You excel in writing perfect blogs but don’t promote them enough? I hate to break it to you, but blogging without promotion is a losing game.
Blogging is only 30% writing; the rest 70% is promotion. How else would you get eyeballs on your content?
Ranking blog posts in search engines is crucial, but you can’t forget about social media and other forms of blog promotion.
Most blogs get an initial spike of traffic after publishing a blog post. But the traffic dies out after a few days.
Source: Ahrefs
Real growth (that accounts for your monthly traffic) means the traffic never dies. To keep your audience coming to your blog and acquire new audiences, you need more than just writing quality content.
Source: Ahrefs
In this article, I’ll discuss how to promote your blog for free. So you would enjoy targeted and increasing traffic that never meets the zero on metrics graphs.
Let’s dive in!
How To Promote Your Blog For Free?
Make SEO Self-Promote Your Content
Let’s start with the OG of content promotion. Why is SEO OG? Because you don’t really have to promote your content. It promotes itself if you nail the SEO.
By building a foundation, SEO enables Google and other search engines to send relevant traffic to your blog consistently.
With SEO, you rank not just for one but multiple keywords and drive traffic from a single blog post months after you publish it.
Example: Ahrefs published this blog in 2019. It still gets 1.28K monthly traffic and ranks 5th on Google.
The key components of SEO are:
Keyword Research
Targeting keywords and topics relevant to your niche and business value is the foundation of SEO.
Since we’re only discussing free ways to promote blogs, let’s examine the SERPs, Google keyword planner, and ChatGPT for keyword research.
Start with ChatGPT. Enter your seed keyword, for example: “Yoga,” and ask GPT to create a list of long-tail keywords for the seed keyword.
Remember, ChatGPT gives a detailed list of keywords, but not all are rankable.
Enter those keywords into Google Keyword Planner (GKP). GKP gives a list of all keywords ranking for your topic with an approximate number of monthly traffic the keywords receive and their difficulty.
Save the ones you find relevant according to your blog strategy.
Now, take the keywords to Google and analyze the SERPs for them. By that, I don’t mean reading the ranking articles.
Yes, that, too. But before that, let’s analyze the SERP differently.
There are many SERP features besides the articles. Let’s consider the example keyword, “Yoga for back pain.”
If you scroll the SERP, you’ll see:
- YouTube Videos
- Images
- Links to Pinterest pins in the ‘People Also Ask’ section
- The products section tells the keyword also has a commercial intent.
- Key terms like ‘beginner’, ‘yoga that hurts’, ‘how to resolve pain’, ‘for seniors’, etc.
All these findings help you unlock exactly what your blog post needs to include.
- Make a video to walk through each post.
- Add images for each yoga pose you’re describing.
- Add sections dedicated to yoga poses for beginners and seniors, talk about the pain caused by yoga, how much someone should practice it, etc.
You see, you already have enough to make your blog post comprehensive and match the search intent. Pair it with analyzing your competitors, and you’ll have a blog post that ranks.
Long Tail Keywords
Big market, more exposure, more sellers, divided customers.
Small market, less exposure, fewer sellers, more customers.
Long-tail keywords have lower competition but still get search volume.
The more specific you are, the more targeted traffic you’ll get. Yoga poses for back pain relief will have fewer readers, but the competition is also low. This gives you more chances of ranking and thus bringing your blog to the first SERP.
On-page SEO
Once you know the keywords to target, incorporate them throughout each piece of content:
- Prominently in H1 and H2 headings
- 1-2 times in the first and last paragraphs
- Naturally in the meta title and meta description
- In the URL slug
- Sparingly in image alt text
- Throughout the post where it fits organically
Additionally, format posts for both users and search bots:
- Break content into scannable sections with subheadings
- Use bullet points and numbered lists when appropriate
- Include relevant images and graphics
- Link out to authoritative sources
- Keep sentences and paragraphs short and concise
These best practices help search engines understand your content and determine its relevance for different keyword searches.
Audience Research
Every marketing strategy will become outdated, and search engine algorithms will update. But what works as a constant is your audience.
Your blog will thrive if you write to cater to your audience’s needs. The latest Google update states the same.
Creating content tailored to your target audience’s wants, needs, and interests is critical for driving organic traffic.
Put yourself in their shoes as you write each post:
- What specific information would your audience find most helpful about this topic?
- What questions would they have that your content can answer?
- What wording and tone would resonate best with them?
- What length of post or amount of detail would they find most helpful?
To understand the audience, use tools like SparkToro, Ubersuggest, AnswerThePublic, and, of course, the SERP.
Now that we’ve covered what comes before and while writing content, let’s see how to promote your blog after the content is published.
| Suggested Reading: How to do Content Research?
