21+ Tested Platforms To Distribute Content & Get Insane Traffic

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Among many other factors, the quality of your content plays a vital role in search engine ranking & getting epic social media shares.

But, is creating high-quality content enough to drive traffic?

Will it automatically get links and traction?

Sadly, no.

Content is only the beginning. It’s important for your content to reach out to people who can derive value from it.

The distribution process involves reaching out to influencers, submitting content on platforms where your target audiences hang out and repurposing your text content into infographics, videos, video graphics, audio, etc.

I’ve compiled a list of 30 content distribution platforms that are free (or have a free trial) to sign up. You can use them to promote both your old and new content.

Besides usage tips, I share case studies (where available) of how people have leveraged the platform to drive traffic. Many value-adding tutorials, guides, and videos are also included.

Also read: How To Promote Your Blog (12+ Actionable Blog Promotion Techniques)

Bookmark this post:

When distributing your content, you can come back to read using these distribution channels effectively.

Make sure you read the whole post – there are bonuses waiting for you at the end!

Are you ready?

Here we go:

Content Distribution platforms To Amplify your content reach:

1. YouTube

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YouTube videos have the high probability of getting ranked on first page of Google search results.

Leverage the second biggest search engine on the internet to get found for your target keywords.

Here is how:

Repackage long-form content in the form of slides. Then, create a video tutorial using free screen grab software like Camtasia or CamStudio . Use a good quality microphone to ensure decent production quality.

Or you can use a web camera and record yourself speaking the summary of your post.

Make sure you end the video with a call to action directing viewers to visit your website. Also, add a link to your post in the video description and a link to your blog in the channel description.

Include keywords and write a 250-300 words video description with every video for better visibility in results.

Later on, you can embed this video with your post. You can also reach out to authority blogs in your niche and request them to share it on their blogs.

Here are 50 tips for getting traffic from YouTube by Hardik. If you are serious about your blog, spend about $15 & get awesome Youtube Intro & outro.

Check out: How to get Youtube Intro & outro for cheap

2. Reddit

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Reddit is a great social media bookmarking platform (with the upvoting system) to discover content. And it a community known for punishing spammers and promoters.

So:

You cannot simply drop a link in sub-reddits (targeted niche sections) and expect traffic.

First setup a nice looking profile by filling all details. Then, participate in relevant sub-reddits and add value to the discussions. Make sure you speak the language of the Sub-Reddit where you participate.

If your submission gets considerable upvotes, it gets pushed to the hot section and possibly the homepage (if it’s really loved).

Do not submit only your website links, else you can get banned. As per Spencer Haws (from Niche Pursuits) you should only submit one self-promotion submission per 10.

Read his detailed guide on getting 10,000 pageviews and a PA 48 backlink in two weeks from Reddit in 45 minutes of work.

You can also watch Lazy Ass Stoner’s case study on driving tons of traffic from Reddit –

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3. Slideshare

Slideshare is the world’s biggest website for creating presentations. From the distribution perspective, summarize your blog post in the form of slides and upload it on the platform.

Keep the points in your presentation short and the structure of your presentation simple. Don’t forget to write a compelling title and description for your presentation (using long tail keywords will help).

You can include links to your website in your profile and within your presentation. The description and the last slide can also be used for directing viewers to your blog.

After you are done with the presentation, share it on social media and embed it with your blog post.

Read Gregory Ciotti’s guide on how he got 2000+ new website visitors from Slideshare by hitting its homepage.

Further, LinkedIn also allows embedding presentations in your profile. So, adding presentations of the most popular posts in your LinkedIn profile can give some more traction.

4. Facebook

As per Shareaholic and Digital Insider studies, Facebook drives 23% of overall visits to websites.

The sad part is the organic reach of publishers on Facebook has been on a continuous decline (even less than 7% for some pages having million fans). Meaning without investing in the advertisements, you won’t be reaching your followers.

