29 Aug 10 3 Content-Heavy Contests That Will Pull Visitors to Your Blog

As we discussed in an earlier post, organizing or sponsoring a contest is a very effective way to pull visitors to your blog. We also discussed that contests could be divided into two broad categories — based on the nature of human involvement — Content-based contest and click-based contest.

We will take that discussion forward in this article, and we will talk here about 3 content-based contests that could help you skyrocket your blog’s readership.

3 content-heavy contests

Comment here contest

This is one of the best contests to host. The idea is quite simple. Ask your visitors to post a comment in the comment box to get a chance to win the prize. Also remind them that each comment will get one entry into a lucky draw, so they can enter more than one comment to get more than one entry. At this point, do not forget to tell them just one-line generic comments will either get filtered out by your spam filter, or will be weeded out by your staff. Remind them that the comment that will add to the discussion will only get accepted. Comment done just to get multiple entry and which does not take the discussion forward, even a bit, will automatically get disqualified.

Review me contest

This is another form of contest that you can run. Ask your readers to write a review for your website on their domain, in Facebook, or wherever they want, as long as it is written on the websites talking about topics like pornographic, abusive, racism, etc. make an e-mail ID, and ask them to send the URL to that mail ID. Promise the announcement of the result on your blog, and tell them that 3 best reviews will get the prize. To win the prize, it is important for them to include two links to your website in the review — one to the home page, and another to any other page. For deep linking, you can provide some options from your blog posts.

Guest post writing contest

The third form of content-heavy contest is guess post writing contest. Ask you readers to write guest posts for you. Announce that the best written guest post will get the prize, and the second and the third ranked guest post will also get prize. To motivate them to write a guest post, tell your visitors that each guest post will be published, and writer will get the byline for the guest post along with 2 links back to their website, Facebook page, twitter, etc.

Content-based contests are time consuming, so the prize should be good, otherwise people will not get motivated to spend time on your blog.

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Tags: blog, Contests, Deep Lining, E Mail, Facebook, Guess, Human Involvement, Lucky Draw, Mail Id, Options, Promise, Racism, Readership, Send Mail, spam filter, Url, Win Prize, Writing Contest

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13 Nov 09 How Idiot Joe Built a Huge List of Opt-in E-mails – II

In the previous post, we saw the 5 basic strategies Idiot Joe employed to build his gigantic list of opt-in e-mail. We will see some more strategies that Idiot Joe used to get where he is right now. As said, Idiot Joe is an utter idiot, who knows very little about online marketing and related stuffs. But he still managed to build his mammoth list of e-mail subscribers. I am sharing with you the strategies he used to build his list.

Idiot Joe instinctively knew that networking matters a great deal in online success. Hence, he built a network of power online marketer, and cross promoted each other’s products.
Idiot Joe took a clever decision of putting his URL, and a “Call to action” line at the back of his business cards, and at the bottom of his letterhead. He knew that if he can tap people in the offline world then he will succeed in tapping them in online world as well. Many people who got Idiot Joe’s business card went online to subscribe to his news letter.
Idiot Joe also enlisted his friends and family, and requested them to talk about his e-mail newsletter with anyone they knew. This activity fetched a lot of e-mail addresses for his opt-in list.
Idiot Joe instinctively understood the power of promotions in pulling e-mail addresses for his list. He used it successfully to get visitors give away their e-mails to Idiot Joe.

Idiot Joe used his common sense to build his list of opt-in e-mails. He may not be aware of the marketing tricks, but he was quite aware of how human being things and work. This knowledge worked in his favor and gave him a huge list of e-mails. Idiot Joe, after all, was never an idiot.

Tags: Business Card, Business Cards, Common Sense, E Mail Addresses, Friends And Family, Huge List, Letterhead, Mail Newsletter, Mail Subscribers, Many People, Marketer, Marketing, Networking, Offline World, Opt In E Mail, Promotions, Stuffs, Success, Tap, Url

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24 Jul 09 SEO SIMPLIFIED: Anchor Text Primer

After a brief pause of one week, SEO Simplified series is back, and this time we will talk about off-site SEO optimization. I hope, by now, you must have sorted out most of the issues related to on-site SEO optimization, and applied the principles learnt to make your website search engines’ darling. If you feel you need further clarification on any topic we have covered so far in the series, please feel free to use the comment box. .

I will begin with describing anchor text. I have chosen this beginning because, I believe, links back to our websites from the websites in same or related niche are what we want from our off-site optimization effort.

What is Anchor Text?

Before talking about what anchor text is, let us understand the anatomy of an HTML link. A link has two parts: one is the text on which the URL is attached, and another is the URL to which the user will be taken once he clicks the visible text. The URL is not visible to the users.

For example, we want to create a link that will take the visitors to the beginning of the SEO Simplified Series; hence, we create an SEO Simplified: An Overview link. In this case, the HTML Code for the link will be:

<a href = “http://blog.gossimer.com/seo-simplified-an-overview”> SEO Simplified: An Overview </a>

As we can see the text “SEO Simplified: An Overview” is visible to us, but the URL to which this text is pointing is not visible. In this case the URL is, “http://blog.gossimer.com/seo-simplified-an-overview”. The visible part (text) of the link is called anchor text. In the above example, “SEO Simplified: An Overview” is an anchor text for the link “http://blog.gossimer.com/seo-simplified-an-overview”.

Why is it important?

An anchor text works as a billboard for the attached URL. Anchor Text is used to tell the visitors what the URL within the anchor text is all about. To draw an analogy we can say, anchor text is like the subject line of an e-mail. A good anchor text is as important as is a good subject line of an e-mail.

Not only that, search engines especially Google attach a great value to the link attached to a proper anchor text. Suppose, in the above example if we replace the anchor text “SEO Simplified: An Overview” with “Click Here to Read” then the value of link and anchor text will be diminished in the eyes of search engines, especially Google.

Now let us think that this series has become very famous among SEO aspirants on the internet, and many websites has started stared pointing to “http://blog.gossimer.com/seo-simplified-an-overview” link using “SEO Simplified: An Overview” as an anchor text then eventually, “SEO Simplified: An Overview” page will rank higher in the search engine for the keywords “SEO Simplified: An Overview” and for the keyword “SEO Simplified”.

IMPORTANT

Always use a proper keyword or a key phrase when creating an internal link, or an in-bound link from other website. This can make the difference!

Tags: Analogy, Anatomy, Anchor Text, Billboard, blog, Clarification On, E Mail, Lt, Niche, Overview Link, Seo Optimization, Site Optimization, Subject Line, Url, Visible Text, Website Search Engines

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29 Aug 10 3 Content-Heavy Contests That Will Pull Visitors to Your Blog

3 content-heavy contests

Comment here contest

Review me contest

Guest post writing contest

24 Jul 09 SEO SIMPLIFIED: Anchor Text Primer

What is Anchor Text?

Why is it important?

IMPORTANT

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