Use The Power Of Social Media
It’s 2024. If you don’t have a brand, you might as well not have a business. After SEO and organic search engine rankings, social media is the second biggest blog promotional channel. 95.9% of bloggers leverage social media to promote their blogs.
And let’s be honest: SEO takes time to yield results. It takes 3-6 months or more to see your blog getting ranked.
But that doesn’t mean you can’t get traffic to your blog. That’s where the social media game starts.
With social media, you can acquire new traffic, retain existing traffic while nurturing your brand, and generate massive referral traffic.
LinkedIn is my favorite platform for content creation and promotion. You’ll find one of the most specific audiences there. With other businesses and creators leveraging LinkedIn personal branding, you can bring the right eyeballs to your blog.
Here’s how you can promote on LinkedIn.
1. Audio events
Audio events are the easiest way to reveal the purpose of your blog and interact with your audience one-on-one.
LinkedIn rolled out this feature in 2023 to help creators reach a wider audience.
You can schedule these events as it creates an invite for attendees to RSVP. It also allows you to share the invite with your connections.
Below is a screenshot of the audio events conducted by Jasmin Alic on LinkedIn.
Don’t just create your own audio lives. Attend those of other creators and influencers in your industry. This way, you also tap into their audience and increase yours.
2. LinkedIn Live
Similar to the audio events but slightly different are the video lives. They work as a live broadcast and are available after they’re over for the audience to rewatch.
Simply connect your LinkedIn account with a 3rd party streaming platform like StreamYard and go live on the streaming platform.
3. Collaborate with other creators
Nothing’s more powerful than a strong network of active creators.
Reach out to creators who are actively building an audience on LinkedIn. Propose a collaboration and make yourself known to your audience.
Aim for a long-term or recurring collaboration, as it’ll help familiarize your blog and brand with the new audience.
4. Repurposing blog posts on LinkedIn
Don’t forget to squeeze all the juice from your existing content. One blog post can take 8 different content formats—text posts, carousels, infographics, newsletters, short videos, X threads, Instagram posts, YouTube videos, and more.
Once a new blog post is published, convert it into these formats and post it on LinkedIn. Use the posts to drive the audience to the blog.
Sreyashi Chatterjee has perfectly explained content repurposing in this LinkedIn post.
5. Profile tips
Optimize your profile with relevant keywords in your Headline, About section, and Experience. Add the link to your blog using the button below your headline.
LinkedIn introduced a new feature where you can create a custom button that shows below your profile headline every time your post comes on a feed.
This helps because whenever someone reads your post or checks your profile, they give you traffic if they click the blog link.
Though different from LinkedIn, Instagram also has huge potential for success. If you’ve seen success on Instagram or know how to leverage the platform, try promoting your blogs there.
1. Know what content works
Instagram is for visual content. Reels work best to increase followers and brand awareness, followed by carousels.
Take key points from blog posts and convert them into reels and carousels.
Leverage Instagram stories as they bring more visits to your profile than a post.
2. Instagram Live
These are times of authentic content. People enjoy watching raw takes from your everyday life. That applies to the bloggers as well.
Use Instagram Live and give your audience what they want without being unprofessional. Show the behind-the-scenes of creating blog posts. Conduct a coffee chat while you share some unique hacks you use.
Pro tip: Instagram allows you to save the Live. Do that and repurpose them into reels. We don’t want to waste even a second of content. 😀
3. Use the ‘Add Collaborator’ feature
Engage with creators in the same industry and seek collaboration opportunities. Initiate a conversation in DMs and ask them if they’d be open to adding you as a collaborator in their content.
The goal is to reach more audiences without creating additional content.
There’s so much more you can accomplish from the collaboration. You can even find a business partner or expand your team through delegation.
No downsides to networking!
4. Instagram community
Why stop at posts when you can offer something extra? Invite them to join an Instagram community once you’ve created a loyal audience.
Communities have exclusive content only for it’s members. Monetize the community or leave it free, but people like being the first or the only ones getting some information.
These select few will be your first readers for all your blog posts. You can also include them in your content strategy in many ways.
5. Bio tips
Only content without a promising profile won’t do. With all the exciting content you create, you’ll attract a huge audience to your account. You’d want an optimized bio to turn the Instagram traffic into blog traffic.
Add your blog link to the bio. Create a link tree and add links to key lead magnets, email newsletters, and any other communities you have.
Also, add the blog post links to the carousels or repurposed posts as CTAs. The more clicks you get on Instagram, the more your organic social traffic increases.
What better way to repurpose your blog visuals than a visual search engine? For many bloggers, Pinterest is their first biggest source of traffic, even before SEO.
All you need to do is get started and keep pinning consistently. Both fresh pins and older ones drive great traffic to blogs. Just like SEO, if you consistently keep up with pinning, your traffic will see a huge spike in the long run.
