Best Ways of Promoting Your Blog For Free: How to Drive Traffic Without Spending any Money image shows woman with curly hair smiling with a megaphone
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Best Ways of Promoting Your Blog For Free: How to Drive Traffic Without Spending any Money

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Best Ways of Promoting Your Blog For Free: How to Drive Traffic Without Spending any Money.

When you first start a blog there will be so many things you will be wanting to spend your time on.

Getting traffic to your blog is hands down one of the most important ones!

Without traffic and an audience, your blog cannot grow and evolve.

Building up a good source of traffic and a large audience to your blog is important, but understand it isn’t a quick task. 

As a beginner blogger you’ll have spent some money getting your blog set up with  a domain, hosting, a theme and courses to get you started.

Check out How To Start a Blog in 2023 for more information on how to set yourself and your blog up for success.

The good news is that there are multiple ways to drive traffic to your blog for free.

There are of course paid options you can use to promote your blog. But in this article we will be going over the free ways of blog promotion.

To begin with I would recommend picking a couple of the options below.

Trying to focus on all of them will spread yourself too thin and some are worse than others for driving free traffic to your blog.

SEO is important for any blog of any niche.

The other options will vary depending on what your content is about as some options will suit some niches more than others.

If you aren’t sure which is best, do some research on all platforms below and see where you can see your audience interacting.

 

Optimise Your Blog For Search Engines (SEO)

Learning Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is what will help your blog posts to rank better on Google. 

This is how your posts will show higher in search engines where more people will see your content. 

Learning SEO can be tricky for a new blogger but posts can always be updated.

You can use a plugin like YOAST SEO to help guide you in the earlier stages!

Optimising your blog and blog posts for SEO will make a huge difference in time to the traffic that goes to your blog.

The downside is that this option takes TIME.

New posts and especially on new blogs will take MONTHS to rank on Google.

Even the most SEO friendly blog post can take months to show.

Sometimes it’s faster than others but be prepared for posts to not rank on a search engine for a fairly long time.

This is still the most important way to promote your blog for free though so is important to do. No matter how long it takes!

 

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Social Media 

I think one of the biggest mistakes new bloggers make when it comes to driving traffic to your blog is trying to attempt it from all angles.

There absolutely is a time and a place for when Social Media can help drive traffic to your blog.

For the most part though, social media will only bring traffic (in the beginning) if you spend A LOT of time promoting yourself on there.

The different social media platforms can be utilised in different ways.

Often the first two people think of for growing an audience are Facebook and Instagram.

Joining some Blogging Groups on Facebook can be a really good tool but a post you put up on Facebook or Instagram gets swallowed up and lost in a newsfeed so quickly.

Once your post has gone from people’s view, it rarely resurfaces.

If you think about it from your own perspective, how often do you see a post on Facebook or Instagram and click right through to the blog?

Probably not often!

On top of that you have all the time it takes to grow a decent audience on those platforms to even have people to promote to.

Unless you are in a niche where it feels more “expected” to be on Instagram a lot, I wouldn’t worry about it in the beginning.

You need to focus your time on the platforms and ways of promotion that make the most sense and will show you the biggest return. 

If you already have a large following then of course you can utilise this! 

Posts will still get swallowed up but there’s more chance of people seeing them.

Facebook and Instagram have their place, but you need to make sure they are providing enough return for the work going into them. Especially in the early days when you are focusing on so much else as well.

Posting to these platforms can help, but only if it doesn’t take too much time away from the takes that will show you a better return.

Twitter is one of the only social media platforms that can be worth it. Purely as you can utilise the hashtags so can reach a large audience very quickly.

It probably won’t drive masses of traffic to your blog. But as a new blogger it can certainly help get you started while you’re waiting for some of the other options to show results.

Social media isn’t the ideal way to grow an audience for your blog but what is recommended is making accounts across all social medias for your blog name.

This way if you do want to use these platforms once your blog is more established, you already have the usernames reserved to avoid any potential future confusion.

 

Pinterest

Pinterest is one of the best ways to drive free traffic to your blog. 

Unlike your classic social media platforms mentioned above, Pinterest is “technically” classed as a search engine, not a social media platform.

(I say “technically” as Pinterest is a bit hazy in terms of whether it’s a search engine or a bit of a social platform at the same time.) 

For simplicity’s sake though, it is a search engine, which automatically makes the time invested a lot more worthwhile. 

As Pinterest is a search engine, the time spent creating pins and images to promote your blog is a lot more well spent. 

This is due to the fact that anyone could be searching for the topic you are talking about at any time. Even years down the line!

Pinterest does have a home feed, but pins can stick around for years, as they aren’t time sensitive.

The key to promoting your blog on Pinterest is to keep creating fresh content for your blog you can then link back to.

Pinterest likes all pins to be fresh pins and not to link to the same URL too closely together, but you can repurpose old blog posts as well as promoting all new blog posts.

