I'd like to generate traffic for my site, but I don't want to use spam tactics. I would like my site to grow organically, so that people come to my site because they actually like it. This means I don't want to spam my site through self-promotion such as submitting to directories myself or "optimizing" my page just to cheat the search engines. I use many social sites such as Digg, Facebook, Delicious, Newsvine, and personally tired of the amount of irrelevant spam and shameless self-promotion of their own sites that go on there. A huge amount of the submissions are not people who actually like the content, rather, it's people who are trying to push their own articles/pages/site. This type of spam annoys me and I don't want to do the same.

But my website currently has no visitors. Google has indexed my site, but since there are no backlinks, the links are on page 497 or whatever of the listings. I believe in organic backlinks, and I don't want to engage in spamming my own site on forums or annoying my friends by telling them about the site. Of course I feel that the site is good, and useful, but they might not feel the same way - which would annoy them. On the other hand, if they asked me for some useful resource and my site happened to be relevant, I would offer the information. I don't want to push my site, but I'll gladly give.

I also don't want to look for people looking for information related to my site, because I think that is equally as spamtastic. One person suggested that I find people on Yahoo! Answers who have questions which my site may be relevant to. But that just seems like blatant self-promotion, although targeted. My intentions would clearly come out that I want to spam my site, and not really answer their questions in an unbiased way. Even if I could somehow neutrally mention my site, it would be better if someone else (who isn't trying to promote) found my site to be useful and mentioned it. That feels more organic to me, and not as contrived as if I did it myself.

I am not trying to be lazy and avoid doing any promotional work for my site. I do want to get the word out, but in a way that isn't spam or annoying advertising. I simply can't figure out a way to do it that doesn't seem contrived rather than viral/organic.

Do you have any thoughts on systems where people are interested in websites that are promoting themselves? Perhaps there is some type of incentive for them to look at the site, such as getting paid to do it. I wouldn't have a problem with people who voluntarily seek out (either through incentive, self-curiosity) and expect to see self-promoted websites. Is there a place like this? Most social networking sites are NOT like this, and have no desire to see self-promoted websites. Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, and most others do not like spam. It would be great if I could join a system that welcomes self-promotion, rather than explicitly prohibits it.

I think the content on my site is interesting, but I'll continually improve it with good, new material. But aside from the content, if I can't get that first person to visit my site, I'll never have anyone sharing it virally, I'll never have anyone back linking to it, and it won't grow to gain exposure. But unless I have exposure, I won't get any visitors to my site. I feel like this is a paradox. I need to have visitors to get new visitors. To get new visitors, I need to already have visitors. I'm stuck.

Please let me know what methods of promotion and generating initial traffic is generally tolerated by the internet community. Particularly methods that Google, Yahoo, Facebook, and other big sites really feel are acceptable, good, solid, non-spammy ways of creating traffic.

Thanks!!

I think you answered the question in your own post, but you didn't see it... "If they ask for help and would find my website useful I would send them there".. That's why you go to forums, or popular locations and look for people who are asking about your topic, then give them some useful info upfront, such as:

"Hey you want to lose weight? Try doing X,Y,Z and think about A,B,C... Stay away from H,I,J... To learn more check out this article I wrote on it here, link"

Something like that on a forum for weight loss where people are asking questions is a perfect example.

Or you can post valuable videos sharing your information, then have a subtle pitch at the end (no worry, they will understand) and say "if you like this you may like what I got at my site too"... See the pattern?

Value first, and helping them, then you get your reward, traffic.


- Chris

I think you got the wrong idea of SEO. Other than black hat methods of course.

SEO is a great self-promotion tool because if you know what people of your niche are looking for through keyword-research, you can write articles that solves their problem and optimize it according to the keywords so people who are looking for solutions can find you...

Thank you so much for these tips. I`m going to create my own site so I hope your article will help  me.