But the good news is:

If your content is on niche subjects (like Naruto) and you properly target your audience, then you can get tons of traffic.

Servando Silva from Stream-SEO grew his niche website to 900 visitors in 10 days by investing under 60$ in Facebook Ads. He managed to scale to over 8,500 fans and his posts reached 35% of fans.

Read the full study here. He wrote another post on how he leveraged Facebook to earn $200 per day with AdSense and viral websites.

You can also gain insights from these 21 businesses Facebook marketing case studies.

5. Twitter

The micro-blogging network held the third position in driving traffic as per Shareholic’s 2014 data. It is a great platform for B2B businesses. Leverage it to follow latest industry updates and engage with your clients or followers in real-time.

Tweeting your article link with an enticing introduction, a couple of relevant hashtags at the appropriate time with a good quality picture is a sound Twitter strategy. You should schedule the same article (with different tweet copy) more than once for better visibility.

You can read Brain Honigman 10 actionable and an effective Twitter strategies for achieving significant results. For some more depth, read Loz James personalized Twitter marketing technique that tripled his website traffic.

You should also listen to Sean Malarkey’s podcast with Than Merrill. He discusses how he managed to get 150,000 followers and over 9,000 leads in 5 months from Twitter.

6. LinkedIn

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LinkedIn is the favorite hanging out platform of professionals and a gold mine to network for B2B companies.

So:

How can you leverage it to drive traffic to your blog posts?

Start with syndicating your existing blog post content. You can make modifications to your posts or publish only parts of your post. At the end of the post, you can give a call to action as a link to the full article on your blog.

You can also repurpose your posts as status updates, search for relevant discussions in LinkedIn groups where posting your articles adds value and post comments on updates in your feed.

Another place to showcase your best blog content is your LinkedIn profile. You can add your links to your best posts, videos, documents and photos with every role description.

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Getting a post picked for LinkedIn Pulse is pure gold – you can get hundreds of thousands of views.

Read this case study with tips on getting your post featured on LinkedIn Pulse.

7. Quora

Quora is a moderated and ramped up version of Yahoo Answers. There are many sub-topics and you can attract followers by giving valuable advice on topics that interest you.

You can follow sub-topics of your choice, so that relevant questions appear in your feed. And write different bios for different sub-topics on Quora. What a great opportunity to show your expertise in all the niches you are skilled!

While answering:

Genuinely aim to solve queries of your target audience.

If any of your articles can solve a query, give an introduction of how your post can help and put a link to visit the full article.

If your answer receives upvotes, you get more followers, more exposure and visitors on your website. And it is common for witty and value adding answers in self-improvement niche specially to receive many thousands of upvotes.

The Q&A social network also has a blog. This is a chance to syndicate your blog post content. Learn from self-improvement blogger James Clear who syndicates his blog posts.

Read: How To Get High-Quality Traffic From Quora (The Right Way)

8. Udemy

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Riding on the MOOC revolution, Udemy as of December 2014 had access to over 5 million students. Courses are on a very wide variety of subjects – from internet marketing, SEO, entrepreneurship, photography, programming to yoga, spirituality, cooking ,music, etc.

The best part is any individual can publish courses at Udemy.

Leverage Udemy by offering value-adding courses to knowledge hungry students:

You can repurpose your best performing posts into a series of 5-minute video tutorials.

Your course can have a mix of video tutorials and text documents. The bare minimum is a 40-minute course.

The courses can be offered free or you can charge anywhere from 10 to 1000$ for it. Participate in Udemy’s course promotions so that you can get more student enrollments.

You can make a limited number of announcements every month to your course students. Here lies the opportunity to drive traffic to your blog posts.

You can also direct students to your website in the lectures.

Many terrific instructors are leveraging Udemy for traffic and email signups.

A terrific example is Mike Omar.

He offers a free course on making 5000$/month by developing passive income websites.

