How do you ensure that your site is found and read by users? According to Ahmed Farooq on techsoapbox.com - you must promote. Actively. Relentlessly. Writing great content just isn't enough.
I agree. I've noticed that good content can get you some traffic, but ultimately you need to get the word out about your beautiful creations.
In at least one case, I've been lucky - some early 'link bait' I wrote (see WhyReboot) got noticed, totally without my intervention - mentioned on lifehacker, digg, and a thousand other secondary sites - but beyond that, much of the traffic to this site comes from a constant effort to make my site more visible - contributing to open source projects, leaving appropriate and on-topic comments on topically-related blogs and other sites, etc.