Top 13 Ways To Promote Your Blog For Traffic Boost

One of the key questions for new bloggers is what do you do next after you hit publish? Promote the heck out of your blog post! But what are the places to share your blog posts? What are the ways to promote your blog for free and drive blog traffic?

Creating fresh blog posts is great to build your blog. However, it doesn’t stop when you publish it.

Much of the work bloggers do is a whole lot of promotion. I would say that blogging is 30% creating content and 70% promotion.

Why is promotion so important? Growing blog traffic is one of the number one concerns for bloggers, as it’s tied to monetization. The more eyeballs you have on your content, the greater the chance your ads will make money.

If you’re reaching a certain number of monthly sessions, you can take part in more profitable advertising opportunities such as with Mediavine.

So making sure you submit your blog posts to key sites and social media channels is a key activity you need to add to your daily and weekly blogging activities.

In this post, I’ll share some of the best places to promote your blog post for free. Some will work for your blog niche, while others may not be as great – you’ll have to test them out yourself!

Develop your promotion strategy to work for you, and so that you don’t waste time!

Places To Promote Your Blog For Free To Increase Blog Traffic

You’ve just started a blog and launched it. You’re creating content – publishing blog posts weekly. But how do you get people to visit your site?

What are some of the ways to get more traffic? I’ve used many different sources in the past few years. Good on-page SEO practices have always been a key way to boost traffic.

When it comes to external channels, I’ve used several. Some platforms are no longer around (Stumbleupon), while new ones have popped up.

In this post, I’ll share the ones that I’ve used and tried over the past few years and how they work.

As I always note – work with promotion tools and channels that your key audience uses! Don’t waste your time with a platform that doesn’t get you results.

Choose perhaps three to four channels I’ve shared below and see how they work in boosting your blog traffic.

If they aren’t giving you results, it might be time to change your strategy. At the end of the day, you’ll find what works best for you!

DISCLOSURE: This post includes affiliate links to products that I use and highly recommend. If you decide to purchase anything from these links, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you. For more information read my Disclaimer.

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1. Pinterest

Pinterest is the second-best way I’m getting blog traffic, after organic traffic through SEO.

I tried an experiment: in one year my blog traffic grew by over 680% by using Pinterest effectively.

Although Pinterest loves fresh pins, some of my older pins are still driving huge traffic. So the key thing is to start using Pinterest as soon as possible and keep at it. It will pay off in the long run with ongoing blog traffic.

Since it’s so important, I have several blog posts that help you get ahead with Pinterest.

If you’re serious about blogging, a good chunk of your time should be spent on designing and creating Pinterest pins, drafting Pinterest SEO optimized titles and descriptions, and pinning pins.

If you want to master Pinterest, I’ve created an easy-to-follow course: Pin It Better: A Blogger’s Guide To Pinterest. Learn how you can make it a huge driver of your traffic as well!

In the meantime, get my FREE Pinterest pin templates for Canva:

Tailwind

You may have heard of Tailwind. Before Pinterest’s wacky algorithm changes in the past year, Tailwind was a game-changer when it came to driving traffic to my blog. I was automating my pins and boosting re-pins through Tailwind Communities.

Although Pinterest’s best practices and strategies mean pinning manually is probably a better bet, you can still test out Tailwind and see if it’s a better tool for you.

Try Tailwind with a free trial of 100 pins to schedule.

You can try my tips on how to use Tailwind wisely and see an immediate boost in blog traffic via Pinterest!

One of the top places to submit your blog posts to is Facebook. It’s a great source for increasing blog traffic when you use:

• Your personal timeline among your family and friends (easy way, but don’t overwhelm with ALL of your posts, only the ones you think they would really find interesting and useful)
• The Facebook page for your blog, to your broader community of followers (share them out as soon as you publish them)
• Facebook groups with relevant topics

When it comes to your Facebook groups, there are a few rules that apply to how you promote your blog posts.

