Please, list all the possible ways to advertise a website for free and rate their efficiency from your personal experience.

The ones I know :

- Listing in free directories ( ie: DMOZ ) : I never had traffic coming from those sites.
- Google submission : 80% of my traffic is generated by Google
- Viral advertising (joke/parody sites) : never tried yet but efficiency might logically depend on how funny the site is.
- URLS in forums posts/signatures : very bad and not professional looking.

Your turn now :)

Especially for dmoz, do you have confirmed you are listed there?

Yep, a search for my domain name in their directory shows my website.
A past website of mine was also listed there a few years ago. Was useless (like any other directory IMHO)

I dont think dmoz would be the source of direct traffic, as most result from google are search result rather than dmoz itself. However IMO you should concentrate more on getting quality backlinks from relevant sites and try out blog as well.

Free advertising:
- Press releases to newspapers
- Put your business card everywhere -- corkboards at the post office and restaurants, with a good tip at after a meal (wait staff know tons of people)

While not completely free, lettering your car or getting a personalized tag are cheap. So are t-shirts/polo shirts/jackets etc. to wear when you're out in public.

...
- Press releases to newspapers
...

Could you give a few hints on how it works exactly?
Are there specific networks that welcome such news?
When I visit newspapers' websites , I'm always upset to notice how "hermetic" they are. They usually don't give the contact informations that would accept incoming news from normal people like us.

Or did I miss something?

Google is best free advertising, just improve your rankings in google and you get the traffic

Google is best free advertising, just improve your rankings in google and you get the traffic

Yeah, I already mentioned it in my first post ( sort of :) ) .

But I don't want to believe that Google alone can drive traffic for free.

So, what are the other ways? ( part from the ones that are already listed here )

Marker in a stall at the mall?

Word of mouth. By far the best free ad out there. (so long as the words are positive)

Could you give a few hints on how it works exactly?
Are there specific networks that welcome such news?
When I visit newspapers' websites , I'm always upset to notice how "hermetic" they are. They usually don't give the contact informations that would accept incoming news from normal people like us.

Or did I miss something?
It probably depends on your area... Around here, The Eastern Pennsylvania Business Journal will list all sorts of information if you tell them, such as new product launches, new/updated Web sites, new businesses, even certifications and job promotions.
http://www.epbj.com/ (serving the Lehigh Valley area of Pennsylvania only)

You'll have to look around for something appropriate where you live...

OpenReaction's suggestion of word of mouth is excellent. We have 2nd and 3rd generation referrals (after 8 years in the business).

Add a "Tell a friend" feature to your site.
Trade links with similar sites
Put your URL on your car (if you have one)
Use "free ads" in newspapers
Post something controversial on your site for the publicity it might bring

Article Submission can be an effective method.

Article Submission can be an effective method.

Hi :)
Could you elaborate on this one?

Add a "Tell a friend" feature to your site.
...

Aren't people reluctant to disclose their friends' email addresses to commercial websites ?

Hi :)
Could you elaborate on this one?

It's a widely practised and recognised method of SEO now. Some even write and submit articles for a living.

In basic terms you write or get someone to write for you, an article which you then distribute via the many article directory and ezine sites that are available, for others to use as content on their web sites, within this article you include links back to your own site or at the very least you include a bio at the bottom of the article about yourself and site (including link).

I just Googled very quickly and found this

http://www.profitpapers.com/papers/organic-seo-via-article-submission.php

Thanks for the explanation !

Not totally free advertising but door to door leaflet drops can be done.

If you are creative, quality leaflets can be produced by you, copied fairly cheaply and then delivered through letterboxes so to get your product info to the offline world. :)

No more free online methods?

And what are the nearly free (very cheap) methods also available BTW?

Selling a product on Ebay (and displaying your URL in your product's description) could be a solution?
Personally, I've tried it once but it was useless.
Maybe because I was selling something people aren't interested with?
Anyway, I got almost zero visits on the product description page.

Wow .... look at that : http://www.newsdaily.com/TopNews/UPI-1-20060828-21232000-bc-us-textbooks.xml

How this guy managed to have his trivial little story ( come on : a website with 3500 hits ... ahahaha ) listed in national news????

I bet he knew the right person at the right time !

alongwith submission in the serach engines you should do something also on offiline advertiemnentt ,try some publishing materials and some media adds too