100+ most effective ways to promote a new blog for free

While optimizing my own blog, I found out the following techniques which are legal, free and working. I have gone through and verified each of the following steps and those are working well.

Webmaster Tools

1. Register for Google and Bing Webmaster Tools and submit your sitemap there. It helps your website in many ways ranging from SEO to Website Optimization.
2. Always search for broken links in your own website using google webmaster. Re-create it or create a new one and redirect it to the new active link.

 Submitting to directories

3. Submit your blog to web directories. One such free directory is DMOZ, and once submitted it provides you a good number of traffic and search engine ranking.
4. Post your blog into Blog Directories like Technorati. Upload a profile photo there. Try to get your post featured at Technorati tag pages by tagging your posts with relevant tags. Technorati tag pages rank well in Yahoo and MSN including Google and Bing.
5. List your blog to few of the best free blog directories.
6. Submit your Blog to alltop.com
7. Create your own directory about your field of interest. Link your own blog to it. If you can make it into a truly useful resource, people will be automatically attracted to it.
8. Submit your blog to pinging services like pingoat, pingomatic, ping.fm. These services inform others about your new blog post.
9. Submit your best blog posts to blog carnivals.
10. Submit your blog to reputed blog aggregators.

Content Optimization

11. Content is the King. If you post useful articles, it will definitely increase your website ranking.
12. Check your blog stats and write around the keywords that are working for you.
13. Keep your content short and simple. People are more attracted towards it.
14. Try to interlink your blog posts. So that if any other site is scrapping your blog’s feed, it will give you an inbound link easily.
15. Add search description to each post (if using blogger), but restrict it to 150 characters.
16. Do not copy any content from any other websites. Search Engines gives those articles a Thumbs Down. If some one files a DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) complaint, Google won’t index your website further. So always try to avoid it and post original contents.
17. Always put some effort to minimize grammatical error so that your blog looks professional.
18. Create and release a free plugin for bloging platforms, firefox or any other website.
19. Create a list of best posts of other blogger’s. If it impress that blogger, it will give you a free and relevant backlink.
20. Try to interview successful people in your niche. It normally attracts more visitors as well as creates a great brand image and social circle.
21. Create and release some wordpress or blogger templates. Don’t forget the “Designed by YOUR SITE at the footer.”
22. Add a related post widget at the bottom of the blog. It keep your users engaged and hence slowly creates your brand name. The best example is mgid.com. Such a widget named linked within is available free for both Blogger and Wordpress
23. Build a 101 list. People can’t resist linking to it. Put the original authors link at the end of every entry to your list. When they find that you are linking to them, probably the will also linking to you. This way even you preserves the Law of Copyright.
24. Create 10+ easy tips to help you [insert your topic here] articles. Again these are easy to link to.
25. Create a list of the top 10+ myths for a specific category.
26. Create a list of Gurus/Experts. If you can impress those people by listing them properly or find a way to make your list look popular, the gurus may end up linking to your blog too saying thanks or commenting.
27. Track who picks up your articles or press releases. Offer them exclusive news or content.
28. Search for ’your industry’ + ‘in the news’ at google and link to it + write about it.
29. Perform surveys and studies that make people feel important. If you make someone else feel important, they will do free marketing for you. A Win-Win situation.
30. Link to similar blogs like yours. So that a part of traffic from the other blog flows to you too.
31. Review related sites on Alexa.com. Reviews always attract traffic and have a pretty good SEO value.
32. Review products and services on shopping search engines like ePinions. Normally reviews related content ranks well. Hence it will also make you visible there.

Branding your blog

33. Try to brand your blog. Use a clean and professional looking website template, give it a better logo.
34. Put the author information somewhere in the blog post.
35. Always have a visible link to your RSS content.
36. Insert “like this” “share this” buttons from social networks like Facebook, Google Plus, LinkedIn, Pinterest, StumbleUpon etc. One great tool in my knowledge is share-this widget. Its easy to integrate into your blog post.
37. Try to have a better page design for your blog. It may also get some traffic from design community like CSS Vault.
38. Publish your blog’s rss feed. Rss feeds are the most powerful SEO tools.

 Other Blogs

39. Search for a keyword you want to rank well and visit those sites and leave a comment.
40. Comment on other blogs in your niche. It’s the most powerful tool for your blog promotion.
41. Try to be the first commentator in a popular blog with a relevant comment.
42. Link to blogs having same rank or similar size as of yours and link to them. The possibility of noticing you is higher there.
43. Search for your competitors and try to find out who are pointing to their blog. Go and approach them. Probably they will also link to your’s. Alexa.com is a great tool to analyze this.
44. Find a blog which allows guest post using services like MyBlogGuest, Blogger Linkup, etc. and write guest post for those blogs similar to yours.
45. Link to other blogs from your blog. Outbound links are the most cheapest and easiest form of link building. Many bloggers track who are linking to them. In turn they may start linking to you.
46. Use http://google.com/blogsearch to find fresh blog posts and then leave intelligent comments.
47. Find some do follow blogs using search engines like DoFollow Blog Search Engine, DoFollow Search, etc
48. While commenting on other blogs, try to use your post url instead of just the blog url.
49. Search for CommentLUV enabled blogs. This plugin automatically adds the most recent post of your blog along with the comment.
50. Create viral list and include your blog there. One such website 2lessons.com makes your viral list building task easy.
51. Use free domain checker tools to check your site. They will also index you automatically.
52. Submit an article (with a smart link to your blog) to article directories like EzineArticles.com, GoArticles.com, iShare.com, Articlesbase.com, Infobarrel.com etc. These article pages rank higher in search results.

