• Sign guestbooks and of course - duh, sign your URL.
• Look up sites with the same topic as you and e-mail their creators and ask them if they want to exchange links.
• Get on a mailing list and contribute tips through e-mail as to whatever the subject of list deals with, then at the bottom of the e-mail be sure to sign your name along with your URL.
• Get in the habit of signing all the e-mails with your first name followed by your URL
• Use meta tags (go to my html tutorials to get the codes for them). These help search engines such as AOL NetFind index your site
• submit your site to search engines and submit each of your pages one at a time, not just your main page
• Sign your URL in message board posts
• Submit your site to as many link machines and banner machines as possible
• Use submission tools such as the links listed below

• The Computer Nrrrrd's Banner Exchange
• EZ Banner Exchange Network
• Link Exchange
• Smart Clicks
• Net-On
• Banner Swap
• DKOnLine Banner Exchange
• OptWeb Banner Machine
• 123 Banners
• Major Hits Banner Exchange

Make sure your content is worth reading. Sure, it's cool to have a web site that tells people what your favorite band is and includes a cute picture of your kitty or something, but if that's all you've got, nobody is going to go there more than once. Instead, put up something useful that will give people a reason to go to your web site, and to come back again and again. The type of content is up to you. Do you like model trains? Then put up information about model trains, like how to start an N-gauge model railroad if you have limited space. Like comic books? How about a chronological list of heroes Spidey hung out with in Marvel Team-Up? Into guns? I'd love to see a step-by-step procedure on how to disassemble, clean, and reassemble an M1911A1 .45 handgun. Programming? How about a C++ for Beginners page? Fishing? A page on all of the great trout spots in your area, or about which flies/lures/baits work best during specific times of day or year. The list goes on and on. Everyone knows a good deal about something, and chances are good that someone wants to learn about something you know. Find out what that something is, and people will come to your site.

Another great way to increase traffic to your site is to update it frequently, especially on a specific schedule. If people know that on every wednesday, they'll find even just one or two paragraphs of new information on your site, they'll come back. Just make sure that the changes you make on a regular basis are relevant and useful, and never take anything away from your readers. Instead, create an "archive" where you move old/outdated information and articles.

Let your users sign up for a mailing list so that they can be informed when your page is updated. It can be as simple as a mailto: link where they send you an e-mail to sign up, or you can use a fancy (and free) mailing list service like ListBot. Then, send out an e-mail newsletter when your page is updated. This will remind people to visit your site when they otherwise might have forgotten. Don't send out more than one newsletter a week, though, or you'll get on people's nerves and they'll unsubscribe from your list.

Here's the way I increased my hits greatly...

Stuff your keywords tag with keywords that are related to your page -- but with a twist.

For example in my keywords I have: free online gaming, Free Online Gaming, FREE Online Gaming, FREE OnLine Gaming, Free OnLine Gaming, free online gaming

They're the same thing but I have typed them differently, so when someone types in "free online gaming" then all of those variations will be skipped except free online gaming. So if a user typed in FREE OnLine Gaming, Free OnLine Gaming, free online gaming -- then my page would come up in the first 10 results. So that's a good way to get hits.

Another way to get em' would be...

• Join Banner Machines
• Join Link Machines
• Join any type of service that allows you list your link for free (Gnarph!!!)
• Join Webtips so visitors can tell others about your site.
• Join Click-Trade so if a ClickTrade member visits your site you can trade links with them.
• Yeah I know, when Join those spiffy top sites, hot lists, or what ever and put all of your buttons your main page then your page will start taking forever to load. So here's a good idea -- put all of the buttons into an image map. Go to Tucows to download LiveImage -- it's great! Or put all of the buttons on another page named: topsites.html then tell the visitor to go there to vote for you.
• Add every idea you get from visitors to your page -- they'll keep coming back and if you use their idea then they'll tell other friends about it and they'll go to your site, and so on.
• Use frames, tables, or some type of navigational system -- so that the visitor won't have to go back to the main page every time they want to visit a subpage on your site.
• Make a eye catching banner. Use colors that go together and not like blue on black.. .try it -- it's really hard to read.
• Make a feed back form for people who have web-based eMails.