Blog Contests: Make Them Worthwhile To Participate In

It looks like my first blog contest is proving to be a failure not as successful as I thought it would be. The most likely reason- it was not good enough. But before I offer you some tips on running a better successful contest on your blog, I will tell you what to expect.

  1. The number of comments will be much higher than on your regular posts. More than half of the comments will be made by people that never commented on your blog before- this is specially true if you never had any kind of contests on your blog in the past. This is to be expected since most likely you will give away the price to one of the commentators. You can always spice things up a little by encouraging linking to your post as a way of entry into your contest. Which brings me to……
  2. Which it fact could be #1: CONTESTS ARE THE ULTIMATE LINKBAIT technique. I am not sure what effect this may have on your blog’s overall SEO, but you can be surprised where these links may come from. I never knew that there blogs out there dedicate completely to cover blog contests. And of course you can always inspire a birth of a new blog.
  3. The contests may result in and increased numbers of readership- at least for the duration of the contest.

Now since you know few benefits of holding a contest on your blog, I offer you few tips, which are results of mistakes I’ve made with my contest:

  1. Implementing a contest think how your present readers/commentators can benefit from it. The easiest way to alienate your current readers from your contest is to say that comment number such and such will receive the price. Instead have some sort of drawing.
  2. Make your contest more than just opportunity for one lucky person to win money, video game, iPhone or any other prize. Your readers are intelligent human beings capable of real challenge vs just senseless commenting/linking. In this case th winner of the contests can be chosen on merits of his or her work.
  3. Follow through with the price you promised.

Good luck with your next contests and remember to let me know- I will be happy to participate.

24 thoughts on “Blog Contests: Make Them Worthwhile To Participate In”

  2. Hi,
    Maybe you should let every one on my blog-contests.net site know 🙂

    I left you a comment on the contest post also.

    thanks

  3. You have so much going on here it's hard to even find your contest. Looks like you are using every plugin and widget available and in my honest opinion it looks bad.

    I personally love the color green, but on websites it doesn't work. Might be something to do with your yellow shirt as well but I'm immediately turned off by the look of your blog. I just thought I would share that with you. Yes I'm a designer.

    Anyway, take care.

  4. Hey Jeff,

    Thanks for stopping by I appreciate your advise. Unlike you, I think green is great color anywhere website or not….

    I care less whether or not you are a designer. You can stick your designer opinion you know where.

    Not a good first comment man. I don't mind to be criticized, but first comment? Come on, you can do much better that that!

  5. You have so much going on here it’s hard to even find your contest. Looks like you are using every plugin and widget available and in my honest opinion it looks bad.

    I personally love the color green, but on websites it doesn’t work. Might be something to do with your yellow shirt as well but I’m immediately turned off by the look of your blog. I just thought I would share that with you. Yes I’m a designer.

    Anyway, take care.

  6. Hey Jeff,

    Thanks for stopping by I appreciate your advise. Unlike you, I think green is great color anywhere website or not….

    I care less whether or not you are a designer. You can stick your designer opinion you know where.

    Not a good first comment man. I don’t mind to be criticized, but first comment? Come on, you can do much better that that!

  7. I hear over and over that blog contests are the ultimate link bait but if I offered $200 to my readers, the 3 people that read my blog might laugh at me. 🙂

  8. I hear over and over that blog contests are the ultimate link bait but if I offered $200 to my readers, the 3 people that read my blog might laugh at me. 🙂

  11. hi Vlad, Blog contests work well for blogs that have bloggers as readers and that are generally on technology, web 2.0 and blogging. I have not yet seen any contest at a business blog or blogs on a particular subject like photography or travel. Putting it another way, let's say how can we do a contest by a blog that generally has a non-blogging readership?

  13. hi Vlad, Blog contests work well for blogs that have bloggers as readers and that are generally on technology, web 2.0 and blogging. I have not yet seen any contest at a business blog or blogs on a particular subject like photography or travel. Putting it another way, let’s say how can we do a contest by a blog that generally has a non-blogging readership?

  15. Hi India Public relations

    I hope you are still following the comments. I am so happy you have mentioned web 2.0! Every one is talking about it but I can't eve find the download so I can install it on my computer. Do you you know where I can get web 2.0?

    Social Media,,

    Thanks for stopping by. I do not think though that links generated via these contest carry much authority with them.

  16. Hi India Public relations

    I hope you are still following the comments. I am so happy you have mentioned web 2.0! Every one is talking about it but I can’t eve find the download so I can install it on my computer. Do you you know where I can get web 2.0?

    Social Media,,
    Thanks for stopping by. I do not think though that links generated via these contest carry much authority with them.

  17. I think so much of it has to do with format. If you offer $100 to comment #100, what incentive is there for people 1-99 to comment?
    PS I like the color green, I think it looks fine here 🙂

  18. Welcome Neo Meme,

    I was just reading your blog believe it or not. I think if people continue to to complain about green color I will just have to hire the “supperkickass” web 2.0 designers to redesign my blog:
    http://www.geocities.com/superkickassdesign/ (best viewed in IE)

    I completely agree with you about the rest of the people participating in the contest. I think I will give it a few days and will change the rules a little. most of those comments came within first two days so we are moving too slow.

  19. I think so much of it has to do with format. If you offer $100 to comment #100, what incentive is there for people 1-99 to comment?
    PS I like the color green, I think it looks fine here 🙂

  20. Welcome Neo Meme,

    I was just reading your blog believe it or not. I think if people continue to to complain about green color I will just have to hire the “supperkickass” web 2.0 designers to redesign my blog:
    http://www.geocities.com/superkickassdesign/ (best viewed in IE)

    I completely agree with you about the rest of the people participating in the contest. I think I will give it a few days and will change the rules a little. most of those comments came within first two days so we are moving too slow.

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