The Basics:
Getting Hits is a hard thing to do. Popular sites such as Suta-Raito have so many fans. Why, you may ask? Well, it has a unique layout. The images are fantastic, and the interactivity is great. The owner is kind, and she tries her best to update as much as she can. She has some guides, to boost her hits a little, too. It's very fun, also. So, what's the main thing that attracts visitors? The layout. Many people love to say positive things about good, image based layouts, and bad things about layout that look eye hurting. The layout is the sweet smell of your site, and the content is the taste. Some things that will stop your site from gaining hits is your grammar. You need to have good spelling and use correct grammar. Try to stop chatspeak. Try to be funny here and there. Also, advertise your site in some places.
The Layout: Your layout is very important. You should learn how to make layouts from excellent layout guides. Learn how to make cool layouts at Valley Of Nightmares. It may take time, though. Don't think you'll be done in 10 minutes. It can be hard. It takes about 1-3 days to finish. Like I said earlier, this is the smell of your site. The sweet smell (if your layout is good).
The Content: Your content is the taste of your site. The content is also very important, but many people want the layout to be good as well. Anyway, use correct spelling and grammar in your content. If you use content, give credit. In each page, try to have content you wrote by yourself or found out by yourself. Images are OK, but it's highly suggested you put content in your own words if you find it at another site. But still give credit.
Things To Avoid: Make sure all the interactivity have rules. If parents see their child going in places where people do anything they want, the child will be blocked from that site! Also, try to not direct linking. This is considered direct linking:
It's because the person hosted it on his or own server. If you host it on another server, like yours, then you won't be in trouble. *SOME* of my pages says I'm a lousy bandwidth thief, but I do not know where they are! So I need help!
Popularity: Ok, now you want your site to be known. Start with a small goal of 10 unique hits a day. Then, up to 15, to 20, to 30, to 37, to 45, and so on. You should advertise your site on popular forums, and maybe oekakis if they allow it. Submit it to search engines such as Google. Go to Submit4Free to submit your site to popular search engines without giving very person information.
More to come soon!