Simply transform your blog post tips into eye-catching pins with custom graphics and captions. Use automation tools like Canva AI to churn out multiple pins at once.
Organize pins related to your niche into different topical boards. Include your website URL prominently in your Pinterest bio.
X (Twitter)
With changes happening within X (Twitter), some bloggers are second-guessing its potential as a promotional channel.
If not for promotion, you can still use it to build expertise, like LinkedIn. You’ll need an optimized profile to start seeing some traffic from X.
- Repurpose blog posts as X threads.
- Create educational content along with promoting your blog.
- Follow niche experts and actively engage with them to build an audience that will follow you.
- Use relevant hashtags to optimize your posts.
YouTube
Is there a better way to create how-to content other than writing blogs?
Yes, creating YouTube videos.
And again, you don’t need to create something new. Take the same blog posts you’ve published and create a full-fledged video explaining the steps.
Blogs to videos is not the only way to do YouTube. Explore Podcasts, interviews, short masterclasses, etc. YouTube viewers are all in for elaborate educational content.
I can’t help but mention Ahrefs. They’re nailing the YouTube SEO game. The channel has a strong 499K subscribers, and their SEO beginner course alone has 2.4 million views in two years.
In 2020, they published a blog post sharing how they increased their YouTube traffic by a whopping 400%. Talk about some strong content marketing.
One of the OG social media platforms, Facebook, is no short of promotional content. Many Facebook communities are dedicated to helping bloggers get guidance and a chance to promote their blogs.
What you’d want is a small to medium-sized community as they have more active members. Once you’re in:
- Share informative content
- Engage with other members
- Send DMs to those who you find promising
- Share your blog post links once they’re live. Mix it up. Post new links as well as old ones. This will bring traffic to the entire blog.
But there are some rules you should follow:
- Firstly, the community’s ground rules. Read the rules laid down by the admin and follow them in particular.
- Don’t spam the community. Limit the number of messages you post every day.
- Don’t just post blog post links. Share informative content.
- Don’t be over-promotional. Give value, too.
- Don’t post and ghost. Reciprocate and reply to the comments you get.
| Suggested Reading: How to rebrand your blog for success?
Leverage Discussion Forums
Forums are dedicated to answering questions on every topic. Promotion on these platforms is the byproduct of providing value, i.e., answers.
Quora
Quora is hands-down one of the largest platforms for answering questions, besides Reddit. It houses questions on literally every topic.
However, building an audience on Quora takes time, as established bloggers and experts dominate it.
People on Quora want the best possible answer and expert thoughts on their problems. Try Quora if you can provide that, and have the patience to see your content take off.
You can even post an entire blog post with its link if it perfectly answers a question. But I’d suggest refraining from posting links on Quora as it can restrict you, delete your answer, or ban your account.
Quora is pretty serious about its policies that way.
You can add the blog link in your bio. Another way is to add a CTA after answers, asking readers to click the link in your bio. You won’t face Quora’s scrutiny that way.
Here’s the Founder of SparkToro, Rand Fishkin, on Quora.
Similar to Quora, Reddit requires time to build your credibility. Yep, credibility is highly important on Reddit, as readers take it seriously.
You need to spend time answering questions and interacting within subreddits to earn ‘Karma points’ and become known.
Just posting links left and right won’t help here. Redditors hate it.
The best way to use Reddit for promotion is to find subreddits related to your niche and answer questions members post there. Once you’ve built enough credibility, start posting your blog links.
But remember, only post links when they are relevant. Create a thread and post the link sometime after some comments are running.
Always follow the subreddit’s rules, or the managers can kick you out. Share links from other resources to show your purpose isn’t solely promotional.
Here’s Backlinko’s founder, Brian Dean, on Reddit.
Medium To Promote Your Blog
Continuing the list of platforms that take much effort from you to see some results, here’s Medium.
If you do it right, it’s one of the best platforms, as it has both promotional and monetization potential. But first, you must find a dedicated audience that engages with your stories. That happens only when you spend time reading others’ stories and engaging with them.
As Medium is a long-form content platform, content creation takes more than average time. So, if you can dedicate that time and effort, Medium is good for you.
A quick growth hack for Medium is finding your niche publications. Usually, the big publications have a large and invested audience, and their domain authority is also high.
Browsing through the publications will give you a list of writers you can engage with. And publication stories have a higher view and engagement rate than posting on your own.
You can create new content linking to your blog or syndicate your blog posts on Medium.
Here’s an example of how Folean blog syndicated their blog post on Medium.
Guest Blogging To Build Authority
Usually, it doesn’t charge you anything to guest post on blogs. Verify that the blogs you select are respectable and pertinent to your niche.