• Follow the group rules – share your links in threads that are specific to blog post promotion (e.g., click-through posts, sharing the post on social media, Pinterest pin promotion, etc.)
• Reciprocate! Don’t just drop a link and “run”. You may get booted out of the group if they’re strict about reciprocation. Be nice and give the same attention to others’ posts and you’ll get the same back.
• Don’t focus on only one blog post. Try to change it up with a new one and older ones each day. This way you get varied blog traffic, reviving old posts as well.
• Be careful to not go overboard on how many groups you participate in each day. I limit myself to a maximum of 4 to 5 a day because you need to reciprocate usually in 24 hours. Some of the threads can take some time. So make sure you can fulfill the reciprocation requirements in a timely fashion.
• Be relevant! For example, don’t promote your posts on food when you’re in a niche Facebook group for parenting topics – unless it’s recipes and food tips for parents and kids.

JOIN my Facebook group for new and growing bloggers: The Blog It Better Society!

Although Twitter used to be amazing for many bloggers as a source of link clicks, it’s become more of a news source for many.

However, if you have a great community of people following you for your niche, you can still get some traffic from Twitter. This is why it’s on my list of places to submit blog posts for more traffic.

Here’s how you can do it:

• Share your link with the post title and an image (Twitter card)
• Add a little bit of your commentary before the title that’s relevant to the day (e.g., if it’s National Waffle Day, before the post title of your Best Waffles Ever Recipe, write something like – “Guess what we’re having today? Our scrumptious waffles!” This entices the reader to find out more.
• Always use two relevant hashtags. More than two and it’s cluttered and spammy.

4. Instagram

I’ve found some success with Instagram. It’s one of the top ways to promote your blog and share your content, and increase your blog traffic!

With Instagram, you have a great opportunity to promote your blog among interested followers.

First things first – make sure your Instagram feed is for your blog and not a personal one with family photos, etc. (unless you’re a parenting blogger).

Secondly, create a page on your blog that includes all of your links for the relevant posts you share on Instagram. Here’s an example of mine with blog links posted on Instagram.

The final step: once you have this done, add the link in your profile like this.

This is ideal, as every time somebody clicks on your profile link, it’s one extra pageview on your site, increasing YOUR blog traffic.

Since you’ve got your links on that page, any time somebody clicks a link from that page, they’re creating even more blog traffic for your blog and lowering your bounce rate. A win-win situation!

How To Promote Your Blog On Instagram

So what are the ways to promote your blog on Instagram?

• In your posts and captions: post a relevant image for your desired blog post, and include a call-to-action in your caption to encourage Instagram users to visit for more information. I like to make this call-to-action stand out with CAPITAL LETTERS. Make sure you update the Blog Links page on your blog with the relevant blog URL
• Your stories! Alert your readers about new blog posts (best is with a screenshot of the post or a related image) and a call-to-action to click the profile link for more information. Use the LINK sticker to add a direct link to a blog post or blog page.
• Do a brief video in your stories on one of the things you speak to in your blog post. The call-to-action entices viewers to the blog post. TIP: Reference that it’s only one solution/idea and more are found in your blog post early on in your video. Not everybody watches to the end, so you want to get that message out early on.
• Reels: A fun way to announce a new blog post, or upcoming post. THIS IS HOT for 2021!
• A longer IGTV video alerting your followers to the post. Frame it as here’s the problem, here’s one solution, and there are more on my blog (the call-to-action, pointing viewers to click the link in your profile for more information).

5. Email Newsletter

Your email newsletter is your ongoing source of communication with an interested group of followers. They want to hear more from you!

You can promote your posts in several ways:

• A weekly round-up of your latest blog posts
• Give them a behind the scenes with relevant links to your posts
• Speak to a timely topic, and sprinkle your related posts throughout the newsletter
• Do a what’s trending – share which blog posts are trending in pageviews

How you communicate with them is important.

