When I first read the thread
How did you get so big?, I was getting just a few hundred hits a month. But things have gone better lately, going over 100k hits last month!
Dec 62889
Nov 108821
Oct 66061
Sep 82554
Aug 88728
Jul 59930
Jun 15676
Sticking to it, was the best lesson I learned on this forum. Link exchange and DMOZ/Google are the most important for me today.
BC
PS I have never spend any money on promotion, all submissions done by hand.