I just checked my RSS stats on the FeedBurner widget and it looks like I have 50 readers now - woohoo! - so I guess I have to give them something to read… I definitely don’t want to fall in the same pit as many new blogs do - be all excited and post regularly the first couple of months but then the blogger loses momentum (or something) and posts less and less frequently until the blog finally just fades away. No siree, not this blog - by the end of this year I want this to be a good resource for bloggers and people interested in making money online - and hopefully I’ll be blogging here for several years. On that note…
One of the points in the Get More People To Read Your Blog post was “Have a contest”. Contests are always fun and if you do it right it can really help your blog (or your normal website) get more website traffic and new readers. You can even use a contest for SEO purposes to get more links to your blog with a specific anchor text to increase your search engine rankings for those particular keywords. That’s what John Chow is doing with his Nintendo Wii contest.
John is trying to climb up the rankings for the highly competitive term make money online and it looks like it’s working for him. Just a few days after launching the contest he ranked #3 for make money online on Google.ca - and now I’m seeing him as #2 on Google.com. In just 2 weeks he managed to beat authority sites like ProBlogger, Squidoo and About.com that have been in the Top 10 for a while - Good job John!
If you reverse engineer what he’s done you can see that his contest post has received 222 comments and trackbanks/pingbacks so far. There are a lot of comments on that post but it looks like the majority is trackbacks from blogs participating in the contest and linking to John with the “make money online” anchor text. Does that mean that you need less than 200 websites linking to your site using “make money online” as anchor text to rank #2 for that key phrase? Maybe, but there are probably several blogs that didn’t ping John’s post which don’t count towards the 222 number. Also, it depends on what kind of sites are linking to you - what’s their PageRank, are they authority sites, is the topic on those websites related to make money online, etc?
Also, John did some other clever on-page SEO tricks to increase his rankings even more - Like changing the title of the front page to “Make Money Online with John Chow dot Com”, renaming the category “Making Money From A Blog” to “Make Money Online” and just stuffing the key phrase anywhere he can ;) He often uses make money online in the title of blog posts and makes sure the keyword density for “make money online” is high.
Oh, I almost forgot - he also changed the rules for his “review my blog for a linkback” scheme - now people that are reviewing his blog must link to him using… what do you think? …you guessed it, “make money online” as anchor text ;) I think he’s already received over 10 batches of reviews since he changed those rules - so that’s an additional 100+ links with that anchor text.
Another thing that I just remembered - John called this the “Root Of All Evil Nintendo Wii contest” because he initially wanted people to link to him using the anchor text root of all evil. So the initial batch of contest participants linked to John using that anchor text and not “make money online”. I guess he realized that he wouldn’t benefit a great deal by having a high ranking for “root of all evil” so he changed the rules.
Another requirement to participate in the contest is that you must link to 1234pens.com using promotional pens as anchor text. 1234pens.com is the sponsor of this contest - they gave John Chow a Nintendo Wii to give to one lucky winner. Promotional pens is also a pretty competitive key phrase but they’re now ranked #3 on Google - so this contest also worked great for the sponsor. I believe Nintendo Wii costs about $300 so that’s not an expensive way to rank high for a competitive term. Some people spend $100 a month buying links to increase their rankings temporarily - being a contest sponsor might be a smarter move. Perhaps I should try being a sponsor for a contest on a popular blog? Maybe I wouldn’t even have to buy a Wii or an Xbox - cash prizes are probably more appealing since people can just buy whatever they want. What do you think?
One thing though, I think it makes sense for the sponsor to donate something related to his website/business - I’m not sure why 1234pens.com doesn’t also throw in some promotional pens for the winner (and even 5-10 random participants).
I just have one concern with John’s aggressive campaign - Google wants websites to be “natural” - they should build links naturally (with various anchor texts) and add “natural” content (that’s written for the reader, not the search engines). Right now John is almost keyword stuffing his blog with “make money online” (I’m pretty sure Google looks at keyword stuffing as spamming) and Google might look at those hundreds of links using the same anchor text that came out of nowhere as spamming/Google bombing. So there is a possibility that Google will devalue those hundreds of links and decrease John’s rankings - but only time will tell. I think he should maybe be a little more flexible in his “review link exchange” rules and give people the option of 3-5 anchor texts to choose from when linking to him.
