From last few months I have been watching many blogs and noticing may blogs are running away free blog contest. This can be anything like comment and win 100$ contest or free 60$ Cash contest giveaway.
The basic idea is to get free backlinks, Free advertising and get new RSS feed subscriber. IMO this strategy always work and is very beneficial for blog owners. I will point out the basic things which you can achieve by running any Free blog contest.
Free Backlinks
When you run any kind of contest, either be it Free advertising slots, Software giveaways, Free EBooks or cash. This will attract many bloggers and chances are high they will write about it on their blog, so that readers can be benefited by this free giveaways. If you see any such contest, and blog is a legit blog in your niche, feel free to write about it on your blog. This will increase your credibility and you are increasing your value in front of your readers by letting them win a free contest.
Also Read : What are backlinks and benefit of backlinks
Free traffic
This is something which you can easily get by running a free blog contest. This is what most of popular blogs are doing. You can simply add a condition , To participate in the contest, tweet this post and add a link via your comments . If everything is done correctly , you will achieve a huge traffic spike , with this method. More over getting lots of comment using this method, will appeal more users and you will get comments and more users will participate in this contest. I have experienced this in my previous blog contest Free Yahoo meme invitation giveaway.
Free Advertising
As I mentioned above Free backlinks. Same time you are getting free benefit of Free advertising. Your blog will be exposed to set of different blogs and your free giveaway will be paid easily by free traffic and revenue generated via this.
That’s not all you will get free blog subscribers and also new set of people following your blog. More over running a successful contest will expose your brand to new advertisers, who will love to sponsor your next blog contest.
Do you run a blog contest in your blog? We will love to hear your success story
Article by Harsh Agrawal
Harsh has written 945 articles.
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{ 37 comments… read them below or add one }
Thanks a lot for the Shout Harsh. Hope your visitors will participate and best of luck to them
You welcome Lax. Since your contest is good and helpful for readers I’m sure every one will love to participate in it.
I am ready to participate.
yes this is true now every one using this method to attract more visitors
.-= mostlyBlog ´s last blog ..Nokia 2200 Slide leaked| Nokia 2200 price | Nokia 2200 specification =-.
Thats true and that actually works. Since its a win-win situation for both the readers and blogger, so..that is it…
Harsh I am agree with your points because in previous contest on my blog I received many back links because my friend bloggers published on their blog post about the contest.This way my blog reach on the upper stairs in search engine ranking as well as Technorati ranking.
Secondly I increased subscription of the email readers.
But I would like to say that contest is not everything,The best thing is content.Contest is the way to attract to the readers but if content is not good,they would not stay for longer.
I’m really thankful to you for publishing the information about contest on SML.
.-= Surender Sharma ´s last blog ..Blog Contest: Win $60 In Cash By Participating In The Contest =-.
Surender thats the main benefit of running a blog contest . Free advertising, free backlinks and for sure good no. of traffic..
I’m glad you enjoyed it and thanks for your insight on this topic.
Very true. Also it is very necessary as to what the contest is. People have to be very careful on the contest format. Basically they need to know WHAT they want from the contest.
.-= Raju ´s last blog ..5 Ways to Watch Emmy Awards 2009 Online Live Streaming for Free! =-.
Thats true Raju. Any blog contest needs proper planning in the form of stages of promotions and also make sure one get the targeted traffic.
I agree i have received a lot of backlinks and technorati from my first contest. It is a win win situation for us bloggers. Contests are best way to gain attention.
.-= gautam hans ´s last blog ..Blog Godown now 6 months old! =-.
Thats what We are talking about Gautam and personal experiences are adding more values to it
. Thanks for your input.
Great idea
Running contest will give sharp boost in visitors and later in search engine rankings. Whatever the case, expert who already well established runs the contest. Not every noob can do this.
.-= Rahul ´s last blog ..Ways For Kids To Make Money =-.
Rahul I dont know what do you mean by noob, and in blogging there is no term as noob (Slang). Anyhow..Its always first time for every one..and one fail contest does not mean next will be the same… So its always like you keep trying.. Always start from a small investment and if things work out, then go for big investments.
Thanks for the information.
In future I may also thinking of contest on my blog. But right now i m not in position. You all great bloggers are our inspiration.
Thanks
.-= Vikash Dhankar ´s last blog ..Replace Google™s Logo with a Doodle =-.
Thanks for your comment Vikash. Well you can always get free sponsors for your blog. Just check with your niche and contact the right person. It can be a free software license giveaway or can be a free domain giveaway which are pretty cheap but no one will mind freebies.
Yap!! This practice does help, in fact mutual coordination. But, how many of them are genuine in paying the winners of the contest!!
.-= India 365 ´s last blog ..Google Doesn™t Help Good Boys Because Of Bad Boys =-.
Mansi I wonder if there is any blogger who tempers with such contest. I guess no or if there are any , probably they are never a successful blogger. To show the transparency, people show how they pick the winner. Either it can be a point system or picked by set of Judges.
running a contest is the best way to get traffic and a long list of subscribers…..
.-= IndianCashMaker ´s last blog ..Tips to Create Your ABOUT ME Page =-.
Thanks for your comment Tushar.
Good idea to attract more visitors.
.
Thats true Anish.
This indeed a good idea harsh, I was planning to get on something to make linkedtraffic popular, This will come handy… Infact i actually have done this for some other blogs that i own, I was giving away a free rapidshare account. Now this deal seems good…
.-= Hardik Shah ´s last blog ..New Adwords Bidding Tutorial =-.
Best of luck hardik for nest contest. And do let me know when you launch it
. I will never mind some free gifts 
Yaa Sure Bro…
Yup !! That actually works
.-= Digimantra ´s last blog ..Using Twitter for Monitoring Trending of your Brands =-.
How can I forget your free domain giveaway contest. I was a winner there
I am thinking of running one in the future. It will be my first contest. But how do I find sponsors to sponsor the prizes? How do I approach them?
Steve thats a good thing if you planning to run a contest. Well depend on your niche you can contact the advertisers. Suppose you write about wordpress, you can contact some premium theme clubs and ask them to sponsor your contest. This can be in the form of free premium themes giveaway…
Though if you have good reader base and good PR , getting sponsor will not be an issue.
me having yet started using these strategies in my blog since i’m a beginner… hoping to do such thing in future!!
Good idea to attract more visitors for sure
Can you have a contest free give a way on ablog that has maybe a 100-200 visitors monthly?
Consolata its a good idea to run contest on a blog which is not very popular, because that will help you to create backlinks and traffic. Since every one love free giveaway.. The only thing you need to do it , you need to find the best way to promote your contest.
Hey Harsh, this is quite true. I have participated in a few contests last year and have seen that I DO GET some traffic by doing this. I don’t know how much value it gets in Google PR, but yes, traffic increases!
that is a nice way of getting traffic……….!!!!!!,i will go for it when i start getting money from my blog.
Awesome article, Shoutmeloud thanks for these kind of articles.
I am new at blogging. I think having a contest is a good idea.