6 Ways to Promote Your Website That Won’t Cost You Money

Are you looking to promote your business without breaking the bank? How about for free?

Creating a website is just the first step toward putting your business on the cyber map, and it will all go to waste if there is no one to see it.

At the same time, the world of website advertising is often confusing and discouraging, not to mention costly, particularly if you are running a small business with a limited marketing budget.

But website promotion doesn’t always have to be financially draining, especially for those who know their way around the Net.

Here we give you nine ideas to promote your business and drive some of that sweet organic traffic to your website for free.

1. Commenting and Engaging in Conversations

First, we are going back to basics with personal engagement. We are picking up conversations! Believe it or not, building relationships with people the old-fashioned way is still one of the most effective methods to spread the word.

Pay attention to trending topics in your niche and follow what others say about your brand. Then subtly and strategically join the conversations where possible.

How to do it:

You can’t engage in conversations that you don’t know are taking place. This is where tools like Google Alerts and Talkwalker come in handy. In short, they will send you “mentions” alerts whenever your target keywords are discussed on the Web, making it easy to track what is being said about your business niche.

Keyword ideas:

• Your brand’s name
• Your personal name
• The brand names of your competitors
• Relevant keywords in your niche

From the moment you set up your keywords, you will start receiving emails whenever your keywords or keyphrases have been mentioned online. All you have to do is follow the links to the articles, scroll down to the comments section and inform yourself.

However, if you see an opportunity to add value, feel free to respond to a few comments. Needless to say, spamming is a big no-no! You can still post a backlink to your website, but only when the content you are linking to is highly relevant and beneficial to the reader.

From the moment you set up your keywords, you will start receiving emails whenever your keywords or keyphrases have been mentioned online. All you have to do is follow the links to the articles, scroll down to the comments section and inform yourself.

However, if you see an opportunity to add value, feel free to respond to a few comments. Needless to say, spamming is a big no-no! You can still post a backlink to your website, but only when the content you are linking to is highly relevant and beneficial to the reader.

2. Get Involved on Some Key Websites

a. Reddit

Reddit is a news aggregation and discussion website, home to thousands of communities and endless conversations. It is the place to go to share and discuss pretty much any subject, as long as it complies with the community’s guidelines. Website promotion on Reddit is also tricky to nail, as Redditors are a brilliant but skeptical group of people who can smell self-promotion faster than sharks can smell blood. They won’t think twice before they ban you from the platform. Shameless advertising doesn’t sit well with this bunch, so turning it into a promotion tool is more of a marathon than a sprint.

How to do it:

When it comes to Reddit, it’s key to find a Subreddit forum for your specific niche. A quick and simple site:reddit.com <your niche> -inurl:” comments” search will give you plenty of results you can work with. These Subreddits are where your target audience comes to hang out, and they all have different sets of rules you will have to follow and moderators to respect if you want to integrate yourself. Focus on building your reputation and Reddit karma, and understand how a particular subreddit community functions. Are they fond of memes and sharing a good laugh, or do they prefer lengthy discussions on a specific topic? How you approach the community is as important as what you post. Stick to insightful comments and thought-provoking topics, and you will become a regular in a particular forum. Now that you have built a few friendships and given a good amount of insight and knowledge to the community, you can start carefully advertising your website. And when we say carefully, we mean baby steps. Blatant self-promotion doesn’t fly on Reddit even if you are a valued member of the community. Presenting your website as something your fellow Redditors may find helpful or interesting and asking for their opinions about it is one way to approach the issue.

b. Quora.

Quora is another forum-like online platform, but at the same time, very different from Reddit. It is a user-generated Q&A website where users can ask and answer questions. Look at Quora as a knowledge market. Giving solid answers to questions in your niches will help you build your presence and establish authority. This advertising promotional tactic will eventually pay off and start driving traffic to your website, but it takes time, dedication, and knowledge.

