Free Ways to Promote Your Blog

Most bloggers fail simply because they can’t drive traffic to their blogs. Bloggers who succeed will tell you that they spend more time promoting their content than writing. Writing quality content without making it known to the relevant audience is one of the biggest mistakes made by bloggers. In this article we are going to look at ways in which you can promote your blog content freely.

Identify top communities and Q & A sites in your niche

Sites like Quora , Yahoo answers, Facebook groups and any other Social media communities etc. can be a good source of traffic, all you need to do is to participate in relevant popular discussions and occasionally include a link back to your blog.

Leverage hashtags when promoting your articles on social media

18 Free ways to promote your blog

You can boost your readership by using #hashtags when promoting your articles on social media. By using relevant hashtags you make your content easy to discover when people search for content in your niche and this can benefit you should the hashtag trend while using it.  

You can also read: Content Promotional Communities that every Blogger needs.

Master the best time to post

Research has shown that the success of a viral campaign can be influenced by the time that campaign started. Find out the best time to post an article on your blog and use this knowledge to effectively promote your content.

Use images in all your blog posts

Research shows that articles with images get 94% more views compared to articles without images. Ensure that every article on your blog includes one or more relevant and appealing images, and this will significantly boost traffic to your blog.

You can also read: 10 Common Mistakes made by bloggers

Retweet old articles

Since only a small percentage of your Twitter followers will engage with your tweet, make it a habit to occasionally re-tweet your old blog posts to increase the engagement with your followers.  Most successful bloggers routinely share their old articles, this ensures that people who did not see their content at first will see it later.

Write for the scanner

From research, most web users won’t read more than 28% of words on a website. This means that, while having longer, comprehensive posts will help your search engine rankings, it won’t increase the chances of your content being read. Note that the more people read your content, the more shares it has, and hence more traffic. It is advisable to write your content for scanners by using Headings and subheadings, bold italics, numbering and bullets. This way you make your blog content more presentable and scannable, boosting traffic to your blog.

Listen to your readers

Ask your readers what content they want to read about the most and create your content based on popular demand.

Implement basic SEO

Taking write measures when it comes to SEO can double your blog traffic within a short period of time. Simple tasks like using the right title tags, having a catchy description, ensuring that your site is easy to navigate etc. can lead to a significant increase in traffic to your site.

You can also read: Basic On-Site SEO Techniques for Bloggers

Invite others to guest post on your blog

If you invite others to write for you, especially if they have a much bigger reach than you do, they are more likely to share their guest post with their readers, this can result to more traffic to your blog.

Link to authoritative sources

If you blog constantly links to authoritative websites and resources that are relevant to your niche, Google will assume that you are a good and authoritative resource in your niche, and they will rank you better, leading into more traffic.

18 Free ways to promote your blog

Use Internal links

Internal links are part of your on-page SEO and quality internal links will impact your search rankings in the search engines. Ensure you regularly link to relevant pages and articles on your blog.

You can also read: 10 Effective ways of building links on your blog.

Promote your blog on top forums in your niche

Focus on making valuable contributions to the forum in form of ideas, response to discussions then link back to your blog in the forum signature. This can increase the traffic to your blog.

Feature other bloggers in your articles and ask them to share 

Regularly link to other bloggers in your articles and email all of them to let them know about your articles, many of them will share your articles, resulting in lots of traffic to your blog.

You can also read: Blog and Reviews for Digital Business Marketing

Comment on other blogs

The right comment on a highly authoritative blog can send you lots of traffic. Identify top blogs in your niche and start interacting and commenting on a regular basis. This will get the blogger and his/her audience to notice you and visit your blog leading to an increase in traffic.

Optimize your blog for search engines

Note that search engines are the major source of traffic to the most established blogs like Shoutmeloud.  Therefore don’t ignore SEO.

Guest blog

Look for blog that is bigger than yours and write an article for that blog. You will be allowed to have a bio that includes a link to your site in your guest post. This can result in a lot of traffic for you.

Publish more articles

No matter your niche, research has shown that publishing more content will always lead to an increase in traffic to your site.

Publish longer content

Research has also shown that Google and other search engines give preference to longer, comprehensive articles. Articles that are 3000-10000 words get twice as many shares  than those that are less than 1000.

The bottom line

The above are just but some of the ways you can promote your blog. They are more other ways some free and others paid which I haven’t mentioned. Some of them are a must do for those who want to succeed in the world of blogging. It is upon the blogger to choose which is the best way to promote his/her site. 

