Giveaways and Contests
What would you do if you had one million dollars? This is just an example of a topic you could ask your readers to write about if you organize a contest. Contests and giveaways are a great way to increase the traffic to your site and obtain valuable links from all over the blogosphere. I would like to give you some examples of some contests and giveaways that other bloggers organized:
-A certain blogger was giving away USB flash drives. You may even want to preload it with software to make it more valuable. Ask participants to post about your giveaway on their blogs. You may also choose to ask them to subscribe to your RSS feed. Participants should also leave a comment informing you what they did. To make this giveaway more appealing you may promise each participant that you will link to his blog just for participate in the giveaway.
-One blogger asked his readers to write about what they would do if they had one million dollars. You could ask them to create a post on their blog with a link to your contest, or you could simply tell them to leave a comment on your website.
-A webmaster of a popular blog organized a contest in which the prize was free advertising on this popular blogs website. This can encourage many people to participate if your blog is indeed popular and has high Page Rank.
-Another blogger asked his readers to write an article on any subject that explains how to do something. The only requirement was to link to his website. In this particular competition, he was giving away cash prizes. Giving away cash prizes is always a good idea, as this way people can spend their money however they want.
If you decide to organize contents or giveaways, make sure that you clearly specify when you will choose the winners. Additionally, you should keep in mind that asking participants to link to your site is a good way to obtain a lot of backlinks. Even if your blog is not very popular that is not a problem, because there will be fewer participants, which means higher changes of winning for anyone who participates.