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The course contains 12 hours worth of video tutorials and as you can see it has over 42,000 students.

Mike gets leads to own website and newsletter subscribers that go on to buy affiliate products.

9. Pinterest

As per Shareholic, Pinterest was at the second position in driving social traffic in Q4, 2014. It is the best platform for visual digital marketing and pure gold for lifestyle brand content.

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Unique and useful content performs well on Pinterest. You should understand that people hangout on the platform to get inspiration and express self. Do not expect from them to create anything original.

Create a board around subjects you like to browse on the internet (not just your brand related boards). Everything you pin can be placed on these boards.

You can share original photos, infographics and photos of products relevant to your industry. Or how-to videos, long form content previews and tutorials you create for YouTube.

When sharing original photos, make sure you add watermarks. Else, you will miss possible viral brand exposure.

Also, make use of hashtags strategically and label them with relevant names (not image 1 and image 2).

You can add URLs to your website or blog post on the brand page and pin description.

View this tutorial on driving traffic to your blog post from Pinterest by using keywords and hashtags appropriately:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4KPoj9En7I

10. Tumblr

You can syndicate your content with Tumblr and get more traffic, backlinks and shares (possibly, go viral).

For starters, use a clean and simple theme. Use only 7-12 tags, else you will be perceived as a spammer.

Your content should be short and punchy. Impressive visuals, videos and quotes generally perform well. But, don’t be afraid to experiment with posting different kinds of content.

Getting your followers to re-blog your content can earn you good traffic.

Build relationships with Tumblr administrators and try to get introduced through referrals from friends to them. If you end up on the explore page through these administrators, you will get a huge traffic spike.

Watch this 3-step method Lazy Assstoner uses to drive tons of free traffic to his niche sites using Tumblr-

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11. Instagram

In December 2014, Instagram hit 300 million users (surpassing Twitter). If you have a compelling image in your post, you can share it on this network with a call to action to visit the article.

Get your image Instagram ready by using Squaready app on iPhone or Be Funky’s photo editor on Android. I would recommend using Instagram’s editing tools and filters to enhance image quality.

Write good captions using 2 to 3 hashtags that fit your brand image for better exposure.

If you are announcing a new product in a blog post, you can offer its teaser on Instagram and use a call to action driving visitors to your post.

Add instagram badges to your blog for the convenience of the platform lovers.

If you want to do it fast, read HobbytoHot’s 2-minute instagram posting advice.

Watch this study tutorial from TheFreedomFranchise.com on how they get 50-100 leads a day using Instagram:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xmlhyKzBPk

12. BuzzFeed

They were the first to understand and fill the demand for graphic heavy content on the internet. After tremendous growth, they currently attract over 150 million visits every month.

BuzzFeed has crowdsourced content creation to its community (besides self-publishing). And they pick posts from the community to appear on the homepage and promote it themselves if they find it good enough.

You need to check the “Suggest for a community feature” when submitting your content for publishing.

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If you check this option, BuzzFeed Moderators look at your submission. If they like your post, you will receive an email stating your post receiving extra promotion.

To increase your chances of getting your post picked for promotions by BuzzFeed moderators:

Create a piece of content on your website that will appeal to the BuzzFeed audience and adds value to them. Listicles work the best.

Promoting your product or services blatantly and using copyright infringing images work against you. Also, keep the linking anchor text simple.

Read the case study of how Matthew Barby got 10,000 pageviews and a few hundred new subscribers to his blog by getting on the first page of BuzzFeed.

13. Huffington Post

Would getting published on the biggest blog of the world help?

You bet.

Huffington Post not only publishes original content, but syndicates and republishes quality content from across the web.

So:

If your blog post has gone viral and is relevant to a section at Huffington Post, you have good chances of getting it republished on Huffington Post.

There have been cases of articles getting rejected by Huffington Post. But, later getting picked up when they got viral on writer’s platform.

Read stories of how the Buffer Team and Catherine have got published on Huffington Post.

