What's the best way to advertise a web site online?

[Deja Q]

As I'm doing the photography and artwork prints, mouse mats, and all that, to help keep me away from doing the big B (bankruptcy) I want to improve my visibility by using a legitimate service to advertise in. I'll even spend a nominal amount of money if needed.

Do you use any services or know how best to circulate your site's URL, whether it be online or not? (I made my own bumper sticker with my URL on it, so that's a start... it should last a while before the paper wears, but the ink won't fade...)

Thanks!

[Maple]

1. Put it on Google

and under several different headings so anyone searching for such a service will find you easily

[ps1074]

2. So, basicly you need traffic?

Okay, there are several ways to get traffic to your site

1. FREE TRAFFIC
a/ Search engine traffic - you need to optimize your site to get some of it. It is no secret that google is the monster engine right now and this won't probably change for a while. Put a relevant title and keywords in your body text. Link all the pages of your site together using a menu. Each page should stress a different keyword or phrase... You get the idea. Submit your site to as many free search engines as possible. My best SE are google and AOL.
b/ Link exchange - exchange links with similar sites. This way you will both a/ exhange traffic(someone visits your site but don't like what you offer and then follow a link and goes to a similar site and buys there and vice versa) and b/ increase the keyword relevancy (good for search engines)
c/ submit your site to DMOZ - http://dmoz.org :) Find the appropriate category and subcategories and submit it. DMOZ have some traffic too plus some SE pulls their search results from DMOZ database.

2. PAID TRAFFIC

There are paid search engines where you list your site and once surfers search for a search term your site whows up and you pay for the click. Be careful - some of the bids there goes as high as $1 per click which I find laughable.

3. EMAIL PROMOTION

Put an email box on your site saying something like 'interested but not decided yet? Enter your email here to receive the latest artwork from us.'... You get the idea. Don't buy emails from others - there are scams selling emails - don't buy them. You don't want to SPAM, do you ?:)

I can probably think of more ways to get traffic but I am tired now. Hope that helped. You can PM me if you have more questions or need any help :)

[felonious thunk]

3. If you pay for anything

pay for specific keyword match advertising on Google or Yahoo. I wouldn't spend money for online advertising in any other form, it just isn't worth it.

Try to see if you can do something interesting/different that will get you some word of mouth (email). Like get a really good design that emphasizes the photography. Or a flash presentation, something like that. If you get something cool on your site that gets emailed around, or posted on message boards, then you'll see a nice bump in traffic.

[Old and In the Way]

4. Use metatags for keyword searches.....

your state, city, services, types of work, keywords that people will use in their webserch.

And submit to every search engine you can find.