Having blog contests

Blog contests are a good way to generate new traffic to your blog. Especially so when you’re giving away a substantial prize. No one may come running when you announce that you’re having a t-shirt contest, but people will when you announce that you’re giving away your monthly earnings, or a cool prize like a Nintendo Wii.

A good tip to remember when doing this is that you have to keep entering the contest simple for your readers. Doing something easy like subscribing to your feed, or adding you to a reader’s Technorati Favorites is definitely a good place to start.

The newest contest I’m aware of is how you can win a USB Tuner for your computer from Beyond The Rhetoric. It’s simple to enter and you can have up to five chances in entering. This is a great idea as it boosts readership and the community. Michael Kwan is asking that we add him to our Technorati Favorites, review his blog, or be a top commentator for the month of June. In doing so, this is making his page a little more sticky.

When doing contests, I’ve noticed that the bigger the prize, the bigger the response. Problogger, Darren Rowse, has done his Group Writing Projects, with the last prize being at $1,001, and he received over 800 responses. He makes the contests fun by adding themes. This last one was, “The top 5″ of whatever you want to write about. He encouraged community involvement by suggesting that you go to others’ websites and comment on them and of course, link back.

When doing these, everyone wins. You win because people will link to you and use whatever anchor text you provide them with and they win because they get their name out there for all to see. Exposure for everyone, all around.

So, why not give it a try? You don’t really have anything to lose. Chances are, if you’re betting that someone won’t come close to guessing your monthly earnings within a dollar, then you’re probably right.