For increasing your chances for getting published on Huffington Post, do not use the contact form. Pitch the section editor (relevant to your article) on twitter or email directly. Listicles and articles under 1000 words generally work better at Huffington Post.

Guess what? Even contacting Ariana Huffington directly can get you published. Read advice from 5 bloggers on how they got published at Huffington Post where they mention pitching to her.

Scribd

The digital library draws more than 80 million monthly visitors and has over 40 million free eBooks.

You can complete your profile on the platform and start sharing content. The users can download your article as a pdf or text.

There is a strong enforcement of these rules:

Don’t blatantly advertise. And publish strictly your own content (even the images must be original). Make sure you use full URL when quoting a source (bit.ly links are not acceptable). Also, stray away from profanity.

How to distribute your blog post?

Treat Scribd like your blog and post only high-quality and value adding content. You can make some tweaks to your posts before publish them.

You can also hire a designer to repurpose your how-to blog posts into a white paper.

Besides posting, you can add comments and reviews on other documents.

Following the basic SEO guidelines for your content will help in getting found in search engine results. Particularly, use keywords in the title and the first paragraph.

14. Kindle eBooks

Consumption of eBooks has been on a continuous rise. Amazon is the dominant player in eBooks sales with its Kindle platform and you can reach millions of readers through it.

Use the fourth page (last preview page of the eBook) to place a link to a landing page on your website. You can offer a free report or free giveaway to those who buy your eBook.

Read this brilliant guide on publishing a Kindle eBook by Paul.

If you intend to sale your eBook on Kindle, your content should be original and unpublished.

For best results, opt for making your eBook exclusive to kindle for 90 days. For gaining traction, you can offer free downloads of your paid eBook for 5 days.

Or offer your eBook free for exposure and new blog audience.

Here is tutorial by Terri Bork to help you get targeted traffic to your website from Kindle:

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15. Medium

Medium is a platform with a community driven spin on content publishing. Wikipedia lists the platform as an example of social journalism given that you can collaborate with other writers when posting.

Occasionally, you can repost your blog content on the platform (but, don’t overdo it). Buffer republishes some of its content on Medium.

When reposting:

Make sure Google has indexed your original content before republishing. You can change the way you approach your article’s subject, modify the title of your post, etc.

The repost might not rank in search engines, but your aim is getting additional clicks to your website and building audience.

You can experiment with different CTA like “Sign up for our newsletter” or “Follow us on Twitter.”

In a medium article, you can place links to relevant posts on your blog in the body also.

You can use UTM parameters to gain insights on the amount of traffic you are getting from Medium.

Popular posts are pushed to the main page and get tremendous exposure. So, aim to get on the main page.

Read: How to repurpose your existing content on Medium

16. Business2Community

This is a business blog with over 15,000 contributors and 3 million visitors. The blog has many sections including entertainment, sports, social media, marketing, businesses, technology, finance, etc.

When signing up as a contributor, you will have to specify if you will syndicate your blog post or going to post original content.

You can put links to your website in not only your bio, but the main article as well (if relevant). In the article body, upto 3 links can be sent to one domain. Read their guidelines for detailed information.

Aim for hitting the home page by writing high-quality content. Further, the blog syndicates its content with Yahoo and Google News. So, there are chances of even more exposure and backlinks.

You can experiment with different CTA:

Offer a resource on your website or a landing page as an email opt-in.

17. Snip.ly

This is an innovative tool to attach a call-to-action to every article link you share on social media. You can use it to drive traffic to your own website using someone else’s content.

You can pick up top performing high-quality articles from influencers in your industry and customize their call-to-action. Direct article readers to a landing page on your website for email opt-ins or a related in depth article on your website.

Example of using the tool effectively – Share a news story in your industry from an authority third party website. Say, a story on Google’s latest mobile algorithmic update at Moz.

