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Blog / Marketing tips / 10 Free No-Pitch Publication Websites

Marketing tips

10 No-Pitch Publications to Get Featured Online for Free

10 No-Pitch Publications to Get Featured Online for Free
Julia Gifford

By Julia Gifford

6 min read

We’ve talked before about the importance of publications. The list of benefits goes on: from growing your credibility as an industry leader, developing your SEO presence to generating content to be share on your social accounts. Though possibly one of the greatest assets is that you’re putting your brand in front of the eyes of an already-existing audience, without having to go through the growing pains of developing your own.

Link building is the #1 factor that Google considers for SEO, but that’s more easily said than done – and trust me, we know. We’ve gone through the process of getting featured. Admittedly, pitching major publications is not the easiest of tasks and yields a high fail-rate. For that reason, we’re loving no-pitch publications. It gives busy entrepreneurs the chance to get free, easy publicity for their businesses.

A no-pitch publication, a.k.a. a free article submission site, is a platform that accepts everything – you don’t have to go through the process of pitching an editor, you simply write up your content and publish it. No questions asked.

We’ve put together a list of the best no-pitch publications to show off your online store.

1. Bored Panda – Visual Storytelling

To upload an article, click the orange "Add post" button in the top right corner
To upload an article, click the orange “Add post” button in the top right corner

Bored Panda is a widely known platform that generates over 1 million daily pageviews. They put a big focus on visual material that’s entertaining in it’s nature. Bored Panda lets you create an account and then submit your material. It will go through a reviewing process and may have some details changed to suit their reader base.

Bored Panda publications

We’ve used this platform before to feature new products, like Startup Vitamins’ accessories and mugs. To submit an article, click the top-right button, “Add post”.

2. BuzzFeed – viral entertainment

buzz feed

Possibly the most well-known platform of all of our no-pitch platforms. BuzzFeed is known for its super catchy and sometimes click bait-y headlines, which is undeniably part of their media strategy to drive traffic. You can take advantage of their high page rank and submit an piece for yourself.

Content they accept ranges from articles, lists to quizzes, so you can be as creative as you like. Keep in mind that BuzzFeed’s audience is looking for entertainment, so make it fun!

Here are the BuzzFeed’s posting guidelines.

3. Viral Nova – Viral popculture

Viral Nova

Similar to BuzzFeed and Bored Panda, Viral Nova is cashing in on the catchy titles and enormous traffic. This is a place where you can freely show off your quirky, popculture related products in your store.

Keep in mind to talk about your products in the third person, and maybe add in a few that aren’t your own.

4. NotCot – Aesthetics and Entertainment

NotCot

NotCot is a platform that minimalistically showcases interesting, aesthetically pleasing ideas. If you have a product in your store that are beautiful, deep, or tongue-in-cheek, this would be a great platform to showcase a sleek, professional photo of it.

While NotCot isn’t as huge of a platform as others on this list, they have a stable following of design-centric people of several tens of thousands. Rather than accessing a platform for the masses, this is more streamlined, with clearer interests, and therefore, a higher chance at reaching conversions.

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The best part is, you can easily submit a post by clicking the blue triangle in the top left corner!

5. Inspire First – Inspirational Design

Inspire First

Inspire First is a platform that showcases inspirational artwork from many different mediums, including photographs, illustrations, 3D works, digital art pieces, interior designs, hand-made items, and more. This would be a perfect place to showcase your designs on your different products, your beautiful site, or, for example, how your interior design elements like posters and pillows can spruce up a room.

6. Medium – For Thoughtful Content

Medium

Medium has quickly become a go-to publishing tool for when you have something important to say. Medium’s algorithms prioritize content based on the algorithm’s perception of the content’s quality. For that reason, if you’ve put effort into creating highly valuable content, it might be a good reason to post it to Medium.

Medium has a large readership, and getting featured can have an immense effect on your brand’s visibility, thought leadership, and ultimately, traffic.

Some topics that are conducive to Medium – lessons you’ve learned about entrepreneurship, truths that aren’t typically voiced, tips to survive in the industry.

Gary Vaynerchuck, a famous entrepreneur and social media mogul, posts on Medium. He also explains why he loves the platform.

To write on Medium, simply sign up and then click “write a story” in the top right corned.

7. HubPages – Share Your Passion

HubPages

HupPages is a platform that encourages anyone to write about anything they’re passionate about. Though not the most modern of pages, this is a great platform to try out your writing skills, see what gets noticed and what doesn’t. This is also an easy way to start developing your SEO by submitting articles that include your business name and link to your store.

8. ArticlesBase – Business and lifestyle written pieces

ArticlesBase

ArticlesBase is an open platform that accepts written pieces in business, news, health, travel and interests. As an ecommerce entrepreneur, your best bet is to either share your business insight from running your store under the “Business” category, or sharing fashion trends in the “Interests” category.

Though not a major platform, you can generate a few hundred views per article, and most importantly, build your backlinks.

9. Ezine Articles – publish anything

Ezine Articles

Ezine Articles is a free to use publishing platform that’s been around for many years. Though the look of it isn’t the most fresh, the platform is a live and kicking, even with a sizeable social media following. Though you won’t be getting a lot of industry leadership credit for posting on Ezine Articles, it is an easy way to build more backlinks to your store.

10. eHow – DIY Everything

eHow

eHow is the king of doing it yourself. If you type in “How to…” into Google, you’ll mostly end up with an eHow article explaining, step by step, how to do what you’re intending to.

How is an ecommerce store to use this? Think of all of the things you know, and think if there’s anything you can contribute with your experience. Here are some ideas:

  • How to start an online store
  • How to design a t-shirt
  • How to crop images in photoshop
  • How to find a t-shirt distributor

This list goes on.

Take a moment to brainstorm a while to think of what you can offer.

Make life easier for yourself

When you’re busy with the everyday tasks of life but you know that you need to put your online store out there, make your life a bit easier – try a no-pitch publication for guaranteed results.

Go ahead, get link building!

Do you know of any other no-pitch publications? Have you had any success with them? Leave a comment down below!

Read next: 27 Essential Content Marketing Tools to Skyrocket Your Branding Efforts

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By Julia Gifford on Jan 19, 2017

Julia Gifford