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Author: John Mulindi

John is very passionate about digital marketing. He blogs on topics ranging from social media marketing (SMM), search engine optimization (SEO), search engine marketing (SEM), Internet marketing, email marketing, business, tech, entrepreneurship to personal Development. In free time he likes watching football, reading, listening to music and taking nature walks.

373 thoughts on “Free Ways to Promote Your Blog”

  1. These are all fantastic tips thank you so much some I do but there are some I will be looking at… great information

  2. This is so true. The hardest part of starting out is getting traffic. Thanks for putting so many great ideas to bring free traffic to your site in one place.

  3. Very helpful and informative. I’m only stuck on how to know when or what time to post to gain readers.

  4. Indeed Quora is a great way to drive traffic to blog. I also have to add interaction like in facebook groups, it’s not only posting and done you’re gone. Interacting is good because you get to learn and maybe karma will work in your favor making this person visit your blog as well.

    Great post, thanks for sharing these tips 🙂

  5. I have been using Quora and Pinterest to drive traffic to my website and it has worked wonders. I will look into the other means you have suggested.

  6. These are great tips, most importantly something i didn’t notice was the use of social media. Social media is a great resource to promote a blog specially Pinterest. With the right graphics and wording any blog post can go viral!

  7. Sometimes we need to be practical on how we can promote our blog. Theres on harm in trying free ways adn its verry effective.

  8. Super useful tips. Many of these things I was aware of, but a lot I did not know. Going to start implementing several of these tips to increase my traffic and will also be bookmarking this article. Great advice for newbies like me.

  9. These are great tips! I think a lot of people don’t realize how much time should be put toward promoting the blog posts. Thank you for sharing!

  10. These are some great tips. Even I, as a blogger of many years, am always looking for new and hopefully free ways to promote my blog and I’ve found some new ones today, thanks to this post.

  11. SEO & hashtags are something I need to work on. I started blogging just for myself and realized that it could inspire others. Getting the word out is the hardest part. Thanks for all the help.

  12. I definitely left reading this piece a lot social media smarter, and if anyone doesn’t become successful after reading this, they just weren’t reading

  13. It’s so important to find free ways to marketing your site, especially when you’re first starting out.

  14. It is so amazing to me how technology has advanced so much, and so many things can make an impact in one’s business model. Thanks for sharing these great tips!

  15. Excellent tips. Blogging is more than just putting something out there and waiting on people to come to you. You have to make sure people can see what you’re putting out there.

    1. Yes, most bloggers make that big mistake, of only writing, with the hope that people will visit their content without promoting it, otherwise thanks for commenting on this post.

  16. Great tips here! We just started blogging and are still in the learning curve stage. I definitely want to master the best time to post; it seems difficult in pacific time because the rest of the world has already finished their day.

  17. I have gone to Quora and it is a really good resource to getting my questions answered, however I personally have never actually said my two cents on it. But good information and I think I would give it a try. Thanks #trafficjamweekend

  18. Love the article & that you mention Quora! I would add to it that you should use your links cautiously because Quora does remove answers that seem spammy with links to blogs. You can’t just leave a link with a few words or they will 100% remove it. You have to have thoughtful answers that include links in order for it to not be deemed spam.

  19. These are awesome tips, especially for a new blogger. SEO is something I’m trying to figure out and tackle. The tip on longer posts is new to me. Thanks for sharing your wealth of knowledge!

  20. Hi John, as always great post filled with actionable tips. I just want to know, if we want to link to a big authority website, should we ask for permission from that website ? Thanks

    1. Hi Gursimrat, yes it is recommended that you ask, but in most cases people just link without asking. Provided your site is good and in the same niche, linking without asking may not be a problem to the site you are linking to otherwise thanks for visiting.

  21. I was unaware that longer posts gained so much more traffic. Thinking about it, it’s unsurprising, but still helpful to know. Thankyou for sharing these tips! I’m going to revisit my content to see how I can lengthen it.

  22. i’ve mostly been focusing on facebook and pinterest but i will definitely check out these other network sites you mention as i’m not too familiar with them. thanks for the info!

  23. Hi, I have never tried Quora and Q&A communities. Thanks for sharing new stuff with me and also providing further readings on the topics.

