Question How do you promote your blog/site for free?

[Zerth]

Ask a few friends to join my forum, make it look active, add new updates every day and add loads of contents and threads.

 

[vida_llevares]

Social media marketing. Make Twitter and Facebook accounts. Post snippets or experts of your blog posts and include a link to your blog.

 

[tommymaczoidberg]

The first thing I did was start going to blogsofnote.com every day to find out who the new featured blog was for that day. Then, I'd leave a comment on that blog with a reference link to something similar on mine.

 

[afh]

eMail, first and foremost. It takes a while to build up a useful subscriber list, but it's your biggest asset.

Then after that I have 'Next Scripts Social Networks Auto-Poster' installed on all my Wordperss blogs, and this automatically posts every new article to the sites' Facebook page and Twitter account. These also bring in a reasonable amount of traffic.

 

[Tara]

These are all great ways to build backlinks and move up in the rankings as well as advertise. I would also like to suggest Press Releases. These can be surprisingly effective when you have something specific to say.

Press releases are often overlooked. They can bring a surprising amount of traffic depending on the niche and what you have to say.

I mostly use social media and videos to drive traffic to my blog. LinkedIn is my best traffic generator. Twitter is second. I'm not very active on Facebook, but I have a small presence there. I think it's a missed opportunity, but I just don't like Facebook.

 

[Tara]

The first thing I did was start going to blogsofnote.com every day to find out who the new featured blog was for that day. Then, I'd leave a comment on that blog with a reference link to something similar on mine.

That site is no longer active, but the idea is sound. I can use Technorati to find popular blogs in my niche.

 

[deansaliba]

I'm afraid I promote my blog just like most of the people who have replied to this; blog commenting, forum posting, article submission sites, site directories and creating a fan page on FB.

 

[bauss]

I do most of my promoting from forum posting, and sometimes social networks. I always try to do whatever I can to promote my site, but I really focus on forum posting and social networks for promoting.

 

[jpvonline]

Good & Unique content always gets traffic.
Try building your site up with Backlinks. Post on forums about your site, but don't spam. Write your own review or article and use that on each forum to inform members about your site.
You'll eventually rank in google.

You can also use traffic exchanges though they drive uninterested traffic 95% of the time but can help raise your alexa rank.

A tip for your content, post on a fixed basis, not out of the blue, that way visitors know when your content should be posted.
Example:
Post 1. 7th of Jan
Post 2. 9th of Jan
Post 3. 17th of Jan
Post 4. 30th of Jan
As you can see, these posts are not in a fixed order. They are just posted when ever the blog owner feels like it.
Example 2:
Post 1. 5th of Jan
Post 2. 10th of Jan
Post 3. 15th of Jan etc.
Content like this, posted every x days or every x weeks, will drive wanted traffic back every time a new post should be up. So if you are posting about fashion, every 5 days a visitor will be back to check our your new post!

 

[memento_mori]

Yahoo Answers, Blog Commenting and Forum Posting. These 3 are among the best was I know to advertise your blog for free. Using social networks like Twitter and Facebook can also help.

 

[jpvonline]

Yahoo Answers, Blog Commenting and Forum Posting. These 3 are among the best was I know to advertise your blog for free. Using social networks like Twitter and Facebook can also help.

yahoo and forum posting are great.
Though yahoo are extremely strict on advertising so one mistake can easily get you a warning or even banned.
I recommend building your yahoo account with good answers before going straight into answering with advertising.

 

[BigBigFan]

I'm surprised it hasn't been mentioned but just asking is a popular method too.

example: "Hey guys, my site is new and so Google's not ranking it well yet, could you help me out by mentioning it somewhere or linking to it once or twice? Wherever you like is fine, thanks for the help!"

How many of you would be helpful if someone you know online asked?

 

[memento_mori]

I'm surprised it hasn't been mentioned but just asking is a popular method too.

example: "Hey guys, my site is new and so Google's not ranking it well yet, could you help me out by mentioning it somewhere or linking to it once or twice? Wherever you like is fine, thanks for the help!"

How many of you would be helpful if someone you know online asked?

Honestly I wouldn't. If it was someone I knew I would do it, but a can't trust a stranger to keep strictly legit content on his site, and I wouldn't have the time to check his website regularly either.
Think of it this way. He contacts you with a seemingly legit website, you agree and put his link on your pages. Then, say two weeks later, he starts adding adult content, or scams. Or his whole domain name could start redirecting to a completely different website.

 

[win2win]

Youtube is an excellent way of getting free traffic, even if you think your own type of site may not have a related video, you can always knock up something. You don't even have to do it yourself, just pay someone on Fiverr to do it for you.

 

[moneyman]

I promote my website with different kinds of social networks such as Twitter and Google Plus. In addition, Facebook is an useful traffic source. However, I focus a part of my efforts in search engine optimization since it when it has been done right it will generate long term traffic without effort. Anyway, doing Search engine optimization is quite boring and it needs patience and self motivation. I have also found that forums and popular article directories are a good source for quality traffic.

 

[unbel]

I promote my blogs and websites using multiple Twitter accounts and a Facebook account with 5000 friends. The results of advertising on social networking websites are astonishing. Other than that, I've had little success advertising elsewhere.

 

[Canadian Lover]

My current web host is banned by Facebook so that is out until I change web hosts. I usually use signatures in link on revevant forums./ I also upload video content to YouTube and Flickr. IF you create some kind of content, such as photos pr video, you can upload these things to the social networking sites with a link to my site.

 

[carlalexander]

I use social media marketing most of the time but at the same time, Ii make sure that I have good content in my site otherwise the bounce rate is going to be like 100% lol.

 

[Nymph]

I prefer to mix up my strategies when it comes to free advertising, since I want the most variety worldwide for my blogs and article sites. Some techniques I employ is Youtube, FB, Twitter, and Pinterest marketing, capture pages, directories, submission sites, guest posting, and even the occasional traffic exchange to get the ball rolling for a new site.

 

[vida_llevares]

A variety of techniques - from Facebook and Youtube marketing to blog comments and guest posting. You should consider the market you want to capture since different techniques appeal to different market groups.