Nice blog post you got there.

Want to know how to promote it?

Then you’ve come to the right place.

This post is a collection of 17 actionable tips on how to promote your blog for free.

No premium tools, no paid subscriptions, no-nonsense — only clear-cut steps on what to do after publishing an article.

Let’s roll.

1. Share it on Facebook for Easy Traffic

Sharing your post on Facebook for quick exposure is something you can do right now.

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For the description, just try to keep it short and talk about the benefits of reading your post.

Statistics show that the best time to post on Facebook is between 11 AM and 1 PM on Wednesdays. Keep this in mind if you want your posts to make the most impact.

How about your Facebook page?

Since you want to establish your brand on Facebook, you should also share your post on your blog’s official page.

Wait — don’t tell me you haven’t configured legit-looking profiles and pages on social networks yet?

Then you’re wasting time.

Luckily for you, creating a more professional Facebook page for your blog only takes minutes.

Facebook’s assisted page creation process should be a breeze to go through. You simply need to fill up the required fields, upload a profile picture, and set a cover photo.

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Here are a few reminders when building your blog’s official Facebook page:

Enter your contact information to encourage prospective leads and influencers to connect with you.

Use a unique username to make your page easier to find.

Create a “Learn More” button to send users to your website.

Tell the story of your brand using the tips found here.

2. Tweet it Out to Stir Social Buzz

When talking about places to promote your blogs, Twitter is always a part of the conversation.

For blog promotion, the steps are similar to posting your content on Facebook.

The catch is, you have to squeeze everything into a 280-character post.

That’s really not a lot — I know. Still, it should be enough for a crisp and clear introduction to your post.

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There are also certain posting times that could maximize the visibility of your tweets.

On weekdays, try posting at 9 in the morning on Wednesdays and Fridays. Avoid posting between 10 PM and 4 AM since fewer people check their Twitter feeds for news late at night.

3. Pin it on Pinterest to Convey Your Message Visually

If you’re blogging about recipes, DIY stuff, or anything that can be conveyed better with visual content, you need Pinterest.

A glance at the platform will tell you how other bloggers, marketers, and businesses use the site.

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Naturally, you’ll want to use custom visual content if you want to share your content on Pinterest.

No — I’m not suggesting you should shell out cash for a professional graphic designer.

There are plenty of tools like Canva and Piktochart that let you whip up presentable visuals in no time.

Nailing your Pinterest strategy

For your posting schedule, CoSchedule crunched the numbers and determined that around 9 PM is the best time to post. That’s on Fridays and Saturdays when Pinterest users typically sign in to look for informative visual references.

Unfortunately, preparing posts at night is in no way a convenient time, especially right before the weekend.

On the bright side, you can schedule your posts in advance with a tool like Tailwind. It also comes with a handful of useful features, like analytics, bulk uploads, and more.

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4. Publish it on LinkedIn to Reach a Professional Audience

The key to successful social media marketing is knowing the right type of content for each site.

This isn’t just because of the way these websites work. It also has something to do with the content preferences of their user bases.

This brings us to LinkedIn — a website for those who want to build their professional network.

It’s the perfect place to share in-depth, data-driven content.

How to promote a blog on LinkedIn

What makes LinkedIn particularly interesting is that it allows you to publish content right on the site. It will then be consolidated into your profile’s “Articles & activity” section.

For the sake of this post, let’s take a look at the profile of Ryan Biddulph of Blogging From Paradise.

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Of course, you shouldn’t paste your entire post on LinkedIn. To make sure users visit your website, just provide a teaser while including a link to the full article.

Here’s an example from another LinkedIn profile — this time, owned by Neil Patel himself.

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5. Use Instagram to Maximize Visual Content Reach

We’ve already mentioned Pinterest for promoting visual content, but we definitely shouldn’t forget about Instagram.

Other than selfies and photos of food, you can also find infographics, blog banners, and product photos floating around.

You can also repurpose your tweetable quotes into more shareable Instagram posts — just like what HubSpot often does.

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Building rapport with your audience with authentic posts

While the tips above will surely help bring traffic to your blog, there’s one thing you should always remember.

If you want to promote your visual content on Instagram, you should throw in a few authentic posts.

I’m talking about your own photos that give followers a glimpse of who you really are.

To give you an idea, here’s a post about a four-hour marketing class I was invited to.

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6. Participate in Social Media Groups to Connect with Prospects

It’s one thing to use social media as a regular person your followers can relate to.

But to truly be on your target audience’s radar, you need to actually participate in the community as a user.

Joining social media groups that are related to your niche is a step in the right direction.