How to do it:

First and foremost, you have to find some good questions to answer. It’s all about strategic allocation of your content. That means finding the right channels, the right audience, and the right questions. Use Quora’s search bar to find inquiries in your niche. You can do a broad generic search, or you can search within a topic. You can further narrow the results by comparing the number of views and the latest activity. If you find a question with many views that received tons of activity in the recent period, you have landed on a trending topic. Your next step would be to start posting well-formed, knowledgeable answers that provide value to the community. Once you establish your presence and authority on the platform, you can slowly begin linking to your website whenever possible. It’s always best to link to content on your websites that further discusses the topic in question.

c. Facebook.

Using Facebook for “recreational” purposes and attempting to advertise your business on the platform are two very different things. You can promote your content on Facebook in two ways: “organically,” through building a solid and active community base, or you can opt for a paid Facebook promotion that guarantees quicker results, but it comes with a price tag. Since we are discussing free website promotion, we will stick to the former tactic.

How to do it:

People often confuse personal profiles and business pages, but they are very different, and that’s why your brand will need a Facebook page for promotional reasons. Creating a Facebook page is relatively simple, and it’s free. Once your page is “live,” and you enter relevant information like the company’s name, logo, location, type of business you are doing, etc., you can start filling it with content relative to the audience in your niche. You want to maintain a consistent activity to show your followers you are dedicated to growing your business. However, a well-thought-out content calendar doesn’t always provide exposure, nor does it bring the right audience. Sometimes, you will have to get your business to your potential customers. Facebook Groups are the platform’s hotspots where people with mutual interests form communities. Their advantage lies in their diversity. There is a FB group for nearly any topic that comes to mind. Finding and joining communities in your niche will grant you access to your ideal audience, and if you play it smart, it will start driving traffic to your website. However, similar to Reddit and Quora communities, members of Facebook groups aren’t keen on blatant advertising. Such behavior will provoke admins and moderators to lock you out of the group. This is why, upon joining, you should read the group’s rules and follow them when interacting with other members. Free Facebook promotion calls for strategy, consistency, providing great value, following the rules, and establishing your authority. It definitely isn’t as fast as paid website promotion, but with a little bit of time and effort, it can prove a fruitful marketing tactic.

d. Twitter.

Twitter is probably the best all-around platform for website promotion services. From generating leads and increasing brand awareness to product promotion and customer services, Twitter seems like it can do it all. It’s perfect for reaching new audiences and keeping an eye on what people are saying about your business. As for using it to promote your website? Here are a few tips and tricks that might come in handy.

How to do it:

The great thing about Twitter is that good posts spread like wildfire on the platform — no wonder #hashtags became such a big deal across social media. When posting on this microblogging platform, go for short, engaging, intelligent, and often “situational” content. Twitter is the social media of the NOW. You need to stay up to date and relevant to generate retweets and shares. Finally, don’t forget to put a backlink to your website to scoop some of that free traffic. However, there are other ways for a website promotion on Twitter for those willing to blur the lines between the paid and free. You can contact other influencers and ask them for retweets. Simply offer something worth the number of retweets you are asking for and keep to your side of the bargain. Technically you are not spending financial resources, and you still get exposure.

3. Become a Guest Blogger

Guest blogging has lost its shine in recent years. However, this is a tried-and-tested marketing method and an excellent promotion tool that will drive organic traffic to your business website as long as you choose the right host sites.

How to do it:

Before you start writing, you need to know who you are writing for. Now would be the perfect time to dive deep into your industry and find the top websites that will provide you the much-wanted exposure to the right audience in your niche. Use SEO and content browsing tools like Ubersuggest, Moz Pro, or SEMrush to find the best-performing blogs and trim the results by entering different parameters. Once you have a final list, start working on your pitch. First rule, don’t spam your potential hosts. Put some effort into researching the blog and editor you are pitching to. Comb through their content and try to mimic their brand’s tone of voice. Also, check out other authors who have already written for them and the topics they are pushing. Finally, take all that information you just acquired and make it work in your favor. Personalize your pitch, show the editor you are serious about your proposal and watch the responses you receive transform. The last step is to write your guest post. Keep your content clean of spammy links and avoid overstuffing it with keywords. Use the host blog’s style and format as a guideline to write a post that will match his or her criteria. Every website review process is different, so you’d want to keep it courteous and accommodate the editor’s requests. When including a link to your business, ensure you always put a few links to the blog’s own content. That way, your post will look more informative and less self-promotional.

