You may feel that your blog has hit its stride and is now dwindling down in terms of popularity and readership. This is a common effect, as blogs often hit a period where the buzz surrounding it dies down, even if you continue producing quality posts and carrying on with reader interactions. To put your blog back on the radar, consider hosting a giveaway and inviting all of your visitors both old and new to participate for a chance to win.

The Giveaway

A giveaway is a great way to renew interest in your blog, as most people are entranced by the idea of winning a prize. However, there are certain things to keep in mind in order to make your giveaway pay off in luring readers back to your blog. Firstly, you must consider the prize of the giveaway. The prize you choose should be relevant to your blog’s audience. This means that the prize should be something that you know your visitors would enjoy. For example, if you run a blog about technology, chances are that your readers are tech-savvy, so a prize of a new tablet device or computer accessory would be a hit with them. On the other hand, if you run a blog about crafting, a prize of a crafting tool or book would be a big hit with the crafting crowd. Picking a relevant prize will ensure that your desired audience will find the giveaway exciting and generate buzz over it.

The Rules

In addition to picking a great prize, picking rules for entry into the giveaway is another thing that you must consider. Make sure that your rules are simple, allowing for easy entry. Typically, contest entry rules should not exceed five requirements because if you have too many requirements for entry into your giveaway, your visitors may decide that it is more trouble than it is worth to enter. Something as easy as asking for an e-mail address and name will typically suffice for an entry. You could also require something else to make sure that entrants are reading the contest requirements. However, if your prize is bigger and costlier, you may be able to enforce stricter entry rules. To further capitalize on the giveaway and spread your blog’s exposure, you may reward entrants with additional contest entries if they blog or tweet about your giveaway. This way, your blog will benefit from the additional attention and the entrants will benefit from having their chances of winning increase.

The Winner

Picking a fair method of choosing a winner is another important factor. A random number generator, such as Random.org, could suit you well in choosing the winning visitor. You could also draw names out of a hat, or put up a poll to ask your readers to pick a winner if the contest was interactive. Whatever method you pick, be sure to make it fair or else some readers may feel as if they were cheated out of the prize. Disclose your method of picking a winner as well to avoid complications.

In Conclusion

The overall effect of a good giveaway will be that your blog will see an increase in blog traffic. This renewed attention could remind former visitors to visit your blog more often again, and may even attract new loyal readers and subscribers.

15 comments

  1. Sandy Moore

    Reply

    As a professional blogger it’s important to keep your blog on the radar at all times, as you have mentioned Tara.

    Losing blogging momentum is something that can happen due to many different circumstances. I was recently ill and this kept me from publishing to my blog for a couple of months and now have to pick up where I left off.

    Your suggestion of using a give away is a great idea Tara and has given me plenty of food for thought in putting my blog back on the radar.

    Sandy Moore

  2. Andrew Handley

    Reply

    I really liked this post Tara.

    A blog like this one – blogging tips, marketing techniques, traffic strategies – could make an easy prize out of a short ebook or mini-series that shows people step-by-step how to do something.

  3. Jeremy

    Reply

    I really love the idea of giving away stuff because it creates backlinks with fastest rate and let your website go viral in blogosphere. However, I found that giving away some stuff in exchange of Twitter subscribers or Facebook Like don’t work anymore because people are smarter now. They like to be challenged by something and that’s why some contest will work awesome 🙂

  4. Reply

    This is a very good advice! Thank’s for the information. I will definitely try to implement it to my sites.

  5. Rob

    Reply

    I’ve seen some people have great success getting people to tweet to get entered. Others see it and then tweet it and so on. Amazon gifts and paypal can be good prizes, also.

  6. William Tha Great

    Reply

    Hey Tara,

    You made a great point that giving prizes away and holding a contest is an awesome way to put your blog on the map. I have seen blogs that get no attention, but whenever they hold a contest worth money, then they get tons of attention. I mean who doesn’t want and extra couple bucks in their pocket.

    Thanks!

    God bless,
    William Veasley

  7. nazimwarriach

    Reply

    Hi Tara,
    Offering prizes to visitors and arranging some type of competition is a good idea. But is it allowed by AdSense?

    • Tara Miller

      Reply

      Hi there! I never had any issues with offering a prize once every so often on my blog while I was working with AdSense, but I would assume that as long as you don’t abuse the giveaways (giving away TOO much), you should be fine!

  8. Reply

    The Giveaway technique works perfectly for me. People always get attracted to free prizes and it’s natural to get drawn because the fun and excitement involved in trying to win something or receive gifts is a wonderful feeling. The gifts need not be the most expensive product but the gifts being relevant to the blog audience is very important.

    • Tara Miller

      Reply

      You’re absolutely right — the money doesn’t really matter as long as it’s something you know your readers will want.

  9. Jimmy

    Reply

    You might even be able to get a ‘sponsor’ or some other such person to give you the ‘prize’, in return for a little bit of promotion on your blog, that way you don’t have to even give anything away yourself.

    • Tara Miller

      Reply

      That’s a great tip, Jimmy! I did not even think about sponsored gifts — what a great way to promote yourself AND your sponsor!

Leave a comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *