It's an old topic, but I could not resist replying - I've just found this on Usenet... 101 ways to get more traffic - mostly very useful tips!
1. Write and submit articles :) . It is a classic, but it works.
This will be indefinite traffic stuck in the search engines for you.
Write quality unique articles, not articles that are rehashed or
provide no insight to readers, which is a huge problem these days.
2. Write and submit press releases, think prweb after you do one.
3. Write and ping blog entries. Always make sure to link back to
your website with your blog posts. Try making multiple blogs and have
them all link back to one main site.
4. Make sure your website is listed in DMOZ: http://dmoz.org/.
5. Advertise your website in the appropriate categories at
Craigslist. Try posting your ads in the most populated cities in the
world.
6. If a niche related forum that you frequently visit allows
signatures, then make sure to add your website url in there.
7. Make sure to view related products on Amazon.com. You can try
and take some customers from your competitors here by providing your
own url if the product is similar.
8. Review websites in your niche on Alexa to try to take some of
their traffic by including a reference back to your site.
9. Review some related products on epinion.
10. If you purchase a product that you actually like, then feel free
to give an individual respect when respect is due and leave a
testimonial. You should be able to get some traffic from that website
if your testimonial is left with a url.
11. Whenever you send an email to someone, always add your website
url as a signature.
12. Keep updating content on your websites/blogs... try at least once
per week.
13. Tag blog posts at social bookmarking sites, especially at
http://del.icio.us/.
14. Add photos to your blog with appropriate keywords.
15. Tag blog photos at Flickr.
16. Politely ask your readers to subscribe to your rss feeds.
17. Try coining your own term. Might want to trademark it if you
smell that it will become popular.
18. Encourage readers to comment on your blogs.
19. Include translation for your websites/blogs, especially in
Chinese.
20. Do not be boring, write about something that a wide select of
people would want to know about.
21. Make sure to edit your writing (unlike what im doing :D ).
22. Comment on other related blogs.
23. Make a custom 404-error page for your website. You can provide a
link back to your main website or even try to monetize it by offering
a related affiliate program within your niche.
24. Sponsor a charity, most charities will link back to your
website, and you are also doing a good deed :) .
25. Sell an item on eBay as a charity auction. Most charities will
link back to both your auction and your main website.
26. Start a publicity campaign, do something that individuals in
your niche will take note of.
27. Brand your website with a logo and a slogan/catch phrase. Think
IBM.
28. Hold a crazy contest that people in your niche will talk about.
This will equal more links and traffic to your website.
29. Build a tool that individuals in your niche will love and enjoy.
Then give it away for free. If the tool is helpful, then you will get
quality one-way links to your website.
30. Contact small newsletters sources offline and submit articles to
them.
31. Become friends with editors of an offline publication.
32. Give speeches offline. Start small and local. Also, do not
forget to participate in toastmasters meetings in your area.
33. Have a GREAT product. All of the marketing/advertising in the
world will do you NO good if your product is sub par.
34. Make something innovative. If you are selling information, what
makes your content something you cannot get from the local bookstore,
Barnes and noble or even eBay for that matter?
35. Is your product groundbreaking? Will you leave individuals with
no choice but to talk about your product or service?
36. Are you selling something that wide groups of people want to
know about but there is limited/scarce knowledge?
37. Write good content, if your writing is good then people will
share it with their friends. In addition, webmasters will use it as
content on their website with a reference back to your article, or at
least they should.
38. Spark emotions. If you get people emotional about something then
they will most likely talk about it.
39. Get a custom t-shirt made with your website url on it, and wear
it often.
40. Build a list of subscribers. Your list is like a golden asset to
you if utilized correctly.
41. Write tip articles, such as "Ten easy tips to blank-blank-
blank."
42. Buy traffic from the search engines by utilizing one of their
PPC campaigns.
43. Open up a myspace account and find targeted friends so that you
can promote your services to them. Do not spam people, myspace is
cracking down on spammers and are starting to sue people.
44. Solicit a link from your local chamber of commerce.
45. Have an easy to remember domain name. If your domain name is too
long or not memorable then people may forget your site.
46. Add a bookmark option to your website/blogs.
47. Purchase the misspelled versions of your domain name and have it
redirect to your main one.
48. Use keywords in your image alt tags.
49. Make sure to include appropriate keywords in your title tag,
search engines show more prominence or importance to keywords here.
50. Place appropriate keywords in your anchor text when linking.
51. If you have a profile anywhere online, always include
appropriate keywords and link back to your website.
52. Try to get links from websites within your niche with a high pr
(pagerank). Some The more one-way links (inbound links/backlinks) you
have to your website, the higher your pr will become. Pagerank is
important because websites with higher prs tend to have a higher
search results in Google. It is a no brainier that if you can get
number one for a competitive keyword then you will have enough traffic
that you can handle... oh by the way its all free targeted traffic to
remind you.
53. Outsource grunt work. Time is in essence money.... you can hire
individuals at freelance services to send emails, request JV
proposals, or to answer questions from prospective or current
customers.
54. Offer something for FREE. Abracadabra is not the magic word,
FREE is. It is like a worm on a pole for a fish in the water.... its
bait! Offer a free mini course or free ebook to help collect more
subscribers. You can always offer a backend to monetize on this
opportunity, such as an affiliate product for example.
55. After someone orders from you offer a one-time offer that
compliments your product. For example, if I offered a traffic ebook,
then after the individual purchase it would make sense for me to offer
a traffic conversion bonus for a limited time only.
56. Become the virus within your niche. Make yourself the bug and
have people talking about your product. When people talk about your
product then you can induce the viral effect. However, you must give
people a reason to talk about you, and being like everyone else is not
one.
57. Do your research and find expensive niches to tap into. A good
way to do this is to find how expensive someone is paying for a
keyword on a PPC search engine. If you can sell items that are more
expensive more often then it is a quicker way to get rich :D .
58. Become an active respected member of niche related forums. You
can do this by offering quality posts. Hint Hint, it is not the number
of posts you make, it is the quality. Remember, quality or quantity.
Many useless or negative posts will have people looking at you funny.
59. Test, test, test. Your flushing money down the toilet if your
not testing to see what campaigns are bringing you in the most money
compared to which ones are costing you money. When you test, you can
eliminate the campaigns that are costing you dollars so that you can
properly maximize your marketing efforts. Without proper testing, you
are pretty much lost and can't improve. You can only guess to what has
or what is working. With proper testing, you do not guess, you know.
60. Stay up to date on what is going on in the world, you can
monetize off hot topic trends.
61. Network, when you know more people you can find people that can
help you get what you need.
62. Offer an affiliate program for your product or service. Make
sure to let your satisfied customers know that you have one, if they
like your product then they will be even more delighted to know that
they will get money for referring you.
63. Write and give away a free ebook or report. It does not have to
be long as long as its quality information neatly formatted and put
together. You can also make a brandable ebook or report and allow
affiliates the opportunity to brand their affiliate links in there to
pass on to the next individual. You can then send this ebook to your
subscribers or submit it to ebook directories.
64. Add viral components to your blog such as social bookmarking
options, and a refer a friend option.
65. Be funny, people like something that will make them laugh and
they will spread it for you if it is a genius idea.
66. Syndicate your content by using an RSS feeds on your website.
67. Answer people's questions on Yahoo! answers with a link to your
website in the sources area.
68. Put a link in the "about me" section of your eBay profile.
69. Make and upload a viral video to you tube. Use appropriate
keywords in the video description for your target audience.
70. Record an informative podcast and submit them to poplar podcast
directories.
71. Provide helpful answers for Google adsense on their help forum
with a link back to your website. Go here to check it out:
http://groups.google.com/group/adsense-help
72. Get people to comment and add content to your site. When they do
this, they will provide you unique content, no need to pay for
ghostwritten articles.
73. If you cannot get JVs, then try to bribe webmasters for
sponsored advertising space on their newsletters.
74. Include a media section on your website so that you will give
the media an easy way to stay up to date on what your company is
doing.
75. Try to teach a class at your local community college or
university. The more exposure you get in the public, the more
credibility you will receive.
76. Make a screensaver and make it easy for individuals in your
niche to download it. Have eye candy graphics combined with your
company logo to brand yourself.
77. Write something controversial and spread it freely to your
target market. It can be something as idiotic as the Da Vinci code,
but as long people talk about it, its a successful campaign. A few
hints, something controversial is something that goes against
established beliefs in your market.
78. Write and publish a book. Having your own book is a quick way to
gain credibility.
79. Take a guru in your niche out to lunch, and pay for it.
80. Start an organization or club about something. This can be done
online through Yahoo! or Google groups.
81. Volunteer. Donate your time to a good clause...you can always
network with people and form connections at the same time.
82. Get involved in your community and try to run some type of
outreach program.
83. Offer good customer service, you may be surprised on how many
referrals you get just be having a reliable one.
84. Consider adding a direct mail marketing campaign to your
marketing arsenal.
85. Put an ad in your local yellow pages to get some local
customers. Yellow pages tend to be more successful then newspaper ads
because individuals are looking for a particular service when they are
browsing through the yellow pages as opposed to newspapers.
86. Post bulletins in your local supermarket. However, since not
everyone may carry a pen or pencil, place your contact information and
url on strips on the bottom so that individuals can rip it off and
take it with them.
87. Host your own commercial so you can put "as seen on TV" on your
products.
88. Conduct surveys and publish them. These make you appear as an
expert in your field of study.
89. Break a record or shoot to be in the Guinness world records for
something.
90. Make a sitemap for your website.
91. Use a favicon for your site.
92. Make your visitors more involved in your website. You can help
accomplish this by adding CGI scripts to your site.
93. Make sure you have no broken links on your site, and make sure
that your website shows clearly in all browsers.
94. Find domain names that get traffic, purchase them, and have
them redirect to your website.
95. Spell correctly whenever using keywords in writing.
96. Look at sites related to your niche to try to figure out how
they get their traffic.
97. Properly optimize your website for the right keywords.
98. Try to avoid java scripts on your website as much as possible.
99. Do not use frames on your website.
100. If your website becomes popular and starts getting lots of
traffic, try switching to a dedicated server. The longer you site is
down equals the more lost visitors you will have.
101. Write a quality 101 article about a steamy topic that people want
to know more about in your niche ;) .