The utmost desire of a blogger in the blogosphere is to have a constant traffic to your blog. This not only results in more popularity but earning rich moolah as well. The appreciation of readers and their increasing count is the ultimate satisfaction for a blogger in return for his hardwork and sincere efforts. There have been various strategies implemented by many bloggers to get the required readers a blogger aims at. One of these methods which has been very successful and has been implemented by bloggers in the past is the holding of a contest on your blog. The traffic gets directed by search engines and also through word of mouth because every human wants to earn a prize or say a reward for that matter. Thus, ‘holding a contest strategy’ is actually a win-win situation for both the blogger and the readers.

There have been various instances of contests such as The Copywriting contest on Copyblogger and Authority Blogger Contests at Chris Garret’s blog which had resulted in an enormous amount of traffic and fame. These contests had lucrative prizes which resulted in a buzz being spread around the blogosphere.

Some other blogs which have successfully staged contests are Darren Rowse’s Problogger and Daniel Scocco’s Daily Blog Tips. Needless to mention, the intention and the results were pretty same.

If you have a considerable amount of traffic and a decent social network of friends, it’s time now to hold a contest. Christmas and New Year are coming up. I think this is one of the best times to kick off a contest! If you’re planning to host a contest at your blog, remember the following points;

1. Keep it simple – The best way to promote the contest is to keep it simple and attractive. No one likes complicated things. A simple ‘comment on the contest post’ is the easiest way to get traffic and promotion. Also, it is very important to have a humor element attached to the contest. Isn’t participating in a contest supposed to be fun? Yes, it is.
2. Give away a prize – A prize is a prize, whatever it may be. To get more attention, it is advisable to have a prize which is distinct and would be great to give away. Apart from cash, laptops, digital entertainment devices etc. make a good prize. An attractive prize also gets people motivated to participate and thus helping your cause more.
3. Deadline date always works – There has to be a deadline which should be dependent on the traffic your blog generates. A longer deadline will make the reader develop a ‘will do it later’ attitude. I also depends on the traffic because a blog which runs a contest with less traffic should run it for longer time than a blog with a good amount of traffic in which the cones should be run for a smaller time.
4. Promote it – This is where many bloggers fail. Effective promotions can take place with the help of social networking sites by adding the post to them. This will help in spreading the word faster and into interested people. Also, add relevant keywords to the contest helping it to get listed on the search engines.
5. Contest publicity – PayPerPost, bloggerforum, Wahm Forum etc. are places where in one can publicize the contest. The information related to the contest can also be filled up at various sites which are picked up and publicized by other website owners.

You can turn a contest into a traffic builder for you. Something which most plugins might just not do even if they come bundled with free promises!