Then, use the call-to-action snippet for directing visitors to an ultimate guide around this news on your blog. It can be “The Ultimate guide to recovering your website from Google’s mobile algorithm update.”

You can install the Snip.ly chrome extension to streamline the process. It helps you to snip the page you are on with a single click. This extension gives you access to analytics and over 1000 clicks in a month.

Watch this video tutorial on using Snip.ly:

Subscribe on YouTube

18. Hub Pages

A hub at Hub Pages is like a magazine-style article. The platform publishes user-generated content and has over 74,000 published users. Besides publishing, it is a great place to build relationships.

It currently gets close to 32M page views every month and has over 1 million hubs. The website shares revenue with the publishers and is used by many writers as a revenue stream.

How does the publishing work?

You can create a hub about any topic. Your account gets approved by moderators and your article will be published.

Make sure the content you submit is of high quality. If you have a high hub score – above 75 or so, you can get one-way do follow backlinks.

Not all the content you publish in hubs need to be original. You can publish a summary of your long-form posts. But do not copy and publish all of your content, else you will get penalized by Google.

19. iTunes Podcasts

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Audio content is on a tremendous rise. Global iTunes has an audience of 1 billion.

The reason is simple: Podcasts are easier to the consumer than text. You can conveniently listen to them while heading to work or performing chores.

Blogging giant Copyblogger is building a podcasting network. Listen to why they are betting big on podcasting.

How can you distribute your content through podcasting?

Create a weekly show where you discuss your best content from the week. A listener will connect better with your voice than writing if you add a personal touch.

So, podcasting can gain thousands of new followers.

If you are uncomfortable with recording your own voice, hire someone at Fiverr to do a professional voice over of your best blog posts.

20. Webinar

Webinars can be especially helpful in a B2B environment.

For conducting a webinar, you can repurpose your best content in form of slides and give a live presentation to your audience.

After sharing your wisdom, you can keep a Q & A to engage with your webinar audience.

Before conducting a webinar, drive signups by marketing it on social media and guest posting on industry authority websites.

Zoom is the best platform to conduct webinars. It is hassle free, but a little pricey.

After the webinar, you can archive the presentation and your live recording. You can share the archive on YouTube or any other video platform for even more exposure.

Do you realize the immense value of webinars?

You repurposed your old content to interact with audience, address their pain points and won yourself great traffic and new subscribers. What a huge win!

Read Copyblogger’s guide on building relationships with customers through webinars.

21. Answer questions on forums in your niche

There are many forums and Q & A websites where your target audience hangs out to resolve their problems.

Start with searching your niche keywords at Yahoo Answers. You can link to your article in the source section after answering user’s question. You should not put links in the main answer (or you might get banned).

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A general way of searching for forums in your niche using Google is:

“niche keyword” + forum

Example: I found these “Internet marketing” forums at the top 3 spots using the query internet marketing forum – Warrior Forum, Web Masters Sun and Wicked Fire.

You should be authentic and helpful on such forums. If your post solves a particular query, then offer helpful advice as a teaser linking to the post on your blog.

But do not just self-promote, else you will get banned. For most forums, you can also link to your blog in your profile signature.

22. Create an autoresponder course

You can tweak your best content and repackage it into a course. Then, offer it as an email opt-in.

Schedule release of course content slowly, offering one lesson every 2-3 days. This way you build excitement for your upcoming lessons. Once you have built trust with your subscribers by adding value, there is less probability of them dropping off your list!

Here is a brilliant guide on creating an email course.

For pushing out content and managing email subscriptions, you can use Aweber or Convertkit.

23. Visua.ly

The internet is increasingly getting dominated by graphics.

Using visual.ly, you can repurpose your posts into impressive infographics. Infogr.am and Piktochart are also great tools for the same.

You can submit infographics to infographic directories and Visual.ly community, Slideshare, Scribd, etc.

Here is a comprehensive list of 100 platforms to submit infographics.

