in this industry you will either spend money or time and some times both so if you want to spend the money then get some paid advertising or you can spend time doing it your self.
You can only go so far with free advertisement. It will get to a point where spending money is the only option, especially since most free alternatives can be borderline spammy.
Marrketing is an important activity which can bring you succsess. It doesn't need for a longer period. Inititally you have to do a solid marketing activity for atleast 4-6 months. Then you can relax and the same time you can benefit from your marketing effort.
Anyways i dont think my db could handle much more traffic without saying "too many connections, retry later" so not all is bad, actually more traffic would mean site not available, ironic
Marketing is a really repetitive job if you do not want to pay others to do it. You should try and partner up with somebody.