How to make site popular without any finance? Is it even possible?

I'm exactly in the same position as you. I have very little funds and I'm very good at programming.

If anyone could advise on the matter, it would actually be useful. Getting things viral is not as easy as it looks.

If you want, you can check out my project - http://twtquiz.com

Honestly, there is really no easy way to market, with or without money. The cheapest, and honestly the best way, is to be personally recognized.

You'll notice that once people break through to the public sphere of whatever niche they are in, anything they do seems to get instant traction. While a lot of people stumble into their status, there is a systematic way of getting there.

I could spend hours talking to you about blogging and making an name for yourself, since I am currently a PR student,but the fact remains, there is no easy way to gain traction. Everything you will do (paid or not) will take time and dedication to get right.

Another way to gain some initial users is to make it viral in your own personal sphere. If you are in High School, make it big within your High School. Remember, the virility of something refers to how "contagious" is it, not how many people pick it up. Lots of immensely popular companies started locally (See Facebook and Ben & Jerry's).

Anyways, hope that helps.

Start a blog and write articles (preferably something related to your target market/product). You also might want to make a twitter account.

When you have no money, marketing will take time.

I know of some sites that started organically and grew because there was need/demand for it. If you regularly participate on email lists, it is usually ok to put a link to your site in the signature block. Same with a lot of forums. (On Hacker News, you could put the link in your profile.) As long as you are a genuinely participating, regular member and they have no reason to think you are simply spamming them, this shouldn't be a problem. Then try to not talk incessantly about your site. For the most part, just participate as usual and let people check it out if they find something you say interesting. Mention the site where it is pertinent to the conversation.

This is probably not a way to get big traffic quickly. But if you regularly develop the site so that there is new content frequently, it can become a fairly high traffic site over time. This method gets some traffic for a couple of my sites where the goal was to share information and there wasn't a business goal or financial goal at the outset. I am real bad about not putting up new content very often. The following for my sites has grown very, very slowly. But for the particular sites in question, I think that is okay and will likely change as I get to the point where I am ready and able to update them more regularly.

Good luck and wishing you many excellent answers from other members. :-)

I am thinking about 2 things right now:

First, send e-mails to famous blogers and ask them to post about my website.

Second, post about website right here, on hackernews, and ask people to post review on their blogs if they find it useful and interesting website.

What do you think?