15 Free Online Advertising Platforms to Promote Your Website (2026 update)

Getting a website up and running has become easier than ever thanks to no-code website builders. But once your e-commerce website is online, this is truly when your work starts. A well-made website is not very useful if no one knows about it. Hence, promoting your website and sharing it with the world is essential.
There are many ways to market and promote a website, but some methods like advertising or hiring a marketing firm can be expensive. Fortunately, there are many ways to promote a website for free. In this article, we will introduce the 15 best free online advertising platforms for entrepreneurs and businesses in 2026.

How to Promote Your Website for Free?

Before we jump into the list of popular platforms for advertising, here are some ways on how to promote your website for free.

• SEO Techniques — Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is one of the most effective ways to promote a website and increase traffic organically. SEO is free for anyone but requires a careful understanding of keyword optimization that helps increase your website's ranking on search engines.
• Using Email Marketing — Email Marketing has a proven track record of being an effective free promotion channel for a website. A form of Email marketing, Newsletters help create a direct communication channel between you and your potential customer that aids with conversions.
• Blogging — Creating a free blog is the fastest way for people to find your website and discover your business. A well-written blog also helps establish yourself as an authority in your field and improve your conversion rates.
• Social Media Marketing — Social Media channels like Facebook, X, and Instagram are not just to connect with friends and family. It is also a great way to market your business, spread awareness, build loyalty, and gain subscribers.
• Post on Forums — Another good way to reach new customers is to use forums. You can start a new thread on popular platforms like Reddit, or join an existing conversation thread and promote your business whenever relevant.
• Outreach Marketing — Outreach marketing involves connecting on a quid pro quo basis with influencers, bloggers, and other professionals in your business niche to promote your website. It is a good way to build long-term relationships and guarantee mutual growth and benefit.
• Quality content — Writing and posting informative content on your website and blogs helps build your business's loyalty and drive consumers through your marketing funnel. Just keep in mind to always prioritize quality over quantity when it comes to promotional strategies.

If you would like to learn about these techniques in detail or learn how to increase your website traffic, please refer to our articles — A step-by-step Checklist for Perfecting any SEO Website and 10 Ways to Boost Your Website Traffic.

Best Free Advertising Sites for Business

A quick, easy, and affordable way to promote your business website is to post your products and services on free advertising websites. Most free advertising platforms are built for small businesses with a limited marketing budget. So let us explore the 15 best advertising websites to help grow your business.

Facebook Marketplace

Since the introduction of Marketplace and Shops on the social media platform, Facebook has become a dominant force in customer acquisition and online shopping. Facebook Marketplace is used by roughly 800 million people every month. The platform has proved to be an effective advertising medium for selling cars, real estate, furniture, retail products, and many more goods. It provides functions that directly mimic some of the best-classified ad websites.

Google Business Profile

Google Business Profile is a free online directory that lets businesses connect with customers across Google Search and Google Maps. To get started, all you need to do is submit the URL of your business's website and some additional details about your company. Google then incorporates the companies' information into their listings to ensure your website is displayed when users search relevant content categories. Google Business Profile allows you to see how your consumers engage with your profile: whether it's clicks, follows, etc.

eBay

One of the oldest and best free high-traffic advertising websites is eBay. With over 134 million active buyers worldwide, $2.7B eBay revenue for Q2 2025, and 49% revenue from international operations, it is a fantastic marketplace to reach a large number of potential clients, especially if you are looking to sell overseas. Thanks to its good SEO rankings, great social media presence, and loyal follower base, eBay listings result in more visibility than most other websites. Its interactive interface also makes it easier for new users to publish free advertisements.

Craigslist

Craigslist, though very old, remains a popular destination for buying and selling products or services. Even though its design is rather vintage, and many modern functionalities are not supported, it still has a dedicated massive following. Craigslist has a huge line of categories and many subcategories such as jobs, services, events, merchandise, and beauty products. These subcategories help your ads reach a wider range of audiences. Business owners and entrepreneurs can advertise both B2C and B2B products and services on Craigslist.