You can try pitching the infographic to authority blogs in your niche to get it republished.

Here is a guide by Brain Dean on earning backlinks through infographics.

You can also hire freelancers from Fiverr to distribute your infographic to 30 directories for merely 5$.

24. Scoop.It

Scoop.it is a content curation platform to increase visibility of great content.

Here is how to get started with Scoop.it:

Pick a narrow niche you’ll curate content on and set up 5 pages. Share the best content relevant to your niche on these pages. Now, your profile has a nice appearance.

For getting the best results, you need to get your content published at pages with good number of followers and views.

Find the influencers in your niche at Scoop.it. Browsing topics based on popularity and current trends might help. Engage with the influencers on twitter and other social networks. Comment on their blog posts and get noticed by them.

After you have built a relationship, pitch your best posts to these high following Scoop.it page moderators. If your requests are accepted, you can get tons of traffic.

Only a summary of your article has to be posted: Just give a tempting teaser from the post and upload a compelling image.

For convenience, install the scoop.it bookmarklet or apps to scoop content on the fly.

Watch the tutorial on driving traffic through Scoop.it:

Subscribe on YouTube

25. List.ly

This is another brilliant content curation platform for creating a list of tips, websites, thought leaders, etc.  You can get free traffic and backlinks by using the platform strategically.

You can embed list.ly lists with your blog post. The best part is crowdsourcing your list to the community and engaging with them.

Benefit of list.ly is not in exhaustive lists. Make sure that you leave an impression of only starting your list by leaving some space. The community can suggest and add their favorites on your blog subject.

If your list is featured on the homepage, you can receive tons of traffic.

List.ly is powerful because not only does your content receive exposure; your content and interactions also grow.

You can watch this video tutorial to get you started with curating lists:

Subscribe on YouTube

Bonus:

As promised, I have got a bonus section with 5 more platforms you can use to drive traffic to your website. Here they are:

26. Triberr – This is an influencer-marketing platform. Read 13 tips on getting traffic from Tribber.

27. Paper.li – Create an online newspaper on any topic from social media content and drive traffic to your website through it.

28. Flipboard – A Magazine style feed reader for thousands of topics. Here is a guide by Harsh on driving traffic to your blog using Flipboard.

So, that were 28+ distribution platforms to give your content the fame it deserves!

Building relationships with administrators and influencers matter the most on all platforms.

But, don’t get overwhelmed with the information.

Understand that most platforms will require consistency and considerable effort.

Add value to the community to get traffic in reciprocation.

Take action by signing up one of the listed platforms.

Don’t be afraid to experiment with these distribution channels. Find out the ones that work the best for you by looking at the referrals in Google Analytics.

I hope you can derive value out of these 35 distribution platforms and hit massive traffic numbers on your blog.

Your turn:

Did I miss your favorite content distribution channel? Do you have a success story of driving tons of traffic through any of these platforms?

I would love to hear your thoughts. Share them with me using the comment box below.

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Authored By
Chintan is an ROI-focused content marketing consultant and currently leads the content at The Ecommerce Academy. Join him at Elite Content Marketer and learn how to grow your business through content.

36 thoughts on “21+ Tested Platforms To Distribute Content & Get Insane Traffic”

  1. Shanthi

    Phew! I am new to SEO, Social Media Content and stuff. This tells me there is soooooo much to do, OMG. But awesome, excellent article… less English, more facts and figures. Really good. And you accomplished this in 50 hours! Super Impressive!

  2. Ruhul Amin Talukder

    Hi Chintan,
    It’s great no doubt. I am a new blogger. I know nothing about this type of blogging. I think it will be a fantastic collection and it will contribute a huge in my life.
    Thanks, thanks and thanks.

  3. Adhyansh Jadli

    Hi, sir I am a new blogger and was struggling to drive traffic to my blog. But this amazing guide will certainly help me to achieve my goal.

    thanks a lot for such great help.

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