I have created and have run many websites, unfortunately I do not know how to get lots of traffic or a good lively forum. I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions as to how to make a website more popular and efficient. If anyone has any ideas, they would be appreciated. Thank you!

Talk about your website to your friends.

Like CaptainPeanut said, promote your site. Spread the word. Offer something unique.

start by using youtube to premote it and talk about it on facebook ECT

Hmm, this sounds good, but it only works for so long, having a modding website with a lot of people who know nothing of modding is kind of like a never ending circle.

well then, the only logical thing to do then is to grab the interest of modders.

Unfortunately it is easier said then done. My site was recently hacked into and destroyed. So we are starting over, wish us luck.

Well heres my advice.

First learn about modding so you have the background information.

The way I joined up on a site was digging my way through the forums we made our own forum and well as you can imagine we had some security types since we knew the shady types so hacking was not an issue. Spreading information is key as well you must advertise every way possible and prove you have something to offer.

There's many different ways you could achieve this, It will help If the forum is on a popular subject to the people, and make YouTube videos, make a Facebook Page and/or group, maybe even a tumblr? There are tons of ways you can achieve this goal.

It really depends on your niche. If you are game modding, is there other sites already covering it? If there are you will find it a bit harder to start up. I recommend looking for features you can add to your site to give it the edge over competitors.

Some general tips:
1. If you are a member of a few forums, make a signature that stands out.
2. If the other sites have a "links" area see if you can get your site added.
3. Get as many backlinks as you can. That it, linking to your site from other sites.
4. Have some decent content on your site, it'll help keep people there.
5. Having content is also good for search engines. The more content you have, the more search engines can index. In turn, better results on google and such.
6. Install Google Webmaster Tools, it'll give you a little boost and some good stats on your website.
7. For efficiency, don't overload your site with images to load. Every image adds more loading time.
8. Get Firebug and analyze what takes up most of the loading times. Then you'll know what to cut down on.
9. Social media. Put it out there for people to find, get people talking about your site.
10. Offer a way to communicate with visitors such as a shoutbox. If the site looks alive, they'll probably comeback again.
11. If you must, even try a link exchange.

Hope that helps

Sound advice.

7. I'd also add that you should make sure you use the right image type for the image. It's tempting sometimes to just make everything the same - all JPGs or all PNGs. However, using the wrong format can have a surprising penalty in terms of size. Use JPGs for Photos, use PNGs for graphics, particularly those involving transparency. For certain types of graphics, such as those with a low colour count, it's worth even considering GIF - experiment using your image editor to see which format gives the lowest size without sacrificing fidelity.

8. I've also found Google Page Speed and YSlow to be useful extensions in helping to determine ways to cut down page loading times and improve the end-user speed.

I really appreciate all the help, I had not though of most of these ideas. Thanks a lot guys.

If your website has something unique to offer than all you would need to do is promote it through forums (not in a spammy way though). Unfortunately I see sites opening and dying off very quickly because they're so generic.

I find it helpful to put your website link to your signature in forums (where rules allow it). Google will assign your site higher in search queues if your site is linked more through the web. And some times do some sutile comments on blogs and place your site link if that add on the discussions. But don't go the spammy way or Google will rape your site popularity and will place it on the bottom of the query, where no man dare to go.

And most importantly, be creative with your site content. Don't try to copy other sites, why would you go to a low quality version of a site that you already visit?

Facebook, Twitter, xat.com, YouTube, AdWords...
All this can help you.