Let’s say you’re a travel blogger and would like to mingle with like-minded individuals. On LinkedIn, just type “travel” and select ‘Groups’ from the drop-down menu.

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Some social media groups prohibit users from sharing anything that’s self-promotional or salesy.

Don’t worry — it should be relatively easy to find groups that allow the sharing of promotional content.

Regardless, you can still promote your brand by building a killer profile and participating through:

Answering questions — In every social media group, there are users who need advice and answers to their questions. If you can help them accomplish their objectives, they may voluntarily check out your profile as well as your site.

In every social media group, there are users who need advice and answers to their questions. If you can help them accomplish their objectives, they may voluntarily check out your profile as well as your site. Run polls — Some social media networks like Facebook let you run polls in groups. Use this to draw attention and receive useful insights from the community.

Some social media networks like Facebook let you run polls in groups. Use this to draw attention and receive useful insights from the community. Build your reputation — As you play the role of a contributing member, you should soon be able to gain recognition in any group. Just remain active, be respectful to others, and continue giving value to the group by sharing your knowledge.

7. Reach Potential Leads on Q&A Websites

Social media groups aren’t the only places where you can promote your blog by answering questions.

There are literally Q&A or Question & Answer sites that welcome you to showcase your expertise.

When it comes to Q&A websites, nothing else comes close to Quora — the go-to Q&A platform on the internet today.

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But unlike social media networks, promoting your blog content on Quora requires an elaborate strategy. That’s why I put together this guide on how to get traffic from Quora.

Give that post a thorough read when you have the time. It explains everything from creating an eye-catching bio to performing content research.

Once you’re done with social media and Q&A sites, your next target would be other authoritative sites in your niche.

Leaving a link to your blog post for some traffic?

You sure can, but you need to be careful.

The thing is, most bloggers nowadays don’t allow comments with external links. Not only is it an obvious promotion attempt, spammers also take advantage of blog comments and ruin the user experience.

They don’t even try to hide it.

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I’m not saying every blog out there would decline a comment that contains links. But if you don’t see any approved comment with a link, your best bet is to just comment naturally.

Invest in a potential relationship between you and the authoritative blogger.

Anyway, if your comment adds value to the post, there’s bound to be readers who’d look up your name online.

It’s worth noting, however, that there are blogs that let you provide links to a specific page. They just don’t want any links to be pasted on the actual comment — like me on Master Blogging.

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In which case, readers will be redirected to the URL when they click your name. The only roadblock now is constructing an insightful comment that’s worthy of approval.

For your reference, below are some comments that I personally like to see on my blog.

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Here’s a tip: the integrated commenting system on WordPress pulls in user images from Gravatar. It’s a global avatar service that automatically loads a picture based on the user’s email address.

I recommend setting up your Gravatar account for free on their homepage.

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9. Share Your Content on Message Boards

In addition to social media, Q&A sites, and other blogs, you can also boost your content’s reach through message boards.

Unlike blogs, message boards are more likely to accept posts that include links.

You can find them on Google using any relevant keyword along with terms like “forums” or “message boards.”

Suppose you’re in the beauty niche and would like to promote your latest skincare routine.

A search query I’d make would be something like:

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Value first, link second

Although plenty of forums give you the freedom to post at will, you still need to plan your approach.

A rule of thumb is to write responses that can stand on their own. This means users should be able to learn something without being forced to click an external link.

10. Use Viral Content Bee to Leverage the Social Reach of Other Users

As far as blog promotion goes, everything you’ve learned thus far should be enough to get the ball rolling.

But I won’t let you settle for “should be enough.”

What you need are surefire strategies that are guaranteed to generate traffic.

Using Viral Content Bee to spread your content is one such strategy. It’s kind of like an open marketplace in which social shares are the primary commodity.

Put simply, you earn “credits” by sharing the posts of other users on your social media channels. In exchange, you can use these credits to have your own projects shared by other users — win-win.

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11. Start Building an Email List for Long-Term Traffic Value

If you want your blog to grow, you can’t rely on traffic alone.

You should also try to build an email list that can supply your future posts with readers.

Other than getting traffic, an email list is a must-have tool for turning leads into potential customers down the stretch. This will prove to be useful once you finally develop your own products — from online courses to downloadable resources.

To build and manage an email list, bloggers can depend on free email marketing platforms like MailChimp.

It has every tool you need for a comprehensive email marketing campaign. You can easily create signup forms, design landing pages, craft professional newsletters, and more.

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What if I don’t like a basic platform?

If you want to go all-in on email marketing, you might want to try Active Campaign.

