way is to submit your site to all the free directories online. This will certainly help your rankings in Yahoo and MSN and Google for older sites.
It's getting harder to rank for competitive terms so it's best if you start off in a niche and a low searched term. Get the search engines to trust you first and then develop your site.