I personally don’t like to receive more than one email a month from a blogger. If I’m getting every notification when you post a blog post, I’m bound to unsubscribe from that newsletter. It’s cluttering up my inbox!

Weekly email round-ups of what you’ve been working on and posted is better.

Monthly newsletters work great too. A monthly catch-up email newsletter on a theme (e.g., a timely focus, such as Spring activities we’re doing) with a round-up list of the blog posts you’ve published can be a way to promote them and drive traffic back.

While I’ve got your attention, you can sign up for my newsletter too! Here’s a helpful brand standards printable checklist to make it easy to reference your brand palette HEX #s, etc.

| Read More: How To Grow Your Blog Email List Using Freebie Opt-Ins

6. LinkedIn

One of the places to share blog posts is LinkedIn if you have a business-to-business blog.

If your blog posts can be helpful to professionals, share them on LinkedIn! Sharing relevant blog posts on a topic you are an expert in, to your network of followers in the same niche field is a no-brainer.

Just don’t share irrelevant topics with others: e.g., 10 Tips On How To Change Your Baby During A Flight when you aren’t a parenting expert, but rather a customer service rep for a radio station. See? They don’t fit. If you have a blog post on “10 Ingenious Ways To Deal With Tough Customers”, then yes, post it to LinkedIn. Your tips would be helpful to your customer rep followers.

7. Bloglovin’

This free blogger network site is pretty cool for aggregating blog posts. Using your RSS feed, Bloglovin‘ automatically updates a link short excerpt every time you publish a blog post.

Your Bloglovin’ followers will see it when they pop into the site and via daily or weekly newsletters. It’s a fantastic way to get a few extra eyeballs on your blog posts.

However, driving blog traffic through Bloglovin’ requires that you work at creating a group of followers. To do this include Bloglovin’ in your social follow widget in your sidebar or footer.

You can also build a Bloglovin’ following by participating in follow trains on Facebook groups. There are occasionally threads that pop up for Bloglovin’ follows.

NOTE: Fashion and lifestyle blogs do best on Bloglovin’.

8. Flipboard

I recently had a blog post go viral on Flipboard, so the opportunity is there!

There are some bloggers who have harnessed the power of flipping. Flipboard is a platform where you can publish your own magazine and “flip” your blog posts to it.

It drives anybody who clicks on your flips to your blog post, giving you some amazing coverage.

BUT you need to do some work in building an audience. The best way to do this is to follow people in your niche and to comment on and “heart” their posts. The hope is that they will notice you and pay attention to what you’re adding to your magazines.

A few key tips:

• Create magazines according to a niche – for e.g., “Blogging Tips” or “Parenting Life”
• Flip your blog posts into your relevant magazines
• Post your old blog posts that are performing well
• Remember to populate your niche board with relevant content from others too!

There are some Facebook groups that also do threads for Flipboard follows. They’re worthwhile for growing your following as well.

You can follow my Flipboard profile and magazines!

9. Mix

This is one of the new growing places to share your blog posts for free. Bookmarking sites are a popular place to promote your blogs for the opportunity to get seen. Remember Stumbleupon? It used to be a huge driver for bloggers.

Mix is the new Stumbleupon.

Mix is like Flipboard married Stumbleupon and they had a baby.

Although it hasn’t taken off as Stumbleupon did with driving traffic, Mix has the potential of driving traffic for you. What I’m finding is that click-worthy blog post titles get the most eyeballs.

Get the Mix extension for your browser and “Mix” your blog posts into the right collections you’ve created. Consider creating your collections as you do with Pinterest boards. Organize them!

When you click on the “For You” in Mix, you get to see posts from others based on your topic preferences. This is where posting your blog posts to a correct collection helps as well as the use of keywords in your own post.

Here’s an example of some of my collections:

Your relevant Mix collections are one of the places to share your blog post

If your topic is parenting tips, for others whose interest is parenting, your blog post that you “mixed” can potentially show up in their “just for you”.

