I'm ready to start getting some users on my site (http://debate-zone.com), but I'm unsure of how to do it. Buy ads? SEO stuff? Spam? Thanks if have advice!
How you get users depends on what your goal is. It looks like your site offers a free service and has advertising (AdWords and selling ads directly [hint: telling users to name a price is not a good idea.]) as it's only income source. This pretty much rules out paying for users unless it can be done very cheaply as you aren't going to make much per new user.<p>SEO is good. A properly configured site can work wonders, but beyond that, a good product will "SEO itself". Spending time on linkbuilding campaigns or blackhat SEO will not be efficient in the long run.<p>Buying ads could be expensive and wouldn't be worth it to me. That would depend on where you can advertise and the cost, but I wouldn't do it.<p>Spam is an obvious no.<p>So what can you do? Well, this post right here will more then likely get some visitors to check out your site (if that was your intent, +1 sneaky). I'd focus on creating the best product you can, including a better design, alternative monetization methods, and asking HN or current users for suggestions on improvement and implementing them.
[sidenote: I don't have many projects I consider finished, only paused if I'm not working on them. Stay open to future development. If you aren't adapting and improving, you're falling behind.]<p>You could contribute to debate forums or other relevant websites, posting genuinely helpful comments relevant to your site and harmlessly introducing it. I personally like to only use advertising methods that I would not be annoyed with, but if your only goal is to make money, just spam your site all over the place. You might make a little cash, but you'll get a bad reputation doing it.
Bug Report: At 7pm Austin time (April 10th, 2010), I cannot load your site in IE 7.0.5730.11 on Win XP Pro SP2.<p>Before the site fully loads it freezes the browser then leaves an empty (blank) broswer outline.<p>I tried twice and it happened both times. I had to use the task manager to kill the browser both times.<p>IE 7 is still in service for many users, thats why I used it to look at your site.
Create a feature matrix of your site versus other debate sites. Show why yours is better. Do a screencast and show how easy it is to use.<p>Have you seen <a href="http://www.whitehouse2.org/" rel="nofollow">http://www.whitehouse2.org/</a> or <a href="http://www.allrise.com/" rel="nofollow">http://www.allrise.com/</a> -- at least there is a focus. Yours has none.