I have a nh mortgage company that does business in Ma, CT and NH. 
website www.bellemortgage.com  How do I get more traffic to the
website?

Dear Blokk, 

There are several ways to draw more traffic to your site. I will
review them, but I recommend that you'll read further, both in the
links I'll provide, as well as in books about this subject.

Getting Listed 
==============
Not everywhere. That doesn't help. Spamming the world never did any
good. However, it is very important to get yourself listed in major
directories, such as DMOZ (Google Directory), and local directories
for businesses in your area. You have to find the appropriate
categori(es) in Google Directory and follow from there:
://www.google.com/dirhp 

Quite frankly, while this is likely to bring some visitors (who were
browsing through these categories), the next strategy is much more
important.

Old Fashioned PR
================
Most people, especially in a serious matter as mortgage, read articles
about it, get consultation, do their research. They don't just choose
some site they stumbled upon on the Internet. You have to write press
releases; send them to local press; get yourself to be known. If you
could, a promotional action (get X for free; contest; etc.) always
draws crowd. If it is a contest, you could collect information on the
visitors to your site through the registration form.

Silent and Word of Mouse PR
===========================
Proper PR agencies cost money. In the meanwhile, getting yourself
known through Word of Mouse is a good and cheap idea. It is actually
very simple: get your site link at the bottom of your email, as a
signature, and ask your family to do the same; go to forums advising
people on mortgage questions, and if it is permitted on those sites
(check ahead), add your site to your sig, and give sound advice. For
example:
misc . invest . financial-plan (Google Group)
<http://groups-beta.google.com/group/misc.invest.financial-plan>. 

There's a book I recommend in cases like that. It is a bit simplistic
(like all advice books) but gives several helpful tips on online
marketing in free venues. You can get it at amazon.com
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0935047298/ltc-political/002-8658478-2156038>
Let Your Fingers Do the Talking: Using Word of Mouth Advertising on
the Internet, by Tom Clarke-Hill, but also probably in some libraries.


Advertisement
============
Before I offer you that, let me tell you that I am not an employee of
Google, but an independent contractor, and I receive nothing from
recommending Google-related schemes to you. However, I warmly
recommend Google's AdWords program. This is a program of sponsored
links: whenever someone searches for your search terms (say,
"mortgage" NH), they'll get your ad on the top or to the right of the
results:
AdWords
<://www.google.com/ads/> 

But wait! What would you do if tomorrow morning hoards of New
Englanders come to your site, and all they can see is broken graphics
and your email address?

Improving your site - ASAP
===========================
Except for the graphics, it is essential that you'll create some
fringe benefit to the visitors.

One of the things you can do here is create some sort of content that
would lure people to spend time on the site: analysis about mortgage,
calculators, information for different types of (potential) clients.
This kind of articles does not only lure clients. It will be cited or
linked from other sites, of people dealing with these questions.
You'll find yourself receiving visitors from sites that you never
visited, and never had anything to do with you.
   
There are many other search engine submission and maximising tips and
tutorials out there:
http://searchenginewatch.com/webmasters/    
http://directory.google.com/Top/Computers/Internet/Web_Design_and_Development/Promotion/Help_and_Tutorials/?il=1
http://www.addpro.com/    
http://directory.google.com/Top/Computers/Internet/Web_Design_and_Development/Promotion/Free_Search_Engine_Submitting/?il=1
How to Get more Traffic To your Weblog
<http://www.plasticbag.org/archives/2002/01/how_to_get_more_traffic_to_your_weblog.shtml>

 Kim Komando, Tips to get more traffic to Web site ,  The Honolulu
Advertiser ,  December 21, 2004
<http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/2004/Dec/21/tc/tc04p.html> 
 
I hope that helped and answered your question. If you need any further
clarifications on this answer, please ask before you rate this answer.

thankyou for getting me started in the right direction

Thank you for the rating!

I keep getting spanked on my answer here, and I think maybe it's the
external links I've been including (sorry Google editor - still
learning my way around). So, I'll try again with no links at all
because I think this is a critically important, highly relevant point.

A global search engine strategy may not help you. The web may be
global, but your business, because of industry regulations, is local.
So, increased general traffic may represent interested people, but not
potential customers. It does you no good to get traffic from Paris,
Texas or Paris, France; you need traffic from your market area.

Here are some ways to get localized traffic to your website. Put your
website URL on all your marketing materials: your flyers, business
cards, signs, phone book listing, documents, and even your after-hours
answering machine message. Get listed in local resource guides, both
online and offline. Some publicity has been mentioned; you could even
send out a press release to the local newspaper announcing your new
website.

Traffic is good; accountable, relevant traffic is better.