These guest blogs help expand your reach immensely. Backlinks from authoritative domains also give your blog more credibility with search engines. You can no longer rely on poor or fishy backlinks. Google has made its mission to clean swipe fishy content clear in its new March 2024 update.
Getting a guest post published is no easy win. You must actively build relationships with your target sites and craft pitches that appeal to what their audience wants to read.
Do Your Homework on the Target Site
Spend time understanding what topics perform well on the site, what types of experts they feature, and gaps where you could provide value.
Follow, share, and thoughtfully comment on their content over time to get yourself noticed. Become familiar with the site’s audience and aesthetic.
If they have a Facebook group or an open community, join it. Contributing valuable insights within the community will make you known and increase your chances of getting your pitch noticed 10X.
Pitch Guest Posts That Complement Their Authority Content
Once ready, reach out to them about contributing a post. Almost every blog that allows guest posting has a page explaining the rules and a form to pitch your idea.
Here’s an example of Zapier’s blog and its guest posting guidelines.
Tailor each pitch specifically for that site using what you learned.
Explain why you’re a great fit as a contributor. Your idea should feel like a natural fit rather than you trying to force promotion. Make it about the value for their readers.
Follow up patiently and politely if you don’t hear back right away.
Promote Your Guest Posts Socially
Share your guest post on your social media accounts after it is published. Thank the site for the opportunity.
Your promotion expands the reach, bringing new readers to their site. This builds goodwill for potential future guest posts.
Email Newsletters
If you don’t have an email newsletter already, you’re missing out on many opportunities. With an email newsletter, you can:
- Build an exclusive audience you own. The audience on social media platforms and even Google isn’t yours alone. One change or glitch, and you can say goodbye.
- Promote special offers.
- Create a paid newsletter with extra value.
- Use affiliates to earn through newsletters.
- Promote each blog post just after it goes live.
| Suggested Reading: How to succeed in blogging?
How can You Gain a Crazy Amount of Email Subscribers?
- Offer an Irresistible Opt-In Offer
Don’t just say, “Subscribe to my newsletter.” Make the readers feel they’ll lose huge if they don’t subscribe. Encourage them to subscribe by providing something valuable in return, like:
- A tip sheet, template, or resource related to your niche.
For example, a blogger could create a “Blogger’s Toolkit” of templates and guides.
- A limited-time discount toward a paid product or service you offer.
- Exclusive access to something your audience wants—like a private Facebook group or insider content library.
- Create a giveaway email campaign once in a while to give your subscriptions a boost. Here’s an article by ConvertKit that talks about giveaway emails in depth.
Here’s a lead magnet I use to gain subscribers.
- Promote Your Opt-In Offer Far and Wide
Right promotion can grow your mailing exponentially. Have a clear call-to-action pointing visitors to your opt-in offer across channels:
On your blog in your header or footer navigation bar.
On relevant social posts and videos directing viewers back to your site.
In your social media bios.
On downloadable resources and assets related to your niche.
Check out how Ali Abdaal gained 110,000 subscribers from lead magnets in 6 months.
- Regularly Send Valuable Newsletter Content
Once subscribers opt-in, send consistently helpful content. Create a roundup of your blog posts with key takeaways. Add curated links to other resources your audience would benefit from. Teach them something you implemented related to your niche.
Keep the knowledge ball rolling. Once you get your subscribers excited about reading your newsletters, you won’t only grow in traffic but can also use the list to sell products and create a passive income stream.
Get Featured in Newsletters or Podcasts
Getting featured in newsletters or podcasts is mostly free. The writers and hosts always look for new people to interview to bring fresh content to their audience.
Pitch yourself as a guest contributor or interviewee by highlighting your expertise and the value you can provide.
Usually, the newsletter and podcast creators do active promotions on social media. All you need to do is connect with them. But remember to build a relationship before you pitch them.
No one wants to get pitch-slapped. And it increases the chances of your DM getting ignored.
Start a conversation first. Add some value and exchange knowledge. Then bring your thoughts on getting featured in their content.
Get Listed in Local Directories (For Local Businesses)
If your blog or business has a local presence, getting listed in online directories like Google My Business, Yelp, and niche local listings can drive relevant traffic to your site.
Claim and optimize your listings with complete business information, compelling descriptions, high-quality photos or videos, and links to your blog.
Encourage satisfied customers to leave positive reviews, boosting your credibility and visibility in local search results.
Final Thoughts
These are just some ways to promote your blogs. You might use some of them more than others. If it’s not possible to utilize every platform, at least build your authority on a select few so you don’t rely on only one channel for promotion.
Remember, promotion is a continuous process. Keep promoting the old blog posts along with the new ones. Also, updating the existing content every quarter serves fresh content to promote on these channels.
If you keep up with content creation and promotion, you’ll surely see a rise in your blog traffic.