One downside to Craiglist is that in the past the website was used for illegal activities. So you must make sure your advertisements do not look like “spam”, especially if you are posting from a new profile.

Locanto

Locanto is a German-based free advertising platform with more than 50 million ads in over 3920 different locations. Similar to Craigslist, Locanto’s online classifieds help your business sell products, services, physical goods, real estate, cars, etc. Locanto is great for new businesses with a large community presence, and your advertisement stays on the platform for 60 days instead of 30. It is because the platform has unique categories for selling events, community-based services, classes, and boosting local marketing efforts.

AdlandPro

AdlandPro has been providing free and paid advertising since 1996. Revolving around small businesses, it has an effective AdlandPro Classifieds ad website, where you can run free promotions. It’s easy to use, making it simple to create and manage ads across a wide range of categories—from real estate and vehicles to jobs and professional services.

With features such as adding detailed descriptions and uploading images, businesses can showcase what they offer and reach a broader audience without spending on advertising. It’s a practical, budget-friendly option to increase visibility online.

OLX

OLX is the world’s leader in facilitating trade and the fastest-growing network of leading marketplaces having a presence in 30+ countries and an association with 20+ brands. Many small businesses and entrepreneurs find their loyal customer base on OLX every year with free user-generated ads. Depending on your category and location, you receive a limited number of free ads. Their new feature called Ad2Video turns listings into dynamic videos by transforming uploaded images into captivating video descriptions. They use the latest generative AI tools powered by LLM technology. It adds value for its customers by providing them with great deals and a platform for easy buying and selling.

Adpost

Adpost is a free classified advertisement website with billions of page views to date. It offers businesses 30 million views a month and thousands of daily replies to their listings. The website has a free and a premium pricing model. The free plan runs your ads for 30 days, allows free renewal to max 90 days, displays up to 100 Photos + 1 Video.

Sales Spider

Sales Spider is a great free online advertising website for small and medium businesses. It has a large user base, an easy-to-use interface, allowing users to network with other people in their industry. This makes Sales Spider an ideal platform not just for advertising but also for networking and building professional relationships. Salespider is ideal for various business sectors, such as:

• Healthcare and pharmaceuticals
• Financial Services and banking
• Telecommunications and IT
• Automotive and manufacturing
• Insurance and legal services
• Retail and consumer goods
• Education and recruitment

Instagram

Nowadays, you can’t imagine having an online business without a solid social media presence. Depending on your niche, creating an Instagram Business account to promote your e-commerce platform can help drive enormous viewership to your project, becoming a great, multifunctional alternative for any other free local business advertising tool. Let’s say, you have developed a unique online boutique business plan, with a bold visual aesthetic. There is no better place to show it to an unlimited audience than Instagram. Leverage organic strategies, create engaging content and promote your business to your followers and global audiences.

LinkedIn

LinkedIn is the go-to place to reach the right people, if you run a B2B business, like accounting, recruitment, coaching, training, or IT consulting. With over 1 billion users online, the platform is one of the most popular places to advertise your business. The first question everyone asks when it comes to LinkedIn is “Are ads free on LinkedIn?” Unfortunately, the answer is no. The online advertising platform operates on a pay-per-click (PPC) or cost-per-impression (CPM) model, where businesses must pay for ad placements to target their audience.

While this promotion method is paid, LinkedIn offers numerous free methods to help grow and advertise your business:

• Optimize your company page on LinkedIn
• Post organic, informative content
• Engage in groups on the platform
• Use LinkedIn articles
• Build connections and follow up with engaging content.

Reddit

When it comes to Reddit, you should be really careful: here, you can not simply put an ad and await marvelous results. On the contrary, these actions will only cause negative effects. To make it work, find niche communities and offer valuable tips and insights. Only when you prove your expertise, credibility and reliability, you can start organically recommending your product. Remember: non-spammy engagement in niche subreddits is key to making your strategy work.