  24. Hi John, I am new to your site and often struggle with which technique of traffic generation to follow most given limited time. If you have a choice which are your top three? Thanks for this post and I find that participation in Q&A and Forums most helpful.

    1. Hi Jimmy, thanks for visiting, I drove most of traffic using Facebook and Pinterest. That is where I put most of my effort though I use some of other networks like Stumble upon, Twitter, G+, LinkedIn, Quora to a small extent.

  25. Thanks for sharing this! I just launched my blog and I still struggle a little with bringing traffic and promoting it but Facebook groups are such a huge help. Who knew?

  26. One of the best tips I have read in quite a while…. Direct and no BS. Bookmarking your aticle for future reference!

  27. Thanks for sharing these tips, they are very helpful! Guest posts are a useful way to promote the blog, at least this works for me.

  28. Guest blogging and having other bloggers guest post on your blog are both great ways to increase traffic so I’m glad you included them in your article here 🙂

  29. As the world is moving towards eCommerce, It is suggested to take the business online where we can gain access to reach more people. This is an excellent article. It gives lot of insights in getting online visibility. Content marketing is the best way to promote business.

    I just wanted to share some of the popular websites which are offering free stock images, which helps small business owners. Take a look at

    https://photopedia.in/free-stock-images-for-commercial-use/

    Cheers!
    Ranganath
    Founder – Photopedia

    1. Hi, thanks for visiting, Yes Quora can provide you with some additional traffic. All you need to do is provide links to your site when you are answering questions.

    1. Hi Herlina, thanks for visiting again. Are you using Yoast SEO plugin on your blog? It can guide you to write SEO friendly posts. With time, you get to learn what SEO is all about.

  30. Not only social media or engaged with some blogger groups but you need to put some keywords on your blog, this is will help your blog easy to find in any search engine like: google, yahoo, bing. Go to semrush to find what kind any popular for your blog before you start. Its’ free. You can use daily. This is also will help you to find high cpc keywords if you want to apply for google adsense.

    1. Yes, Writing SEO friendly articles is a good way of getting them ranked. I would recommend Yoast plugin plus keyword search as the best way to start to writing SEO friendly posts.

    1. Hi, thanks for visiting, actually physics was one of my best subjects in high school and am glad that you are writing on the same topic. Welcome.

  31. Great tips. Though I’m not so sure about the “post more often” one. There re many bloggers who’ve made lots of case studies on the topic and showed how they’re blog was just fine with one article per month. Given that you do spend the rest of the time promoting and getting backlinks to that article.

    1. Hi Livia, you can keep the frequency of posting lower, but keep consistency that your audience know that they will get a new post at a given day of the week or month.

    1. Hi, you need to pick a given niche and be active for better results with Quora. If you can portray yourself as an expert in a particular topic or niche, then Quora can work for you.

  32. These are very helpful tips. My blog is still young and there are many things I do not know yet, like most of these tips. Promoting my blog is something I have just recently really started putting my energy to. This post was perfect! Thank you so much!

  33. Amazing tips here, I knew some of them, but others are new. I love the part of writing for the scanner, I find doing that myself, so its good to think about it while writing. Great psot!

  34. I just launched my blog today so this came at just the right time! It was full of great information, thank you for sharing. I had read somewhere that a good blog post needs to be 600 words or less due to short attention spans these days so I tried to keep my content around that. If longer is better I’ll have to change that. 🙂

  35. Thanks for useful tips! I’m still trying to get my blog out there. 🙂 I am working a lot on my blog post length- I used to write blog posts a little over 500 words but now I easily can write 1000 word long posts. 🙂

  36. Great tips! Thank you for sharing. I never thought about featuring other bloggers in my post. Typically I’m focused on linking out to authoritative sources, but those can be fellow bloggers, too! Can’t wait to try that one.

    1. Hi Kate, thanks for your comments. Yes, you can try one in your niche, who is established and this can even improve your ranking in search engines.

  37. This was very helpful. I am struggling with writing vs. promoting. I had no idea how time consuming the promoting is! All of these tips are things that I can implement immediately.

    1. Hi, It is recommended that you promote more than you write not vice versa. I have seen tremendous results when I do promotion more than do the writing. These tips if implemented well can take a blog to another higher level.

  38. I do a combination of a lot of the things you posted here. I guest posted, post retweet old posts (buffer), and comment on other blogs. I also use pinterest!

