How to Market a Blog for Free: 10 Ways that Work

When you’re just starting out writing for your new blog you want people to see it!

That’s the whole point, right? But there are two problems.

You’re not sure where to start and you don’t won’t to spend any money.

I have excellent news for you. I’ve got a bunch of ways to market a blog for free!

That’s right, FREE. No money. The true beauty of blogging!

10 Ways to Market a Blog for Free

I used to work for my Dad. He had a small catering business that serviced one GIANT client. Basically, he operated the cafeteria that fed three shifts of people, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. He never had to market anything. He had a captive audience (plus the food was actually delicious and all scratch-made).

You don’t have the luxury of a captive audience. The people you want to talk to have a million different choices. So you’re going to need to learn how to market yourself.

There are lots more than just ten ways to market a blog for free, but these are the ones that we feel will give you the most return for your efforts.

We call these free marketing efforts “planting flags”. You’re leaving a signpost for whoever happens to come across your flag that says, Hey this is what I can help you with and this is who I am.

#1. Pinterest

Pinterest is free and if you’re in a niche that is popular on Pinterest, then you might get some decent traffic from it.

I will give you my Pinterest disclaimer. It is not my favorite, but it is pretty easy to use and if you don’t fall into the trap of using ONLY Pinterest, then it’s great.

Just please understand that traffic can be very volatile from Pinterest, especially at first.

It is the worst kind of deja vu when we see members come to our Slack community with a win that their page views have shot through the roof, only to come back 4 days later to ask, why have they “tanked”?!

It would happen over and over again and it wasn’t deja vu. It was our members that were really going through this suffering.

So, that is why we have TEN ways to market your blog and not just Pinterest. Keep the right expectations and you’ll build a healthy relationship with Pinterest.

The account you set up is free and all you have to do is create some boards that are relevant to the topics you are writing about, create pinnable images, and pin those images to your boards.

Pinterest will distribute that image as it sees fit to people who might be interested in the pin you have created.

If Pinterest gets it right, then people will see your lovely pin, click it, and come visit your blog. Or they may save it which means your pin will get seen by even more people.

It’s simple and it’s free.

And lots of bloggers absolutely hate it.

Pinterest can be fickle friend, but if you keep in mind that you are paying nothing to have your pin shown to hundred or thousands of people, then you might not hate it so much.

#2. SEO

SEO is search engine optimization. It’s a series of signals you add to your content to help Google (and other search engines) understand what your post is about so that it shows up as a result when someone types a question into Google.

So as an example, this post will hopefully show up as the first search engine result when someone types in “how to market a blog for free” someday.

SEO is absolutely free to do, but it is something you need to learn. It can be very competitive, which, depending on your personality, might be a good thing or a bad thing!

We’ve got a post on WordPress SEO to get you started.

#3. Facebook

There are a few different ways to use Facebook to market a blog for free.

You can create a Facebook page for your blog and share your posts there. You might also want to create a Facebook group where you can share content and information with your readers.

There’s one more thing that you can do for free with Facebook, though.

It’s a great idea to participate in other Facebook groups that are in the same niche as you. Most groups don’t allow self-promotion, but offering your help consistently in other Facebook groups is a great way to plant flags.

People will begin to recognize your name and want to learn more about you.

#4. Youtube

If you have a blog, you should also have a YouTube channel. They work really well together.

When you write a blog post, you can make also make a video that relates to the post. You link the blog post in the comments of the YouTube video and then you also embed the YouTube video into your blog post.

That means that you have started to set up a little ecosystem for the people that find you. Your YouTube people get to discover your blog and your blog people get to discover your YouTube.

And, just like with Facebook, you should be commenting on other YouTube videos in your niche to help with flag planting. If you leave an especially insightful or helpful comment, there’s a good chance other people reading the comments will click to find out more about you.

#5. Quora/Reddit

Quora and Reddit are full of people who are really interested in a particular topic and who are looking for help with that topic.

Look for questions that are in your niche and start answering them. It’s not just the one person that has asked a question that you will be helping.

Anyone else interested in the thread that comes across you will take notice as well.

There are rules here against self-promotion, so be sure to follow those, but if you are helpful enough, people will seek you out.

#6. Twitter/X

Depending on your niche, Twitter can be a great place to market a blog for free.

You can share links to your posts or you can share other valuable content that might help your audience.

Make sure you are keeping up with comments to get the most impact from your interactions.

#7. LinkedIn

LinkedIn is going to be very niche-dependent, but you can either share your blog posts or write separate blog content specifically for your LinkedIn followers.

The idea is not unlike what you would do with YouTube.

Your LinkedIn profile would link to your blog and vice versa.

#8. Email

Hopefully, as you are working on growing your blog you are also working on building your email list.

If you aren’t already, it’s a great idea to send a digest of the content that you are creating for the blog (and YouTube, FB, and LinkedIn) every week to your email followers.

Just because they signed up to be on your email list doesn’t mean they are remembering to check out your new posts every week, so be sure to remind them.

#9. Comment sections

You still read blogs, right?

If you’re reading other blogs in your niche, check out the comments section. It’s full of people who are already interested in your topic and chatting about it.

Many times when you leave a blog comment, you can add a URL to your own site.

It’s not going to be an avalanche of traffic, but you can tell by the conversation that the audience is probably going to be interested in what you have to say.

#10. Interlinking

Interlinking your posts together is good for SEO, but that’s not all.

It’s also a smart idea to link your posts together so that your reader is able to check out other awesome stuff you have to say.

If you can create enough posts that answer enough questions well enough for one reader that comes to your site, then there is less chance of them leaving.

And more chances of them beginning to see you as their guide.

For example, when you’re done with this post on how to market a blog for free, you should probably read this post on how to write great blog post titles, too, because, without good titles, all of your blog marketing might be for naught.

Ready To Go Plant Some Flags?

Pick just one of the ideas for how to market a blog for free that you aren’t already doing and really focus on it for a month.

Maybe you commit to answering 2 questions a day for a month. See if you don’t come across some people who would love to also read your blog posts!