How To Promote Your Blog 2018

How to market your blog for free

Whether you only dabble in blogging, or you pour copious amounts of time, passion and dedication into your blog, we all want our work to be seen by more people. With a plethora of blogs all vying for visibility and probably zero budget to work with, it can seem like an impossible endeavour.

Sure, some types of marketing are the preserve of the wealthy – those businesses with the swanky budgets and hot shot marketing teams. But what about us bloggers who make only a little or no money from our blogs? Well luckily there are a lot of ways to market your blog for free. Yes, free! Plus, you don't need to be a marketing whizkid or PR pro. You just need a killer starter list (you're welcome) and a healthy dose of savviness.

In this post, I share 16 ways to market your blog for free. Some you'll already know but many will hopefully inspire new ideas and approaches which you have not previously considered.

1. Social media

Starting with the most obvious. Post regularly, create a consistent aesthetic style that represents your personal brand and offer genuine value. You don't have on every social media platform under the sun, but it's wise to cover off the most popular channels. Whatever your niche, Pinterest is generally by far the best channel for generating traffic to your site (without requiring tens of thousands of followers).

2. Twitter chats

Twitter chats are a fantastic way of engaging with other bloggers and raising awareness of your blog as a result. Some great friendships can also be formed when a group of like-minded people get together to discuss a topic. Increase exposure and have some social fun at the same time! Here's a handy list of all the best Twitter chats.

3. Comment on blogs

A great way of drawing attention to yourself while doing a good deed. Just don't be spammy. Take the time to read the post and leave a genuine, thoughtful comment.

4. Guest blog on other sites

Contribute to other blogs or sites to get your name out there. Choose blogs which are relevant to yours. For example, if you have a food blog, don't contribute to an intergalactic space blog. If you can also get a link back to your blog then that also gets you some SEO points.

5. Invite guest bloggers onto your site

It works both ways! Reach out to relevant bloggers or experts in your niche and ask them to contribute to your blog. You can offer exposure and a link back to them in return. This often works best as an interview format. Chances are that they'll share the resulting post across their own social channels, enabling you to reach a whole new audience.

6. Email marketing

Emails are a fantastic way of pointing established readers to your blog and re-engaging old or lost readers. Install an email capture form on your blog (usually 'sign up to my newsletter'). Once you have enough email data, start distributing emails via a free platform like MailChimp. Promote your most exciting content, offer some kind of value and avoid sending them too often, or else people will hit unsubscribe. You can also use email data to create a custom audience for Facebook advertising. However, be aware of the the GDPR regulations so you don't end up accidentally breaking the law.

7. Partner with other bloggers

Carefully considered collaborations with other bloggers can provide a whole host of mutual benefits. Ideally you'll need to find someone who operates within the same niche as you but with a different audience. You could collaborate on content, offer simple cross promotion, or run a give-away together.

8. Attend events

Blogger events and other networking opportunities can provide a fantastic platform for promoting your blog in person. Events can be daunting, especially if you're attending on your own. But you can guarantee there will be other people just like you. Put on your friendliest smile and start making connections, partnerships and friendships.

9. Word of mouth

In short: tell as many people about your blog as possible! Simply remind people that your blog exists and ask friends and family to spread the word.

10. Submit content to blogging platforms

Sometimes you needa bit of leverage to get your content seen. That's where blogging platforms come in. It's worth submitting the odd post to platforms like Medium in order to reach new readers. Remember to make it clear that the article on your blog is the original post (Medium allows you to do this) to avoid duplicate content issues.

11. Giveaways

Free stuff. We all love it. That's one of the reasons you're reading this post! Holding a giveaway generates buzz and heaps of engagement. Collaborate with a company who will provide a free product for your giveaway and it doesn't have to cost you a dime. Don't forget to blast it on social.

12. Distribute a press release

This is only applicable if you have something 'news worthy' to say. That does not mean you have to break a new world record to qualify for breaking news, but it does mean that a standard informational blog post probably won't do.

13. Contact journalists

If you have an idea which may be of interest to an online publication or magazine then identify the most relevant journalists and pitch your idea. Twitter is great for this – a journalist once said to me that if you can pitch an idea in 140 characters (now 280) rather than a waffly email, then she'll give it the time of day. Also monitor and respond to hashtags, such as #journorequest.

14. Keyword research

SEO should be a core part of your marketing strategy. It can seem like a bit of a minefield on first glance but the key principles are actually very straightforward (not that I'm trying to undermine my full-time job). Begin with keyword research to gain a better understanding of what people are searching for in relation to the content you provide.

15. Metadata

Get into the habit of writing metadata (SEO title and meta description) for every new page or post you publish. Think of it as marketing your blog to the search engines and the people who use them.

16. Google Search Console & Bing Webmaster Tools

If you haven't already then set up Google Search Console and also Bing Webmaster Tools for the Bing equivalent (11% of searches use Bing, let's not let Google steal all of the limelight). Here you can access handy information like crawl errors and search analytics. You can also submit an XML sitemap and submit new page or posts to Google so that they get crawled faster and therefore show in the SERPs sooner.

17. Email signature

You've likely already got a link to your blog in your blog email signature. But you should also add it to your personal email signature, as well as your work one if you're able to. This is ore likely to be allowed if you work for yourself, but email signatures are a great way of spreading the word to new people and businesses.

18. Comment on Quora

Quora is a very popular resource for answering people's frequently asked questions. Take some time to respond to questions which are related to your blog niche. Remember, it's not just the person who asked the question who will see your answer. As long as you choose a popular question to answer then a lot of people will see your answer and it can be a great way of referring new traffic back to your blog.

The best part about Quora is that it ranks very highly in search engine results pages. Which means more traffic and more visibility.

I'd love to hear from you if you have any other advice around marketing your blog for free and whether you have the time to do it. Comment below, hit me up on social or send a carrier pigeon.

Ready to take your SEO to the next level? Check out my SEO ebook for bloggers and small businesses.