Recently, one of our forum members, Phileos, asked a question many newcomers to the world of e-commerce ask: "What are the best approaches for publicizing the existence of a new website?"

Faced with thousands of online competitors, how do you generate traffic to your site and turn those clicks into sales?

When you launch a new site there are a few things you can do to start driving traffic:

1. Get links to your site. The best way to get listed in the major search engines is NOT to submit your site to them, but rather to get links from other sites that are spidered regularly and let the search engines find you naturally. Get started by submitting to directories such as http://www.joeant.com and http://www.dmoz.com. Also look for link opportunities on sites related to yours - either paid or as a link exchange.

2. Issue a press release. This is an easy and effective way of announcing your new site and getting some links (which will help with #1 above). A few free services you can use are: http://www.prweb.com, http://www.press-world.com, http://24-7pressrelease.com, http://www.prleap.com and http://www.prfree.com.

3. Start driving traffic with AdWords. Since this is a great way to get targeted traffic almost instantly you can use it to start making sales as well as to test your site and make sure you're converting. If your site only converts 1 in every 100+ visitors to customers then there is a lot of room for improvement.

4. Visit forums related to your industry and include your URL in your signature. I wouldn't suggest posting explicit ads (unless the board has a section for this), but simply creating an enticing signature and making a few posts will get you noticed pretty quick.

Member jadesimports, who has asked similar questions after being frustrated by slow sales, had another idea.

Another source of getting traffic as well as getting your site on the search engines is to go to overture.com and set up an account for "pay-per-clicks", and go to selfpromotion.com which is run by a great guy who has tons of info on getting your site listed. For $5 or $10 a year he has a nice database I use to regularly do my submissions.

During an earlier discussion, forum member BigDoor, offered several suggestions for those wanting more traffic and more sales, including the old fashioned method of pounding the pavement.

As much as you would like to be an instant success, it comes with time. I myself recently started an e-commerce site and see the same results. It's been a few months now and here's what I've learned...

-Be patient, webcrawlers and spiders can take up to 4-5 months just to find your site and list it.

-Pay per click services, although effective for driving traffic to your site are not always good for creating sales. I personally found it a waste of money.

-List your site on every possible web submitter. Use the free ones, unless you've got money to blow.

-Links with other shopping sites will increase your ranking and exposure.

-Hit the pavement, store to store with a sample of your product and a brochure.

If you have any other suggestions, share your thoughts, ideas and experiences with the rest of the Ecommerce Guide forum members.

Devin Comiskey is the Managing Editor of ECommerce-Guide.com