Holding Blog Giveaways to Get More Traffic

It’s true! Holding blog giveaways is a great way to get more traffic to your blog or website. The trouble is many people don’t know how to go about it. There’s more to it than just slapping some product up that you may have on hand or got for free for writing a review. You need to know good ideas for giveaways, how to promote the giveaway and how to benefit the most from the giveaway.

Ideas for Giveaways

You may have seen other online marketers host a giveaway, but they were unsuccessful and didn’t get very many entries or gain any new traffic from their giveaway simply because the product they were giving away just wasn’t that appealing. In order to have a successful giveaway, the prize has to be appealing to a wide range of people, and more specifically to your target market. So, let’s think about what would make a great giveaway product:

·        Useful. The giveaway item should be something people can use in their everyday lives or something they can use to further their online business. It should also be something you normally wouldn’t go out and buy, or is too expensive to buy in most cases.

·        Special. The giveaway item should also be special to your target market. For example, say your target market is stay-at-home moms with children under 5. Some good giveaways for them would be a night out without kids, groceries delivered to their home, or a product that makes a certain chore easier.

The possibilities are endless, but the point is to find something that will attract new people in your target market to your site.

How to Promote the Giveaway

Once you find a good item to giveaway, the next trick is to promote the giveaway so that you get the results you desire. You don’t want just 20 or 30 people vying for your item. You want hundreds. So, how do you go about reaching all those people? Go where they are:

·        Facebook: With over 5 million users, Facebook is the number one place to connect with others who have a common interest. The best way to go about promoting your giveaway on Facebook is by word of mouth. Start with your friends and family. Send them a message asking them to do 2 things: 1. Enter the contest and 2. Tell others about the contest. When you send the message, be sure to include the rules and specific instructions, as well as a link to the contest. This will begin to stir up some excitement and get the word out

·        Twitter: Twitter is the next largest social networking utility. If you’re not on Twitter, you should be. You can reach so many more people outside of your usual circle on Twitter. The key to Twitter is building your list of followers through mutual “tweeters” and by building relationships. You never want to just tweet about your promotion or try to sell something. But, once you have a good following you can start tweeting about your giveaway. One of the rules for entry should also be to have the contestants tweet about the giveaway. In the rules, give them the specific wording along with the link to your giveaway.

·        Blog about it: Obviously you will be blogging about your giveaway, and so should the contestants. In the rules specify that in order to enter they must link back to your giveaway and put a button to your blog or giveaway on their sidebar.

·        Send out an email to your list with the rules and instructions, and of course a link to the giveaway. Ask the people on your list to send it to their list.

Promoting can be fun! You could also make a video for YouTube about your giveaway and have your YouTube audience get extra entries for making a video about it with links back to the giveaway. As you can see there are lots of ways to promote your giveaway!

Obviously the main reason for a giveaway is to get more traffic to your site. Once you have a good item to give away and begin promoting it using the suggestions above, you will soon see increased traffic. But, now what? How do you maintain that traffic and keep them coming back for more? You must continue to provide your audience what they want: useful information, products and or services they need, and a stylish, user-friendly site or blog. Don’t go cluttering up your site with links and content that your target market doesn’t want or can’t use. It will just drive them away never to return.

Another way to make the most from your giveaway is to make sure you get their email address and add it to your list. You do this by having them subscribe to your newsletter or opt-in as the main requirement for entry into the contest. If contestants have previously subscribed, then ask them to send an email to their list. You could even have one already prepared for them and give them 5 extra entries for doing this activity. You would keep track by having them submit to you the date and time it was sent, along with the number of people on their list.

Holding a giveaway on your blog is a great way to boost traffic when done properly. Using the suggestions and ideas above, you’ll soon be reaping the benefits from the giveaway.

Kelly McCausey is an internet marketer, blogger, business coach and business owner. Mom Giveaways (http://momgiveaways.com) is one of the many blogs in her network for work at home moms. Mom Giveaways is a directory where you can promote your giveaway and/or enter giveaways held by others.