Competitions are simply link havens – if you run a intriguing competition, one that stands out from the crowd, and you market it in a unique and novel way, then links become almost an after-thought, they generate themselves. The trouble with this approach however is that it takes a great deal of planning and meticulous effort – on the part of the competition owner – to put everything in place.
The first thing you invariably need to do is think about what you want to offer – this is incredibly important. Your first port of call will be any number of the various competition websites (just type “competition” into Google). Take a look around and maybe look for ideas in your niche. For example, if you run a Link Building website, then you may consider offering a full monthly link building package. If you own a taxi firm, you may consider offering a free taxi journey for the Grandma of everyone who gets in your cab. Whatever the idea, make sure it grabs people’s attention.
Next up is figuring out how to promote your competition; this is the challenging part. You have to ask yourself what your main objectives are; in this instance, we want to build links to our website, but that will be something that occurs following the implementation of other strategies. One of the best options is simply to consider a Twitter competition. In order to enter the competition, a user simply has to re-tweet your tweet (the competition tweet) – you could also make it a condition of entry that the user has to leave their details via a contact form prior to heading off to Twitter.
Finally, you need to begin look at other promotional vehicles and putting your competition together. The best way to capture sign-ups is through an E-Mail marketing program – this will obviously allow you to capture the user’s e-mail address and any other information you require. Next, you need to create a post on your website to highlight the competition to your visitors (and to give users a central reference point for the competition). In this post make sure that you highlight absolutely everything that can be won in the competition, as well as entering a closing date and any other additional information the user needs to know.
Above all else, you need to make the competition eye-grabbing – like with all forms of link building, you need to consider exactly what it is that the user wants and what’s really going to spark their interest.
Source by Gareth J Power
