So, you have already planned an online business, built a
web site, and now you are waiting for the traffic.

Don’t wait, as it may not come as fast as you would like.
You need to take action now. All you need is an activity
that will get people to come back and visit your site.

For sure, a lot of your customers may be looking for the
type of product or service that you offer. So, how will you
attract those buyers who are not yet familiar with your
site and those who you want to have come back again?

How will you gain visitors and drive traffic to your site?

One answer is to run a contest. And not just an old
contest. It must be crafted to keep them coming back to
your site. Lots of clever people will say that running a
contest will help, but they won’t give you tips on how to
do it.

Benefits of holding a contest

One of the biggest benefits of running a contest is
traffic. A contest can help you increase traffic to your
site. Studies show that a contest, if held during a full
month, can gain 500-5000 visitors and more. So, imagine
that opportunity!

Your potential consumers may even tell their friends about
your site and it’s also a chance to boost your sales.

Some affiliate programs online may also be curious of the
number of visitors and page views you have. And one way to
increase this is to run a contest.

Contests also help if you plan to sell ad space on your
site.

Generally, if you write a monthly or weekly newsletter,
running a contest and asking those who enter if they want
to subscribe to your newsletter will usually result in
about 1/3 of them signing up.

And lastly, those who have a business but don’t have a
website can also benefit from a contest. The types and
rules might be different, but running a contest would get
you noticed and get people to come to your site again and
again.

Steps to consider in holding a contest

Step 1: Determine your goal

The first thing you should do is to decide what goal you
want to achieve. Choose whether your main objective is just
to get people to visit your site, drive traffic to your
site, get subscribers, or make a sale. Have you goal set
and keep that in mind.

Step 2: The theme of the contest

Next is to decide what theme to have. The theme must be
dependent on the type of business you have and the holiday
seasons. All themes are good, but focus on something that
will benefit visitors of all ages. Think about the types of
people you want to attract to your business.

Step 3: Find sponsors

Now with a goal and a theme, you need to find sponsors.
This is said to be the hardest part of starting and running
a contest. The target sponsors are sometimes business
owners. They are the ones who willingly donate the prizes.

If you belong to a business group, you can ask them if they
would be interested in donating a prize to your contest in
exchange for something valuable – like exposures on ads.

You must give your sponsors credit for the donation so they
too can benefit from the visitors. You can also run a
contest and just purchase the item yourself to give away,
or use your own products.

Step 4: The kind of contest

You should also be thinking of what kind of contest you
want to run. Be creative in choosing one. Make sure that
your visitors will participate and enjoy the contest.

Do you want it to be a puzzle, or a sort of scavenger hunt?

Maybe you want them to fill out a survey and in return,
their names will be raffled for a prize.

You can also run the contest and ask for feedback about
your site or ask them to create a poem or an ad related to
the theme. This all depends on what your goals are.

Step 5: Set up the contest on your website

Now is the time to set up the contest on your site. You or
your web designer needs to make a page, design a logo if
necessary, and set up the page to suit your needs and
tastes. Again, be creative in choosing the proper layout.
You have to include the list of sponsors, prizes, and the
set of rules.

Step 6: Promoting your contest

You need to promote the contest so people know you’re
there and are offering free prizes! Think of the many ways in
which you can list your contest on the different sites.

There are many sites on the Internet that will list your
contest on their contest site in exchange for placing their
banner/link on your contest page. Most are free, but
require a link back to their site.

If you do not know how to do this or do not have the time,
then hire a company to do it for you.

Step 7: Picking a winner

One easy way to pick a winner is through random selection.
You can just pick an email. Ask a representative to do
the selection.

Or, Prize Draw Generator will automatically perform the task.
Show people that you run honest contests. You can try this
affordable software for free.

Now, the contest is over. You can evaluate how far it
helped in generating traffic to your site. If the contest
went well, think of something that you can run in the
succeeding months.

Gilles Rais

Categories: Articles