6 Great Tips for Hosting a Blogging Contest
The contests on blogs have been growing daily, and many bloggers are considering starting there own contests.
Blog about your Blog is definitely receiving some buzz, not only for the reviews we’ve purchased, but the contests we’ve hosted as well. I read every post about our site, and usually we get comments from their readers, saying they are glad they found our blog. This is just from people mentioning our contest on their blog.
Hosting contests can not only give you SEO for a key term with link back competitions, but they can also generate buzz for your website. However if you want to run a contest, you better make sure it is successful.
Have a Deadline
Make sure to have a deadline for your contest. The number one reason I will not participate in a contest, is if there isn’t a deadline. “Contest closes sometime” doesn’t work for me. I also may not participate if the contest deadline is months away. Why should I enter now… there’s months until it closes…
Make People Want to Enter
You don’t want your readers to wait, forget, and not enter your contest. Give them a reason to enter NOW. Limited time only, contest will end in 3 days! I’ll never run this again, it’s the best prize! You get the idea. If you are running the contest to generate buzz or SEO, you want it NOW not in 3 months. At least I do.
Offer a Prize
Any prize will do. If it’s free I’m there! You can never go wrong with cash. If you want to be different, being unique may also work. Have something you never used that would be great to giveaway? I have several items that are going to be “prizes” soon, still in the box. Not just the day planner, but there is also a digital picture key chain, and a nice thermos set that I will give away soon. (they were all free)
Make it Easy
If you want a big response, don’t make your contest complicated, make it fun. Leaving a comment on the contest post is the easiest contest there is. Asking for a 200 word review and 3 linkbacks to your website, is not as appealing. Why would I review your website/blog for FREE with the CHANCE to win 20$, when we charge 35$ for a review direct?
Pick What You Want to Promote
Make sure the contest has benefits for you. Whether you are trying to rank for a certain keyword in google, or get your RSS Feed Readership up, base your contest on that. You can even get that all in one. “Linkback to our website saying “Increase Website Traffic” and subscribe to our RSS feed to get extra entries!”
Publicize your Contest!
This is the most essential for a good contest. If no one knows about it, there won’t be many entries. Just for this reason there are many contest blogs that blog only about contests (too many to list here).
Forums are also a great way to promote your contest. Don’t underestimate the power of posties at PayPerPost. Try other forums as well, like bloggerforum and Wahm Forum. Not only did I use forums to promote our day planner contest, I also posted about the contest on other blogs I contribute to.
The perfect blog contest is pretty easy, you just have to determine what you want. Make sure to have a deadline. Offer a prize, any prize! Publicize, promote, promote, promote. And last but not least, be sure of what you want. Don’t start the contest and figure it out as you go. Set the rules, prize, and deadline from the beginning.
17 Responses to “6 Great Tips for Hosting a Blogging Contest”
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July 12th, 2007 at 7:16 pm
Excellent advice. Thanks! I’m now narrowing down prize ideas. I want the prize(s) to have a Hawaiian theme.
July 12th, 2007 at 7:22 pm
after visiting your site, I definitely thought the same
Have you thought about hula dancers for car or desktops? They probably cost under 10$ and I would try to win something like that. Or even something fun that you could do like coconuts and a hula skirt lol!
July 12th, 2007 at 7:36 pm
Uh oh, coconuts and a hula skirt…lol
I hadn’t thought of a hula dancer. That’s a pretty cool idea.
July 12th, 2007 at 9:10 pm
You couldn’t have posted this at a better time. I’ve been working on a contest of my own and this article was at the right place at the right time.
Thank you very much.
July 13th, 2007 at 5:10 am
[…] have been reading some tips about how to effectively hold a contest on your blog. They are very good tips and I have decided to completely disregard […]
July 13th, 2007 at 5:22 am
another tip…let me know and I’ll post a link from my giveaway tuesday or thursday list. Ya doing Comment friday? I’m getting ready to post a link to your site but had waited to get the actual link.
on contests….spread the word like wildfire before a contest/giveaway…this way everyone wants the prize. ie, post ahead of time that a contest is coming, this also drives traffic to your site because they want to know more about it.
July 13th, 2007 at 6:57 am
Awesome!! Thank you for posting this!!
July 13th, 2007 at 8:44 am
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July 13th, 2007 at 10:20 am
Great tips. Hopefully I will remember to use them for my next contest. I think making it easy and fun are two of the best tips…my first one was way to difficult.
July 16th, 2007 at 5:01 am
[…] at Blog About Your Blog posted “6 Great Tips for Hosting a Blogging Contest”. These tips are great! I have logo […]
July 22nd, 2007 at 6:30 pm
Thanks for the tips. Im new to blogging and trying to work out how it all works. Your posts help lots thanks.
July 26th, 2007 at 10:30 am
Thanks for the tips. I am heading to pay per post right now. I am still hesitant to use forums to advertise our contest. Although I am active with some of these forums, I am always afraid some people might consider it as blatant self promotion (which I guess it is!).
You know, I am almost wiling to pay someone to handle our blog contest promotion.
Khalid
August 10th, 2007 at 3:42 pm
Great advice. I’m holding a contest now.
August 26th, 2007 at 12:07 pm
[…] read several of our articles about starting a blog contest and I gave her some ideas of prizes. Aloha! Sheila has put together a nice Hawaiian bundle of gifts […]
September 20th, 2007 at 7:45 pm
[…] get rolling on contest with ideas and help. We’ve posted some great helpful articles like 6 Great Tips for Hosting a Blogging Contest and Incentive to Offer on Your Blog. Invesp recently did a huge 400$ blog contest and through my […]
January 22nd, 2008 at 9:45 pm
[…] stuff that every blogger should know if they want their blogs to be successful. I wish I had read 6 Tips for Hosting a Blogging Contest before I started my own contests here. It would have come in handy to know that information. Always […]
February 4th, 2008 at 8:54 pm
This is a good article i’m just doing the research to come up with some fun ideas.