It can take months for your Pinterest account to really grow, and some niches do better than others on the platform, but for most blogs, Pinterest is absolutely worth it.

Unlike Facebook or Instagram, when users go to Pinterest they are often searching for something that will lead them out of the platform via a link.

This link may be to a blog post, a landing page, a YouTube video or any other link you have been promoting.

If you are in a very specific niche you may need to do some research into how many users are searching for the kinds of content you are creating. Purely to make sure there is a big enough audience on Pinterest searching for topics relating to your niche.

I would say that most niches can do well on Pinterest though so definitely one not to be slept on.

 

Youtube

Youtube is also a search engine so can again be an amazing way to drive traffic to your blog.

It can be a very effective way of promoting your blog for free.

Again it can take time to grow an audience on Youtube but will work if enough people are searching for the topics you are talking about.

The one downside to YouTube as a brand new blogger is that producing high-quality content can take time.

You will need to assess the time you have and prioritise the important tasks for you.

 

TikTok

Similarly to YouTube, TikTok is a search engine that can help you with promoting your blog for free. 

It can be a quick way to promote your blog through video content.

As with the other search engines, it can take time to grow an audience on TikTok that can then help you grow an audience for your blog.

The one benefit with TikTok is that you have a much higher chance of a random tiktok video going viral.

 

Online Forums and Communities

Online Forums and communities can work well for some blog niches. 

These can be a great way of driving free and relevant traffic to your blog if you’re in a niche that isn’t as popular on Pinterest.

Examples of niches that may do better in an online forum could be things like:

Car Modification

Dungeons and Dragons 

Blogs on a Specific Point in Time/History

Sports Statistics

Coding

That’s not to say they can’t gain any traction on Pinterest, but online forums are an amazing place for very specific niches. 

Forums are usually filled with people interested in the exact subject you are creating content on.

Alongwith that you can also network with others in the field and grow your own knowledge at the same time.

The key is to actively participate in the forum discussions, help by answering others questions and provide valuable and helpful information.

Start to be seen as a knowledgeable source in your field, so that people learn they can trust what you say.

This way people are much more likely to read your full articles and even join your email list for more information and content.

 

Guest Posting

Writing content for other blogs in a similar niche is a great way to grow your own audience.

There are a few pluses to guest posting.

Growing your own audience is one, and this is done by having a link back to your blog in the article you write.

Creating a backlink from the hosts blog to your own can also help your Domain Authority and can improve your search engine ranking.

It can take time to pitch your post ideas to other blogs in your niche but is a worthwhile task to do. 

Find some blogs in similar niches to your own and that have a similar vibe to your own.

People will be impressed by the research you’ve put in, over pitching to anyone and everyone where a few may not be a good fit at all!

Write a high-quality engaging post that their audience would want to click through from to click back to your blog, while also providing good content and value in the blog post itself.

The blog post is a reflection of you, your blog and your work.

Make sure people see the best version!

 

Email Marketing

Email Marketing is a really powerful tool for promoting your blog.

It’s in this article about promoting your blog for free as there are many options where you can sign up and send emails out to your subscribers for free up to a certain number.

Of course you can pay to upgrade down the line but initially the free plan options are all you need. 

Websites like Mailerlite allow you to have up to 1000 email subscribers on their free plan which is more than enough for any new blogger.

 

The key with email marketing is that you need to have people on your email list, to be able to send emails to.

Once someone signs up to your email list you can then send newsletters, extra information, updates and promotional emails to promote your blog.

Keep your emails relevant and engaging.

You want people to read your emails and click through your links.

This will only happen if they trust you and you are talking about subjects they are interested in.

 

Connecting With Other Bloggers

Networking and connecting with other bloggers can help you build relationships and attract new readers. 

You can find other bloggers from various places.

Examples would be: through their own blogs, Pinterest, online communities/forums, hashtags on twitter and Facebook groups.

Connecting with other bloggers can help with blogging tips, help and inspiration.

Not only this but it can also open you up to further opportunities such as guest posting, working on collaborative podcasts, blogging interviews etc.

 

In conclusion, as with anything blogging related, promoting your blog for free will take time, effort and dedication. 

With a combination of email marketing, guest posting, participating in online communities, optimising for search engines, networking with other bloggers and even social media platforms, you can attract new readers and grow your blog audience. With the right strategies, you can promote your blog like a pro without spending anything!

 

I hope this has helped you to discover the best options for promoting your blog for free.

As your blog grows you may decide to spend some money on something like Facebook Ads to help your blog’s reach. But there are so many free options as mentioned above, there is really no need to spend the money on driving traffic to your blog.

Especially not in the early days.

 

What are some ways you drive traffic to your blog?

Let me know in the comments which ways you used to start driving traffic to your blog when it was new?

 

Speak soon!

 

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