 Websites

53. Search engines search for good page rank and better content. Higher the page rank, higher the search engine visibility. So try to get a link from websites having a better page rank.
54. Try to publish it to your local news websites.
55. Convert your blog posts to PDF files and submit them to Scribed. Include your blog url in the description and some places at your document itself and add that Scribed document to relevant groups.
56. Create an ad about your service, expertise or product at craigslist.
57. Try to get a link from your local chamber of commerce
58. Get added in online yellow pages. Its free and give you a backlink easily.
59. Get linked on your local website.
60. Review related blogs on Alexa.com. It will connect your name with other bloggers there.
61. Post your link to your industry related news websites.

 Forums

62. Many forums allow putting signatures. Find forums in your niche and post relevant content to those. Don’t forget to add your link to the signature like the following “DO YOU NEED MORE INFORMATION ABOUT ______”
63. Register for question answer websites and be active there. Link to your blog post in some Questions/Answers. Some of the best in the Programming Industry are, StackOverflow.com, CodeProject.com, Forum.asp.net, Answers.Yahoo.com, Groups.Google.com, Mohalo Answers, LinkedIn Answers, Amazon Askville, Wiki Answers.
64. Plan properly and create a great thread in forums in your niche.

 Facebook

65. Create a facebook page and name it same as your website / blog.
66. Link your facebook profile to the page.
67. Post your blog content to that facebook page.
68. Share your facebook page content in your own facebook profile.
69. Join as many groups as you can in your niche and post your best content there.
70. Try to start a group or community in your niche and add people there.
71. Create a facebook application that is useful in your niche.

 Google+

72. Google+ is an important tool for SEO at google. Because it trains Google on how to categorize your site in searches.
73. Create a google plus page.
74. Paste your complete url of your blog post. Google+ will grab images from the link. Just above the url link post the entire blog post content including the title.
75. Email few friends asking them for their feedback when you publish important relevant content.

 LinkedIn

76. Join linkedin and publish all your content there.
77. Join a linked in group in your niche and be active there. It provides visible results very quickly.

 Twitter

78. Twitter is the most powerful tool for SEO. Post every article on your blog to twitter. There are some automated tools available for this purpose.
79. Include hash tags and retweet button in your tweets.

80. Tweet links to your blog posts multiple times a day including older links to your content
81. Send @Reply to your twitter followers.
82. Review a product in your niche which is available on twitter. They may just notice and tweet about the review.

 Other Social Networks

83. Tag related sites on Del.icio.us. If people find your tags interesting, they may follow your site also.
84. Try to get your blog at the front page of Dig or on the Del.ico.us popular list. 1000s more bloggers will see your blog and potentially link to it.
85. Join Squidoo and create a lens. In squidoo page link to expert documents and useful tools in your field. Also create a link back to your blog. Its easy and powerful method of blog promotion.
86. Join Hubpages and post your best content there. Hubpages rank well in search engines very quickly.
87. Submit an article to Digg that links to an article on your blog.
88. Use twitterfeed and websites like that to auto publish your blog posts to a bunch of social networks.
89. Join a blog network
90. Join as many social networks you can and try to be active there.
91. Submit your content to do follow social bookmarking sites.
92. Join relevant Nign.com communities and be active there.
93. Start your own Slinkset and feed your RSS feed into it automatically.
94. Submit your content to dofollow social bookmarking sites.
95. Make a youtube video and put a link of your site at the end.
96. Follow relevant, interesting and popular people at different social networks including twitter.
97. Identify the times that results in most clicks and schedule your facebook, twitter, linkedin, google plus updates accordingly.

Stumble Upon

98. Add some blogs in your niche at Stumble upon. Hit that stumble button and comment on every blog you stumble upon.

Tools and Plugins

99. I use Hootsuite to post my blog update to Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook all at the same time. It helps me posting blog updates directly to Facebook pages.
100. Use feed readers like Bamboo Feed Reader, Google Reader to track updates and comment on fresh blog posts in your niche.

Competations & Giveaways

101. Create a competition every month and award the winner.
102. Prize could be free Premium Wordpress template to the largest commentator, a free Blogger template to all the subscribers, a guest post, a plugin or a backlink.

Support Charity

103. Try to have a space in your blog for sponsorship. Support charity by sponsoring them. Charity websites have higher page rank. Most charities, conferences, contests link to their sponsors. If they link to you, your page rank increases making it more visible to search engines. This can be a great way to link building, ranking, getting links and visibility as well as a good feeling as you are supporting charity.

This list of  100+ most effective ways to promote a new blog for free is my first post  towards blog promotion. If you have any working idea about search engine optimization please feel free to make this list more helpful for othes by leaving comment bellow.