To make a very long story short, you need to get pages that are already popular to nominate your site by placing a link on theirs.

Link Exchaning is a good way to start.

cross site linking IMO opinion is the best way to get traffic.

as long as it is done properly otherwise you come off looking like a spammer/troll

HTH

Hi,
Be patient,it takes alot of high quality links,and superior content to ensure any websites popularity,stay focused on these aspects and you increase website traffic.

Best Of Luck

Try to drive traffic via wanted content. Market in areas that need the service.

There are many methods for generating traffic to your Web site; some excellent and some a waste of time and money.

Effective methods include ensuring that your site is found and listed well in natural search results, using Keyword Advertising to generate targeted traffic, obtaining links from related sites or sites whose visitors would be interested in what you offer, putting your Web site address on all printed materials, business cards, and in your email signature, and advertising offline.

For starters - you need to establish a well thought out and budgeted backlinking campaign, if you want to see positive and long term results from the engines.
This is in addition to the keyword rich content you add on a regular basis.

If you are looking to bring traffic immediately, pay per click would be my option of choice. Be careful though. It's much more complex than meets the eye. Do a little research, and start out with small campaigns. Start with alternative engines (ie. Jeeves) rather than starting with Overture and Google if your budget is limited and your keywords are highly coveted. Although there is investment involved, you will usually see a positive ROI if done smart.

My advice is from an SEO prospective. There are millions of other ways to lure traffic to your site.

So, what if the site you have has little wasy of linking to other sites?
Say there are no other sites of a related nature, or those that do exist are in competition with you?

I'm finding the linking aspect the biggest pain of all... I found keywords and descriptions easy, it's the rest that is stuffing me!

Consider setting up an updated weblog that will be of value to your visitors. This will make your site more sticky, ie: people will come back, and it will mean that as long as it's updated regularly that the search engines 'bots' will visit more frequently

I tried a piece of software called Professor PageCraft...

<< url snipped >>

Got me good postioning in the engines and did in fact increase traffic