Some of its features include email segmentation, automation, and split testing for sustainable results.

12. Write an Expert Roundup and Ask Them to Share

I have a question for you.

What if you saw your name mentioned in an article by a different blogger? What is your first reaction?

My first instinct is to share that post right away.

Especially if the title is something like “top bloggers in something” or “best advice from blog experts.”

If you write your own roundup post, you can also encourage other experts to share your post. They might even tell their own followers to pay your blog a visit.

That is, if they liked your topic and the way you described them.

For your reference, here’s a roundup post from Search Engine Journal.

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Other titles you can use can be similar to the following:

Top Blogs to Read for [Your Target Audience]

[Your Niche] Tips from Industry Experts

Tips from Industry Experts Mistakes You Should Avoid According to [Your Niche] Influencers

How do you inform your prospects about your roundup?

Just send them an email and be upfront about it.

13. Look for Brand Mentions and Engage Users Head-On

For bloggers who already get a decent stream of traffic, people online might be talking about you.

That’s a strong indication that they’re interested in your brand and what you have to offer.

You can look for these mentions and respond with a link to your website. To streamline this task, use a social media listening tool like Hootsuite or set up Google Alerts.

These platforms work by alerting you via email whenever your brand is mentioned online.

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Your answers to social media mentions depend, of course, on the context of the post.

For example, if a user is asking a question about you, your job is to step in and introduce yourself. You then cleverly insert a link to any of your blog posts and ask them to check it out.

In some cases, there could be dirty competitors who are spreading false information that could affect your credibility.

Social media listening tools can help you hunt them down so you could set things straight.

Lastly, showing your appreciation to those who share your post is an excellent gesture. This will inspire them to share more of your posts as well as invite others to the fun.

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14. Build Relationships with Social Media Influencers

In blogging, the most challenging aspect is expanding your online reach.

If you want to know how to get blog traffic quick, don’t wait for your own online presence to mature.

Make a move right now and leverage the online reach of other people to accelerate yours.

The game plan is simple: introduce yourself via email and keep following up from there.

As your relationship develops, they’ll eventually wind up in your website and share some of your posts.

That’s already a huge win.

It all begins with a blogger outreach campaign, which I’ve discussed in detail right here. You can also gain exposure for your brand, backlinks for SEO, and maybe some useful insights from your new friend.

15. Use “Ego Bait” to Get Links

Speaking of building relationships with influencers, you can use “ego bait” tactics to really entice them.

For bloggers, an ego boost is something you just can’t pass up.

Besides, you need other people to talk about you in a positive light. That’s how you cultivate a blogging brand that your readers will trust.

A roundup post, which we’ve already covered earlier, is an example of ego bait content. You can also conduct interviews, listicles, and data-driven posts with your prospective influencer as a data source.

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If you don’t plan to write an ego bait post, you can set them as examples in your article instead. This should be easy to do, especially if you often read other blogs for inspiration.

That way, you just have to be honest and describe your example based on your own observation.

I do this often to help get my point across to readers.

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Giving them a nudge

An ego bait strategy isn’t finished until you notify your prospect about your post.

There’s no need to overcomplicate your message. Talk to them, person-to-person, and mention that you’ve featured them in your content.

If they don’t respond to your initial email, don’t give up too soon. Wait a couple of days before sending a follow-up — they might’ve just missed it.

16. Just Ask Readers to Share

This next strategy should be quite self-explanatory.

From the perspective of readers, sharing something on social media is fair as long as they thoroughly enjoyed the content.

Don’t underestimate the willingness of your loyal readers to do small favors.

If you have confidence in your post’s quality, perhaps all you need to do is ask readers to share it.

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17. Save Time by Automating Everything with IFTTT

Finally, promotion tactics can quickly consume hours in a blogger’s busy schedule.

This means less time for meaningful content development tasks, like keyword research and proofreading.

The good news is, you don’t have to execute everything manually.

With an automation platform like IFTTT, these things can be done on autopilot. You just need to activate the right workflow or “applet” that connects to the right services.

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For blog promotion purposes, you can refer to this post about the best IFTTT applets. It will teach you how to automate your promotion efforts on websites like Facebook, Twitter, Buffer, and more.

Conclusion

Well, you did it — you blitzed through this article and learned how to get traffic to your blog in 17 different ways.

Always remember that I’m rooting for you. Go out there, apply the strategies above, and make us all proud!

I’ll be waiting to hear about your results in the comments below.

In the meantime, consider sharing this post and helping other aspiring bloggers reach their goals. Cheers and good luck!