Blogging contests are a good way to increase your blog’s traffic. Studies show that you can grow your readership by as much as 34% when you run a contest on your blog. Contests are popular across the nation, with some people entering thousands of contests per year. But if you want your contests to give you good traffic results, you must run them fairly. Here’s what you must consider.
Advertise your contest rules
All contests need rules. These need to be advertised clearly alongside your contest so readers can decide whether your contest is for them or not. If you team up with a third party to run your contest, they may want to print the winner’s name and a photograph of them. Not everyone will want this, so it’s crucial you state this in the rules if it’s part of the deal. This will keep readers happy and stop people from losing trust in you. Another rule to consider is whether you’ll allow under 18’s to enter. If your blog’s target market is under 18’s then you definitely need to, but this won’t necessarily be the case if you’re a parent or financial blogger.
Draw a random winner
One of the most exciting parts about entering a competition is the prospect of winning. There are several different ways you can choose a winner, but the most important thing to remember is that it must be fair. A contest that involves entrants submitting content can be judged and a winner is chosen by a panel of judges. Another option is to get readers to vote for a winner using voting buttons. The winners of contests where you obtain a list of entrants’ names can be chosen by a random name picker. All you have to do is submit the list of names, choose how many winners you’d like and the automated system will choose a winner for you. You can even film and upload the process to your blog or social media to show how fair and honest your winner selection process is.
Set a closing date
Hubspot suggests that the ideal length of time your blog contest should run is 25 days or 60 days. You need to set a closing date and add this to your blog’s contest page before you allow anyone to enter. But what if you get to the end date and you don’t have enough entries? Or what about if you’ve been overwhelmed with entrants and new traffic that you want to keep it going? The one thing you shouldn’t do is extend the contest. This will annoy readers, lose your followers, and you’ll get complaints of unfairness. Overcome these problems next time by changing your marketing tactic and setting a longer end date initially.
Running contests on your blog is a great way to gain new readers and increase your blog’s engagement. But you must ensure all contests are run fairly, otherwise, you run the risk of upsetting your readers and losing their loyalty.
