The power of free

Who doesn’t want to get something for nothing?  Who doesn’t enjoy knowing that they won something that a lot of other people were also trying to win?  Most people enjoy entering  contest and most people like free stuff.  It’s a sure fire way to get people to visit your site.

Contests have the potential to go viral, with friends telling their friends and so on… The word spreads and more people visit yo enter the contest.  This not only boosts traffic in the short term, but if handled correctly it can net you a large number of regular readers who would never have otherwise seen your blog.

Free For Me, Free For you

Don’t think that holding a contest means that you have to spend a penny.  A contest can be as simple as letting your readers know that the best answer to a question will have a post dedicated to the reader that gave the winning answer.

In the world of food blogs these kinds of competitions are quite normal.  The blog owner asks what his or her readers would make from a certain set of ingredients and a winner is chosen at the end of the month.  In this case the contest is very foodie-centric, but there is no reason that the concept can’t be applied to any blog.

Play around with the idea and I think you’ll find that this concept can fit your niche as well.  It might take a bit more effort than offering a prize, but it costs you nothing if your blog isn’t already generating an income on its own.

Giveaways

Giveaways are by far the most common type of contest run on blogs, and for good reason. Giveaways will almost always draw in a large amount of traffic but depending on your niche, finding relevant products or services to give away can be very expensive.

If you write about design software you could be looking at multiple-thousand dollar price tags for giveaway items in your market.  In cases like these, look for items that most people are interested in, but won’t set you back by far more than you’ll generate by running the contest.

Think inexpensive MP3 players, add-on packs for software your readers might already have or gift certificates for online stores.  people will still compete to win these things but it will cost you a lot less than full-featured items.

Put Your Dignity On The Chopping Block

Don’t be afraid to embarrass yourself!  Offer something foolish if a goal isn’t met or tell your readers that you will do something crazy if you can’t accomplish something you’ve set out to do, then post a running commentary on the process.

Let’s say you’ve decided that you could potentially generate $2,000.00 in a single month using a certain advertising method, or that you’ve decided to enter a contest yourself.  Let your readers know that if you fail to achieve your goals you will do something crazy like shave your head and post a photo of it or post a YouTube video of your hair coming off. (I don’t suggest this one for my female blogging sisters.)

I will almost guarantee that a stunt like this will bring in a lot of traffic once people hear about it. It’s off-the-wall things like this that make reality TV shows and outrageous game-shows so popular.

In the end it costs you nothing more than a little bit of your dignity and if you’re the fun-loving type it might just be the key to an explosive amount of traffic long after the contest is over… If you can tolerate the indignity of it all.

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