the marketing aspect of it is the really important part. I did a lot of research on adding my banner and or link to others web sites. Other than the board the one place I did the best was on
http://www.freequiltpatterns.info
They tell me the more links you can exchange with people the higher your rating on the search engines will be. But of course the traffic I get from the board has helped tremendously! I have had mine for 4 years and I am now getting up over 3000 visits which is great!.
Brenda my host was confused when I set up my Bits n Pieces site. She has all the buttons going down the side of the page. I put the buttons in rows going left to right in the middle of my page. Now I know the left or right side is supposed to be easier for the robots to find but I wanted to make my own sections so I did and it worked just fine. I have had no trouble with the robots finding it and it is easy to navigate that way. I am one that doesn't follow the crowd. I have learned to create my own graphics and to some extent I can work within the site she did for me. It is easy to use but I had to ask for the original admin instead of the new one. I like being able to expand to a full screen when I am working on a page and the newer admin was only a small window with no way to expand it. I need to see the page the way it will appear to work on it.
Now I don't know much about any other hosts but I liked Brenda's homey crafty look to her sites. I wanted to put my own fabric in the background and she lets me send her anything I want to put in as and where I want it. I have seen several others that are good too. I will be interested in seeing what you come up with!!