An interesting side note: I remember Engadget (one of the most popular blogs in the world - it’s #1 on the Technorati Top 100) launched their sister blog Engadget HD a few months ago. They had a few contests and the prizes were pretty impressive - one of the things they were giving away was a 42-inch plasma HDTV - and all you had to do was leave a comment on that post. It doesn’t get any easier than that… and it was no surprise that they got over 15,000 comments! Just think if they had required a linkback instead? They probably could have gotten Top 5 search engine rankings for any key phrase.
Have you had a contest on your blog? Was it successful? Also, what kind of contests do you like the most? I’m going to come up with a good idea for a contest - not sure if I should have a physical prize or just start with a digital prize…
Well, there you go - a fairly long and (hopefully) interesting/educational post :) Come to think of it, instead of making you wait 12 long days for a new post I probably should have just posted a filler like the bLaugh comic I did a while back - or just post a funny/interesting video. What do you think? Is filler better than nothing?
Keywords: contests, competitions, nintendo, Wii, John Chow, make money online, PageRank, ProBlogger, About.com, Squidoo, Google bombing, keyword stuffing, keywords, key phrase, filler, anchor text, case study, search engine optimization, engadget, spam, spamming, Google
11 responses so far ↓
Chee Kui // Mar 29, 2007 at 1:24 am
A filler won’t do for me :p
Nice post. Looking fwd for more posts like this :)
netcashpro // Mar 29, 2007 at 6:35 am
yes this will help me sure
Kelly Cho // Mar 30, 2007 at 1:00 am
I think the use of contests is very valuable for us bloggers. That’s why I’ll be giving away $50 cash… keep posted! ;)
Article Checker // Apr 1, 2007 at 11:22 pm
Contests are only as effective as the promoter’s ability to get the word out. Here’s some ways to get people to know about and participate in your contest:
1) Hit forums hard — DP and SP are a must
2) Join communities at yahoogroups that focus on contests and spread the word there (use the ones that cater to webmasters mostly not consumers)
3) Put your contest in your email SIG line
4) Viralize your contest — have a sub referral system
Make Money Online - Batch 50 « John Chow dot Com // Apr 2, 2007 at 1:00 am
[...] Hannes Johnson dot Com [...]
Techified // Apr 2, 2007 at 7:53 am
I think I’m going to have to look a little more into these competitions, I see them popping up everywhere, including DN Lodges latest contest which seems to do pretty well bringing in new members and keeping old members very active.
Church of Jacin // Apr 2, 2007 at 6:47 pm
Hello! I’m sure you are familiar with John Chow and Alex Shalman’s free link-back schemes. I’ve combined their ideas into one that will boost your blog ranking as well as give you a chance at winning $50. Go to my blog, churchofjacin.com, and read all about it!
You Can Also Use Contests To Win Stuff | Hannes Johnson dot Com // Apr 8, 2007 at 2:17 am
[...] Well, I didn’t win the Wii contest but that’s alright because I won another contest. To enter the contests all I had to do was comment on a post with an idea of how to make money online. I suggested creating a membership site where you add content every month and charge a monthly fee - like Affiliate Booby Traps. Collis from the web business blog North x East randomly picked me and gave me a subscription to Inc. Magazine and Fast Company for a year! That’s very cool - and probably better for my online business ;) Both magazines are very good and I’m sure I’ll learn a thing or two - it’s always fascinating to see what other people are doing to grow their business. Although a Wii could have been a wee entertaining ;) [...]
valkrieangel // Apr 10, 2007 at 7:56 am
Nice post, i’m filling in my blogs with blaugh comics from time to time to entertain my readers though…
C. Steele // Mar 21, 2008 at 1:31 am
This is great info that I have not heard of or used. Thanks for the great info. I have a great idea now, thanks to this info. Keep up the good work.
Work At Home Ideas // Apr 13, 2008 at 9:57 am
Hi Hannes,
It’s another excellent post. Having a contest is a tried and tested way to increase blog visitors. But it’s the anticipation of such high traffic that usually generates more ingenious ideas to capitalise from it like the seo anchor text domination mentioned here. John seems to be the perfect opportunist here.
Work From Home Business Blog
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