Your top 3 marketing tips

[GTL]

If you were only able to use 3 marketing methods on your website what would they be?

For me it would be;

1) Forum signatures - It's a great way to get people that are interested in the subject of your site (depending on the forum you have your signature on), it's free and you are in full control of it.

2) Word of mouth, telling people etc - This is another good one for me as you can tell whoever you want about your site, you can aim it at the exact relevant group of people that your website aims at etc.

3) Forum posts in advert section - I have used this method a lot on my previous forum and it was pretty effective. I like it because if you choose a forum that's about the same subject as your website then you're post it being seen by all the right people :)

[Oliver]

Very good idea! I hope I'll pick up plenty of tips here :p :p
1. whenever you talk about your site on forums and such, make sure whenever you mention your site name, make sure it's a link rather than just text.

2. Offer something in return for a link to your site, i.e users can pickup some content from your site for a link or something like $2. Just a small incentive.

3. Competitions! Competitions! Competitions! This is a great way to get users to your site, especially for forums. You don't have to offer much, maybe a domain. The person who refers the most members is a good one to start off with because it's like a chain reaction if you know what I mean.

[itsonlybarney]

I would probably use more then 3 ways of advertising, but since I have been restricted to 3 I'll use these ones:

Forum signatures + blog comments where you can add a website.
Competitions by giving winners either cash prizes or gift coupons for places like amazon, godaddy, and others
And the good old leave a link to your site when you talk about something on blogs and comments.

[cskanna]

My top 3 Marketting techniques are:

1. Forums posting on related forums.
2. Forums signatures
3. comments on related blogs

[dpsubi1]

Here are mine:

a. Related forum postings.
b. Blog comments.
c. directory submissions

[flopper]

I agree 100% with u GTL :D

[Neil]

Incentives! :D

[Swordude]

1) Forum posts, pretty easy
2) MySpace Bulletins, easy to get 5k+ friends and make 10$ a day for 10 minutes of your time
3) Forum Signatures, if you're good with Photoshop, do these.

[XTraze]

I got some Long Tips here, ok here we go.

1. Submit your site to Free directories
Of course it takes hell a lot of time and you get little traffic from it, but it is possible for you to increase your PR at the least.

2. Blogs and articles
Write a good looking articles and you can find hundreds of Bloggers waiting and searching for Content, give the article for free to those guys (can be found on Digitalpoint, perhaps) and tell them to leave the link there. Or try to add the link INTo the article body.

3. WEB 2.0 Marketing
Stumble,Digg,Reddit,Del.icio.us, etc etc,
Add your site for all of those, including technorati (especially for Blogs)

*. I have a secret way as well,