  39. So many great tips! I could definitely improve on a few of these. I have a post-publish checklist just to keep me on track and make sure I don’t miss any ways of promoting my posts…I’ll have to add a couple of these though! Thanks so much.

  40. I have read a few blog posts that were similar in content but this is the most comprehensive. I am just starting this blogging thing. I don’t know how everyone keeps up with all of this. I really enjoy writing and reading other blogs but it does take time.

    1. Hi, you don’t need to work on all of these at ones, just start somewhere like Optimizing your blog posts for search engines, writing your posts for scanners. Don’t read all blogs you come across, just pick few established blogs in your niche and comment on them.

  41. This is such a great roundup of information! I’ve been working on a few of these for a while, but I’ll definitely try to add more of these into my routine!

    1. If you work on each step one at time, then it isn’t that difficulty. Just start implementing each step slowly, with time you will be there.

  42. Thanks – I’ve been sticking to the 300 word mark but I’ve seen lots of reference to 2000 words being the new ideal…maybe time for a rethink.

    1. Yes the more words you have the better, but make sure you also consider writing it for scanners..i.e. make it attractive to the readers using Bullet points, bold titles etc.

    1. Hi Dre, I use Quora and so far am generating some traffic from it. The key is to be active. Find simple questions that you can provide good answers, then do these frequently.

  43. Your tips are so helpful. I have just starting blogging n I struggle with the problem of traffic and subscribers… Your tips and tricks are definitely going to help me and people who are new to this blogging world

  44. I learned a few things from your post, so thank you for taking the time to share this important information with us! I have a question about hashtags if you could help. How can I utilize them to help promote my website/blog site? I don`t really know much at all about hashtags, how to use them, and what would be most effective in terms of what hashtags get better results and things?

    1. Hi, It’s easy to use hashtags, take an example of Twitter, just type in the search, “#blogging” and you will see so many articles in form of tweets with that hashtag related to blogging topics. When you tweet say your latest post, you can add #Blogging or # SEO or # Blog if it about those topics. You can do a simple research to find the most trending hashtags in your niche or you can come up with your own hashtags. I hope this helps.

  45. Hey John,

    I appreciate you for this article, It is full of informative article for newbie and also for those who is doing mistake. they will learn lot of thing from this article.

    Thank you.

  46. Great tips! I especially like the Write for the Scanner! I like to write in-depth posts, but will begin to make things more prominent for those who like to scan 😉

  47. Very useful articles I really learnt a lot. I think uyou forgot to add some social bookmarking sites like reddit n Pinterest .
    I use them to gettraffic to my blog.

    hhtp://www.youmustgethealthy.com

    1. Hi Collins, thanks for your insights. Though I didn’t mention Reddit and Pinterest, I use both of them but most of my Traffic comes from Facebook groups.

    1. Hi, long articles do well for search engines but in order to make them appealing to readers you can use good bold titles, bullet points etc.

  48. The issue of guest blogging has always been a critical one and I am glad you have mentioned it because if you can leverage the traffic from your guest’s site, then you can grow your email list as well as leads. I agree with this, John!

    1. Hi, thanks for dropping by. Guest blogging can work well especially if you choose established blogs in terms of Traffic and rankings in search engines.

  49. Great list of tips! I’ve definitely noticed that publishing longer, yet more resourceful, content has done well for my blog.

    1. Hi Mia, thanks for your insights. Yes long articles work well especially in ranking but you need also to take care of other important things to avoid scaring away readers. You can make your content more appealing using Bullet points, Bold titles, Subheadings etc.

  50. I was quite sceptical about commenting on other blogs. Lots of people were recommending this method as a great way to generate traffic while others said quite the opposite. Commenting on other blogs AND leaving a no follow link back to your blog as a ‘signature’ does work. At least for me. It’s not a lot of traffic, but at least I know some people find it useful.

    1. Hi Cristina, thanks for your insights. Commenting can bring in reasonable traffic if you choose carefully the blogs you comment on. If you choose high traffic blog, and make meaningful comments, there is high chance that not only will you attract author of the post, but also his/her readers.

  51. There are some great tips here! You’re right about spending more time promoting content than actually writing. I wish that weren’t the case. One thing I’m struggling with is finding the right long tail keywords. Any advice?

    1. Hi Sarah, becoming successful in blogging is a long learning curve, you discover more tips and tricks on the way. Thanks for dropping by.

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