How do you spread word/advertise a site, without paid advertisements and not be considered a spammer?

Is this a commercial site? If not, you should try to get listed on search engines like Yahoo. You could also seek out sites related to yours that might be interested in connecting to your site.

Its not really a commercial site, more so an informational site with a couple of ads. Im listed on search engines, but the only way to get higher up in the rankings and such is to get your link listed on a site like this for example. If a person does that, they get accused of being spammer. :(

People will often reply to queries with things written by other people. It is good academics to cite these sources.
Find someone without a life to get informed about your site, and then send him to become a part of (not join-and-spam) various target communities. When the need for your resources arises, he can pull out your URL.

Say that yours is a car-care site. Send your pawn into an automotive forum. Have him become a knowledgeable regular (“opinion leader,” in communication theory). And when somebody eventually asks him what a solenoid is, he links over to the best source that he has: your entry for it. If you’ve done a good job with your site. Do this well enough and long enough, and the people that your person helps will eventually start directing others to your site as well.

That is an absolutely brilliant idea Nullo; Very much appreciated.

Though my problem right now is that I am starting a Supplement Rating and Review website and need honest reviews and ratings. I could put fake ratings on the page and fake reviews, but that would be about the fakest most immoral thing you could do, plus it would misinform the consumer.

So once the website gets populated with ratings and reviews, your idea is golden; but until then…I dunno.

I guess I could private knolwedable people on popular forums and tell them I Iike their reviews and request for them to do one for me.

@SuppRatings I agree. By no means should you fake anything; it’s immoral, and once the fraud was discovered, it would ruin you.
Do you know anybody in person who takes supplements? If so, you could have them rate and review in accordance with their experiences. You could also visit existing supplements communities, explain to them (thoroughly but concisely) that you’re putting together a resource for your target demo and that you need help garnering reviews of supplements, and would they like to lend a hand.
This shouldn’t count as spam, since you’re asking for help. And if you’ve managed to impress them with your site, it’ll stick in memory so that when others down the line need a supplement resource, your helpful forumites will send them your way.

Regarding @Nullo‘s first post- that is spamming.

We get dozens of such users daily paid to become members, participate some then drop a link. I should know. I have banned 984 users for spamming on Fluther in the last 17 months.

To join a web site with the sole purpose of dropping a link to promote your web site is spamming. It does not matter if you find a place to put it where you think it will not be noticed or how innocent you want it to look. Bottom line is that you would not have joined had you not been waiting for the chance to drop that link to serve your ratings.

On the bright side we DO allow you to place a link in your profile. However if you place a link in your profile and then stop being a contributing member we will remove it as spam.

My advice is to put your link in legitimate venues as you have done- to create podcasts or continue to create great articles and your site will build naturally. See if other sites will cross-link with you.

To find people to rate supplements I think asking for honest reviews is a legit thing- provided you are not trying to sell supplements and remove unfavorable ones.

So suggestions:

Begin having podcasts on topics related to your blog.
Create newsletters
Link on your profile here- but continue to be a productive member.
Write articles for magazines and ezines where they allow authors a promotional linkback.
Set up an email list to send out new articles and keep users from forgetting you.
Be a guest on other people’s podcasts.
Take any chance you can get to discuss your passion, supplements, and people who share your passion will follow.

All these things will help you gain- and keep- users and get better search engine ratings.

Also get your own domain name and if possible host your own blog. It looks more professional. Pay for your domain name at least 5 years ahead to improve rankings.

Thank you very much and appreciation on the reply Dog. It was quite informative. Also, this is definitely one of the coolest sites i’ve ever seen; i’ve already told my friends about it!

Get on all the social media and talk about issues relating to your site. Often post links to specific things on your site. Buzz it, Tweet it, chat it up on FB or whatever you use. Make a business page on FB and/or a fan page. Get your friends to plug it.
The more, diverse links to the site the better off you are.

@Dog I was thinking of them being perfectly normal forum users, who would only provide a link if asked for one, and then continue participating with and contributing to the community. Zillions of things get linked to Fluther, for instance; I followed one just this afternoon to a site describing the differences between DVD-R, and DVD+R. It was posted by a long-time user in order to answer a question. I’m sure that if the same person found a similar question, they’d post the same link.
The only difference between that guy and the hypothetical user is that the hypothetical one learned about the site from the webmaster.

@Nullo according to your scenario this person is supposed to join a targeted site waiting for a moment to drop a link. Even if they do stay on after mission is accomplished (which is very unlikely) the intent and end result is to boost ratings of a web site by dropping spam.

I am in similar situation. I have website and blog and need traffic. I have written articles and posted them on Ezine. That seems to work well when the article is first published as they put it on front page for a day or so. It continues to work after that but not as well. I have also had referrals from FB but it is difficult to get it started with a pro page as interaction is not good. Twitter is good but quite time consuming and there are LOTS of people in the same position all trying to get people to their site. You do get visitors but usually out of curiosity to see the competition! I am still looking for sideways angles but until then I will just carry on with the inane twittering. If I come up with anything else I will post to you!
I love Fluther – it is so relaxing to be away from the world of twits for a while! Good Luck!

Good grief, my response sounded negative. Sorry for that. Keep going with all the options… mine is slowing making progress using all the above. Keep calm and carry on!