I can’t afford Google or any of the big search engines right now. I don’t want to join a banner exchange because nobody pays attention to banners anyway. And I definately don’t want to be a pop-up or a pop-under.
So far I’ve submitted it to some directories, (Google determines a websites worth by how many other websites have links to it).
Any other ideas?
You sure you can’t afford Google? With them you can set how much you want to pay, and then it stops showing after that number of click-throughs (or something…)
The admin of my mud has it set up to show for 5 bucks a month, and that keeps a steady stream of visitors. You might want to look into it some more.
Another way to drive visitors is to be active within the community of whatever you are selling. Take part in the newsgroups, mailing lists, chatrooms etc. Not as a spammer, just as a regular person. Building up cred in “the community” and establishing yourself as somone with a lot of knowledge about XYZ will drive visitors. This of course depends on what your store is.
Another store dependant way to gain visitors is to have free content on your site. This may be information, free downwloads, whatever. It really would help to know what you are selling 
Register your site with www.dmoz.org. After registering there (it’s free), I popped to the top of Google and Altavista within a week.
Also, see if your town has a local chamber of commerce website. They might give you a free listing.
What do you sell? Maybe we can suggest some partnerships based on your products?
I just noticed this portion of your post. That’s not actually true. Google’s web crawlers will have an easier time finding you if you’re linked from several other websites, but that’s not how they determine how high up the list you are.
That is determined by how closely the content of your site matches the search criteria that the user typed in. Once they find you, they catalog your content. They only have to find you once.
I’d agree with this. Part of your advertising strategy has to tie in with what your whole strategy for success is. Why would someone shop at your store? What are you selling that isn’t available elsewhere? Is it a unique product? A unique service? Go to those people who want your unique offering–and offer it to them. (Some message boards are less restrictive about advertising than the SDMB.) If you truly have something that people want, then people will not be annoyed. They will be glad to know where to find it.
An example of this is at Amitymama.com. A lot of women there sell cloth diapering supplies, and the people who go to those boards are the ones who are looking for cloth diapering supplies of the type that are unavailable at regular baby stores. Everybody’s happy.
Also, could you become part of a net community of sites with similar customers? If you go to www.hippiecrap.com, you’ll find that it’s part of a really neat network of sites selling other types of…hippie crap.
Ultimately, I’m saying that if you pitch your product to people that would likely be interested in checking it out, then you won’t be annoying.
wrong, do a search (google?) for pagerank.
I forgot to mention, it’s easy to get on to Google with the “pay per click” option like Iteki said. But your ranking dtermines how far up the list you are. You have to** bid** on certaine keywords, and you’re competing with all the websites selling the same thing you do. I’m selling women’s clothes so there’s lots of competition, not just other small businesses but the big guys too.
Thanks for the suggestions so far.
Are they tailor made? Do you design yourself etc? Imported? Special sizes? Or are they regular clothes such as one would buy retail?
More info is vital
I just ran a Google search with the terms “women clothing” and there are only 3 ads.
Really? I get eight on the side and one on top.
Very interesting! I think it’s important though that Pagerank uses a combination of content and links. My business website shows up fourth in Google if I search on “music movement class worcester”, and I know I only have links on four other websites.