Yelp for Business

Over 76 million people visit Yelp each month. Furthermore, 82% of users hire or buy from a business they found on Yelp. People browse Yelp to find home services, restaurants, and other businesses. And you can get discovered by these potential customers who are already motivated. All you need to do is update your business info to match top search-requests, respond to reviews and messages without delay, and add good-quality photos to showcase your business in the best way.

Bing Places for Business

In October 2025, Bing launched a new project called Bing Places for Business — a free online platform where entrepreneurs can create and manage their business listings to appear both in Bing search results and Bing Maps to make it easier for the new potential customers to discover the products they are looking for.

The core idea behind the platform is to help business owners overcome their daily challenges. The portal design is simple and user-friendly, providing seamless automated importing features to help businesses get discovered much faster. Now, claiming a listing, updating working hours, and uploading photos has become truly simple and time-saving.

Gumtree

Gumtree is a UK-based free online advertising platform with strong global recognition since its inception in 2000. The website has 600K daily active users and 30K. Daily new ads. It is an ideal platform for service-based businesses looking to reach new customers, thanks to its user-friendly interface that allows anyone to create and manage their advertisements.

Pros and Cons of Free Advertising

The goal of any online business is to increase traffic to its website. As a result, promoting and marketing your website is crucial for any e-commerce store. Free advertising platforms are great for new businesses and SMEs, but like every corporate decision, they have their set of pros and cons. Let us understand the benefits and risks of posting free advertisements.

Benefits of Sites that Post Free Ads

• Cost-effective: Every business decision revolves around money. Free advertising is a lucrative idea for startups as it does not cost the company any expenses and eats into their limited budgets.
• Wide audience reach: Most free advertising platforms function with a large user base. This means that new businesses can reach out to a wider audience without spending on marketing.
• Improved online presence: Free advertising websites implement good SEO techniques on their platforms for promoting their own business. If your company website achieves higher visibility on these platforms, it increases your organization's online presence and organic ranking on search engines like Google or Bing.
• User-generated content: Most free promotional websites work on user-generated content. So positive reviews and higher ratings from customers can help grow your business faster and build trust in your enterprise.

Risks of Sites that Post-Free Ads

• Limited features: Most free subscription models offer limited features as compared to paid options. This makes it difficult for a business to stand out from its competitors.
• Less control over branding: Businesses that promote their websites on free advertising platforms have less control over their messaging and branding as compared to paid subscriptions.
• Time-consuming: Free promotional websites do not cost money, but they drain away another valuable company asset — time. Creating and managing a profile takes a lot of time especially when trying to attract new customers.
• Harmful for the brand: Since advertising platforms work on user-generated content, a business website's brand can be damaged due to bad user reviews and customer ratings.

Free Local Business Advertising

While all the above online platforms can make your business visible to millions of people, there are numerous old-school ways to advertise for free that might fit your project even better. Explore local communities through Facebook groups, hashtags, and tagging on Instagram and TikTok. Networking and building lasting relationships within your local community can evolve into word-of-mouth promotion. Attend your local community events as well as online conferences, engage with your city’s business associations, and offer free services and donations to nonprofits.

FAQs

Where can I advertise my business for free?

Depending on your niche, you can advertise your business for free by utilizing the power of Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and TikTok, or by creating an informative Google Business Profile. Post on classified sites like Craigslist or Gumtree, and explore the functionality of Yelp and Bing.

How to advertise small business for free?

There are many options for advertising and promoting your products and services online. Even though paid options like Google Ads are a quick solution for launching a new product, in the long run, it is better to promote your website organically without spending any money. A well-executed promotion strategy on a free advertising platform will increase your conversion rates and also build customer loyalty. We hope this article will help your business website grow and become a success.

How to promote your business locally?

Build real relationships in your community to spark word-of-mouth referrals. Attend local events and virtual conferences, get involved with business associations, and consider offering free services or donations to nonprofits to boost visibility and goodwill.