10. Reddit

I have a love-hate relationship with Reddit. It takes time to build up Reddit credibility. You can’t just drop your links and run. It takes time to build Reddit Cred (Reddit credibility).

Since the majority of my audience is women bloggers, Reddit is also somewhat of a strange place to be promoting my knowledge and work. It’s dominated by young males. However, there is a quieter group of Millennial women who use it as well.

The best way to build your credibility in Reddit is to answer questions related to your niche topics. If you’ve got a thread going, drop a relevant link after a while of sharing tips and information.

Find your niche topics on Reddit and follow the group, answer questions and engage.

Always follow the rules of the board to ensure you aren’t kicked out. Some are notoriously strict about bloggers using their subreddit as a place to share their blog posts. Balance it out by sharing links to other resources – this makes you look less self-promotional.

11. Forums

Forums have been around for many years, but will probably be seeing a greater resurgence in the next few years.

There are forums for niche subjects that you can join that work well for specific blog topics. They can help get visibility for blog posts. So, do your research. Check them out to see if you’re allowed to share links.

Join relevant forums and groups and share your content in a way that follows forum rules.

12. Your Email Signature

The final place to promote your blog posts is in your email signature.

If you’re emailing with brands and others often, ALWAYS update your email signature to include your latest posts or your best posts that make you look like the superstar that you are!

13. YouTube

Have a YouTube channel? One of the best ways to promote your blog posts is to take some of the content and repurpose it for a tutorial, or a walkthrough video.

You can add the link in the description. Include a call-to-action at the end of the video to learn more by visiting the link.

People are searching for tips and solutions on YouTube every day.

To make it easier to produce a video, use Canva PRO’s video editor!

| Related: Canva PRO Review (2022) for Bloggers – Is It Worth The Upgrade?

Many More Ways To Promote Your Blog Posts: Honourable Mentions

There are many more ways to promote your blog for free. I’ll add a few honourable mentions here:

FeedSpot

Add your blog to Feedspot for free, to get it listed in niche “top blog lists”. This gives you an extra source of referral traffic.

For example, mine is listed in the top 90 best blogs list. Click the green button “Submit your blog” to add yours.

Medium

A growing number of bloggers are saying that one of the best places to share your blog posts is Medium.

Many swear by Medium, however like Flipboard it takes a long time to build relationships with influencers who may want to collaborate and share your posts. I’ve dabbled in it, but don’t have the time to dedicate to working on it. It’s not for everybody.

A great breakdown of how to get Medium working for you comes from marketing and blogging guru Neil Patel.

Quora

This is a site dedicated to questions. On all topics! So it’s worthwhile exploring. Some swear by it as a resource. Like Reddit, it’s a place to get information.

However, it’s like the Wild West of q & a sites these days.

I’ve noticed that many TOP experts are hi-jacking the site and re-posting a complete blog post with links to their site, images, and all that jazz to answers. This to me is disingenuous and it’s a turn-off. If I wanted to read your blog post, I’d go to it. Sorry, Neil Patel, I saw one of yours about reaching 10,000 pageviews a day and thought… geez… Quora isn’t your blog platform! Keep your response short but useful!

As established, well-known bloggers are dominating the platform, you need to work hard to make a mark. This means that less well-known bloggers and those starting out need to really step up their game and SUPER WOW Quora users with responses.

So in my opinion, unless you have a niche topic and you can thrive as an expert, dabble in Quora. For others, perhaps look at better, lower-hanging fruit options to grow blog traffic.

QUESTION: What are some free platforms that work for you in growing blog traffic?

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About Margaret

Margaret Bourne is a blog coach, content creator and experienced PR and marketing professional. She helps aspiring bloggers transform their blogs into successful online businesses. Founder of Suburban Tourist, a lifestyle blog, she enjoys sharing not only blogging tips but also inspirational lifestyle stories.