how to generate free traffic

1) Create a SQUIDOO lens. Get FREE traffic by linking your Squidoo lens back to your Website or Blog. You can do this by adding your articles, then adding appropriate links.
You can also add your Website's RSS feed to your Squidoo Lens. Create as many free lenses as you want and even add your affiliate banners and links to them.
I use Squidoo's revenue share system by adding their Amazon & eBay modules for a 50/50 commission split. You will also receive commission on their Google Adsense ads. You can of course add your own links to Amazon & eBay & you can add links to your PPC & CPA offers if you wish.
Overall, Squidoo lenses rank quite well on Google, if you optimize them properly with lots of good quality keywords. Don't forget to include your keyword in the title of your lens.. You can also add as many tags to each lens as you want - Score 10/10

2) Facebook Fan/Like Page -Traffic Swaps - Nowadays you can exchange just about anything, traffic is no exception. I'm not talking about untargeted traffic through dubious Ad schemes. I'm talking about contacting the owners of similar Facebook Fan/Like Pages or groups and offering to mention their Fan Pages either/or on your own personal wall or on your own Fan Page.
Also you can mention their Fan page to your Facebook friends in exchange for them doing exactly the same. Always set your Fan Page Welcome tab to default view - this should contain your list opt-in details. A perfect way to get targeted traffic, all for free. Score 9/10

3) Blog Sharing - You can syndicate your Blog to automatically appear on Facebook whenever you publish a post, this is done through a free system called Networked Blogs - your post can also be syndicated to your Facebook Fan/Like page,old style Facebook Group & your twitter accounts. When Network Blogs syndicate this, this will create an instant burst of traffic to your Blog as it will appear on your wall - for all your Facebook friends to see. You will also go viral as viewers through networked Blogs are given the option to share, comment, vote or tweet it on Twitter. Score 9/10

4) YouTube - Video Marketing. Creating free videos that have useful content is a great way for creating a viral traffic share system. what I mean by this is if you create a useful video, for example - "How to Clean Up Your Desktop - people can relate to this video, as plenty of people have messy desktops. They will find the information in the video useful and pass it on if, actively encouraged to do so. How do you encourage people to do this for you?
a) Provide great, USEFUL content.
b) ASK Them to pass it on... yes, believe me this works. If you use Camtasia, put a slide in the last few frames of the video saying something like "If you found this Video useful, why not pass it on, I'm sure your friends would love to know how to " Keep their desktops clean", or whatever it is you make your video about.
Don't forget to include a visual link to your website in the last few frames (if you have Camtasia) and a click-able link on You Tube to show underneath the video (very important).
If you don't have Camtasia, don't worry - I have made over 30 videos just using a cheap FLIP Camcorder just speak the words... "If you found this video useful, please share this video with your friends", into your camcorder, in the last few seconds.
Put your videos on You Tube, Facebook, also share on other Social Networks including the many video sharing sites. Score. 8/10.

5) Guest Blogging - Find highly ranked, high traffic Blogs (Check Alexa) in your Niche, contact the owners and ask them if you can submit a Blog post, tell them how beneficial your unique content will be to their readers...
It's good for the Blog owners as they have many varied articles by different authors, and it's good for the person who guest Blogs as they get links back to their Website or Blog. Score 8/10

6) Forum Marketing - This is often overlooked as a viable traffic method, but when used correctly can bring you almost INSTANT results.. Offering USEFUL advice in reply to a person's post in a thread that you have some working knowledge of can, providing you have a click-able signature set up - produce another great source of free traffic, especially when used in high traffic forums.
Don't just post a simple "good post" in reply to a post. - actually try to solve the person's problem, this will also attract comments to your reply, just keep replying to the replies and the thread will grow & grow and the views to your signature will follow suit. Score 7/10

7) Blog Commenting - Again, go for high traffic Blogs, post useful comments in reply to a specific post. Your replies should offer a good insight into the content of the original post. use good keywords in your reply. Leave your website address in the post & comment regularly.
If your comments are useful, the blog owner may end up contacting you in the end to act as a guest Blogger.. Keep the comments coming, people love comments, if they are good - people will click your link and want to know more about you. Score 7/10

8) Create FREE Reports & Give them Away. create a free report on an in demand topic, this could be a short report of just a couple of pages or more. Convert it into a pdf file (read with adobe), and share it. By creating free reports of value and linking them back to your Web Page or Blog, you will get traffic, you can also encourage people to share your free report with friends via email. I do this with free reports containing affiliate links, it does work. Score 7/10

9) Only Wire - I use Only Wire to distribute my Articles, Videos & Blog posts. Only Wire is a down-loadable submission tool which is free and you can submit your content to up to 42 different Social Network sites in a matter of seconds (you need to join the sites you want to submit to) - Score 7/10

10) Link Exchange - Approach the owners of high traffic Blogs & Websites to exchange links with you. They can only say no. Some will, some won't. You never know if you don't try. Score 7/10

11) Pay Per Click
Pay Per Click advertising can definitely drive very well targeted traffic to your website, but is it "cheap"? If you are careful it can be. Be on the look out for discount vouchers for free advertising - that is certainly free! But when you set up your campaign select the cheaper keywords that have less traffic. OK, you are not getting as many hits, but the cost is almost nothing, whereas if you pay for expensive high traffic terms it will be very expensive.
But no matter what you say or think about it, lots of website owners use Pay Per Click to drive lots of traffic to their website and it is this traffic that generates an income. If you are careful about how you start off your campaigns and build them slowly, although they might be quite pricey after a while, that is hopefully as you are reinvesting your profits in extending your advertising.

12) PopUps
Cheap these may be and I included them here to provide a complete run down. However, these days they just do not work. Buying Expired Domain Traffic was supposed to be the next big thing and was often sold alongside PopUps, but that I also found to be useless. Cheap it is, traffic generating it is not.

13) Pay For A Mention
Choose carefully where you pay and this does not need to be too expensive. Here we are not talking about banner adverts with low click through rates, we're talking about asking bloggers to give you a mention on their blog. How much it will cost depends on how you find the link, from approaching the blogger directly (usually quite expensive), or using a cheap third party.
Again this is a form of promotion in which you have to be very careful. Select your blog that you are getting mentioned on carefully so that their readers might be interested in your website and take time to make sure that the site does get plenty of traffic. There are loads of blogs out there that are selling links that do not actually get traffic.

14) Pay For SEO
Lastly, and again this can turn out to be expensive if you are not careful, is to pay for someone to search engine optimise your website. A well optimised website through someone who does the job properly will send you search engine traffic for a long time. You can also do this for yourself, which is completely free, it just takes you some of your time to sort it out
reference:ezinearticles.com