This is a hot topic on the web so I decided to summarise what I have learnt so far whilst developing my own website. I hope someone will find this useful!
1) Tell absolutely everyone you know about your website. Send out emails to people you know with a link to your website and encourage them to forward your message to everyone they know.
2) Get your website listed in every free online directory you can find, especially the Yahoo & Google ones.
3) Make your website search engine friendly. One way to do this is to use metatags. Input the words “generating traffic” in a search engine for more information on this topic.
4) There is not really much point in submitting your website to every search engine you can find or paying someone to submit your site to hundreds of search engines. This is because search engines trawl the web for new sites regularly anyway and submitting your site won’t get it ranked any higher. I would recommend just submitting your site to only the top search engines, such as Google, Yahoo and MSN, since a large percentage of web users only use these ones anyway.
I haven’t used any of these money methods so I don’t know how effective they are (my bead addiction uses up all my money). I assume these methods are more effective (and less annoying) than the free methods simply because they cost money.
1) Google Adwords - paying for clicks.
2) Paid directory listings.
Obviously the best way to get traffic is to have a brilliant and original site. If you have a brilliant and original idea for a website, please contact me and tell me all the details (ha, I wish). Of course there are also many non-internet ways to get more visitors to your site, e.g. adverts in magazines, flyers etc. There are many websites devoted to this subject so Google it!