Does Free Advertising Work?

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I started a website for Work at Home Moms about a month ago, and I did everything I read that I was supposed to do, including adwords, affiliates, listing in all of the major directories, posting to relevant discussion threads, advertising on myspace, etc., yet I still have only received a minimal amount of traffic. My question is, does free advertising work, or am I going to have to shell out some bucks in order to get my site off the ground?