4. Blogger Outreach

Continuing on the blogging theme, blogger outreach refers to the strategy of placing your content in front of other successful bloggers and influencers in your industry in order to make them talk about your business and link back to your website and social platforms. But a successful outreach tactic is a lot more than just asking for backlinks. Similar to what we said about guest blogging, you will have to do thorough research and find successful blogs in your niche. Once you have put together a solid list, start targeting the people you need to reach out to to have your content reviewed.

How to do it:

Outreach is all about communication and leaving a good first impression. After all, it’s a person who decides whether you will receive a mention or a backlink, not a robot. It takes good social skills, patience, in-depth research, and salesmanship. You need to know how to “sell” your brand and content. The key is to find websites and blogs in your niche with established authority and a steady flow of traffic. It’s important to know who you are targeting because exposure to audiences outside your niche won’t bring traffic that converts to profit. Now that you have set your eyes on a few high-profile blogs, you need to prepare your pitch. There is whole “science” behind blogger outreach — from who to contact and at what time to how to write a relatable pitch template that’s easy to personalize. A little heads up! Use blogger outreach as a promotion tool only when you have a high-quality, engaging, and informative piece of content to offer. If that’s not the case, no one will link back to your website unless they are already a fan of your brand, which is highly unlikely.

5. Step Up Your SEO Game

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization, and it refers to the process of modifying your website pages, content, and overall design to better appeal to relevant search engines such as Google, Yahoo, Bing, Duckduckgo, etc. The goal is to rank as high as possible in Google SERPs, which without a doubt will drive organic traffic to your business website. Of course, affiliate marketing is great for website promotion, but its effects are usually short-lived. You will see a spike in traffic, but unfortunately, it will die down faster than it came. SEO is potentially the best advertising promotional tool to secure steady, passive traffic and scalable, long-term results.

How to do it:

Your work starts before you even begin putting your content together. Start with niche industry research and make sure there is a market for what you are about to write. This is where keywords come in. Choose a topic with organic search traffic potential. The higher your content ranks for more than one popular search, the more organic traffic your website will receive. Unfortunately, there is no one-fits-all keyword strategy because there are countless ways to filter and trim your search, and it all depends on your target audience. Your next step should be optimization of your content. It includes SEO copywriting, adjusting of the content’s format and angle, and many other details. Last but not least, linkbuilding. Linkbuilding refers to the links that lead back to your website from another page. The number of high-quality backlinks is essential for search engine ranking.

6. Offer Free Resources

Giving free value to your audience is one of the best advertising promotional strategies. Naturally, when it comes to giving back to your followers and community, the importance is quality and originality. Depending on your niche industry or type of business you are running, the format of your free resources can vary vastly. From free e-books and YouTube tutorials to online workshops and webinars, you can play around with the formats until you find the one that proves efficient. Of course, there is no harm in taking a sneak peek at your competitors and seeing what works for them. In no way this means you should copy-paste their strategy, but it’s always good for getting your creative juices flowing.

How to do it:

As with the rest of these free advertising strategies, finding the right audience in your niche is key to gaining traction. If you target people who have no interest in what you are “selling,” it won’t send the right people to your website. You may see a spike in traffic and visits, but it won’t be of much use. Another thing you need to work on is the “shareability” of your free resource. Cut out all unnecessary steps required to share your content with a friend to get as many views as possible. Once you have done all that, watch word-of-mouth work in your favor.

The Takeaway

Typically, there are countless free advertising websites and even more ways to promote your business. We only listed a few tactics and strategies that proved valuable and practical free promotion tools. We will stick to SEO as the best approach that brings long-term results, but you will still have to do a lot of testing on your own. Through trial and error, you will eventually find which of these free website promotion strategies carry the biggest potential to drive organic traffic to your website and help your growth.