Here's a suggestion based on information I have learned here at WT for those of you who read this and are having trouble getting members. Quit all the affiliating crap. The problem, often, is not lack of promotion. It's the lack of original content.
There seem to be hundreds of sites out there that are pretty much interchangeable - nothing unique about them. They are either general talk forums, with too many generic topics, or are index sites begging people to come list their forums on their sites. No one reads these indexes looking for good sites. They don't serve a useful purpose, imo. It's just people with lack luster sites exchanging links with one another, almost totally independent of the average internet user.
If you want traffic for your site, you need to get people to link to your site because you have quality, unique content! If you have some useful articles, people will link to your site naturally. Also, with some good articles, you'll have something useful to link to when you contribute at other sites.
Try to specialize a little bit. Be an expert on something. You can have general areas too, but you need something to stand out.
Pick a topic you are interested in and know something about. Write a couple of authoritative articles. Do a google search about that topic. Wherever you find people discussing that topic, post a useful reply with a link to your article. That way you are not spamming, but providing a useful link. This is not an overnight process, but will yield the best results.
For an example, check out the article I wrote and submitted to ezinearticles.com. Notice the link to my site at the bottom. By doing this, I'm attracting quality traffic to my site, and have also established myself as an expert.
http://ezinearticles.com/?How-to-Pic...lder&id=692688
Now do a google search for "how to pick a pool builder." You'll notice my article comes up as the number 2 result. Granted that article is not a direct link to my site, but it is sure to bring me quality traffic, and in the end helps boost my own SERP's as well.
