1. Start Early – Before we started this contest we tried to contact blog owners by email offering them a discounted service if they would publish a short post announcing our contest. About a week later when the contest was about to begin we had only heard back from one of the blog owners that we had contacted. We continued on with our contest announcing through other means we had previously decided on. The period of time we ran the contest was two weeks. By about a week and a half in we received a few more emails from the blog owners but by that time it was almost to late. We realized that some blog owners may not check their emails very frequently or that some were just busy and had more important things to do. If you are looking to run a contest I would suggest emailing those you wish to announce through early.

2. Do Your Research Before The Contest Starts - Another thing that we did before the contest started was research to find different forums that we could announce the contest on. We made a large list and then started registering to these forums so that we could post the topic of our contest. We discovered that with a lot of these forums you have to have to be a member for a certain period of time before they would allow you to post a new topic. So of the large list we compiled only a handful of them would allow us to post.

3. Make It Easy To Enter - When running a contest there are a few things that need to be done to have a successful contest. One thing that is very important is to make it easy to enter. If you have started early and had great success announcing your contest but the ways to enter are complicated or confusing chances are people are not going to waste their time on it. Even if the prize is something very appealing to the reader, they aren’t going to put in much time into figuring out what they need to do.  Also, depending on who your target audience is, you will want to gear your entry methods toward them and their general abilities and knowledge.

4. A Contest Run On A Blog Is Much Easier Than One Ran On A Website - The client, at this point in time, did not have blog associated with their business. We decided that we would run this contest by creating a new page on their website containing the information about the contest (prizes, rules, ways to enter, etc). The reason we found it easier to run a contest on a blog is because it is much easier to get readers to interact with a blog and enter a contest. Posting a comment on the blog was a huge success in our other contests. Also people who generally read and are associated with the blogging world are typically (not always) more familiar with the link building methods used to gain entries. To sum up our reasons for thinking it easier to run the contest on a blog, it is easier to put up the contest content and it is easier for the readers to interact and enter.

5.  Leverage The Losers - As we know, anytime there is competition there is a winner and a loser. In the case of a contest, often times there are many losers. These losers can be a great audience to target. For one, these losers have enough of an interest in the product or service that was being given away to have taken time out of their day to enter. One of the ways you could target this audience is by offering a small discount as thanks for participating.  This will not only help give you a good reputation but gives those that entered reason and incentive to come to you for your product or service. Also many times you will have their E-Mail addresses, You could occasionally send them a special offer or a product update to keep your company fresh on their mind for when they decide the time is right.

There is no instruction book that tells you exactly how to set up a contest, and there probably never will be. Every contest will be different because each contest is geared toward a variety of people. However, there are certain things that are general to every contest, and as you (and I) continue to run contests we will learn many things that will be beneficial to running a contest.

Now that you know this, it is time to really dig in and understand blog commenting and how to use it effectively.  If you follow these steps that are layed out for you, you will start to see traffic and a boost in your organic search rankings.

1. Finding Related Blogs

This is important and not important at the same time.  There is a phrase in the SEO world that says, "a link is a link".  However, if you are commenting on blogs that are related to your niche or industry, you are much more likely to receive qualified buyers coming to your website to buy your products or services.  You can also comment on just about any blog and receive traffic, but they are not pre-qualified buyers.  Having a nice mix of both related and non-related blogs to comment on is a good idea.  You can find industry related blogs by doing a search on Technorati.

2. Using The Proper "Name" When Filling Out The Name Field

This will make or break your blog commenting efforts.  Using the proper name will not only help you with SEO link value, but it will help readers of that particular blog know what your website is about.  You will want to use your keywords that you are trying to rank for when selecting your name.  In addition to that, you will want to select the appropriate page of your website that is related to your keyword to use as your URL>  For example, if my website was about Blackberry Cell Phones, I would do the following…

• Name: Blackberry Cell Phones / URL: www.blackberry.com
• Name: Blackberry Bold / URL: http://www.blackberry.com/blackberrybold
• Name: Blackberry Storm / URL: http://www.blackberry.com/blackberrystorm

3. Don’t Spam Comment

This should be common sense, but for most people it is not.  They just want to rip out blog comments like nobodies business.  This is not how to blog comment!  You need to take time to read the post that you are going to comment on and then in the most professional manner, make an educated comment that adds value to the post and adds value to any readers to read your comment.  If you get lazy, even once, your comment could be marked as spam, reported to Askimet, and your comments will never see the light of day on any blog currently using the Askimet plugin.

Remember, you are a guest on other people’s blogs.  Don’t do anything that would make them mad or that would make them not like you.  You want to become friends with them, add value to their blog, and respectifully take their faithful readers and turn them into your customers.

Contacting bloggers is a powerful tactic, it can be a win-win situation for both parties. Many bloggers are looking for new good and intriguing content.  A good strategy is to approach them with and ask if they would be willing to trade. You write some good content for them using the skills you know if they would let you post a link or two in that post. The blogger is getting new and good content and you are getting some high quality links.

There are definitely things you shouldn’t do when contacting bloggers and by studying those we can better learn what we are suppose to do.

Never Send a Mass Email:

Mass emailing may save you time in the initial work it takes to send out emails but your response rate will be so low it won’t be worth your time in the end. Remember bloggers are really people with time constraints, goals, dreams and are putting some hard work into their blog. They will be able to tell that you really haven’t spent much time on their blog and that your offer was sent to hundreds of people. They won’t feel a desire to respond.

A better way to contact a blogger is to spend some time on their site, read their posts, and get to know their style. Then tailor your message to them as an individual person. Acknowledge their work and what you liked about it; also refer to something specific that they have done on their blog.

Never Just ask for a Link:

Blogging is a business just like your ecommerce business or corner grocey store or the consulting company you own. You wouldn’t just let someone advertise on the side of your business, or in your newsletter, or on your employee’s shirts for free. A blogger isn’t going to include your link on their site just because you asked. They have to feel at least these 3 things first

1. There has to be obvious value for their readers
2. They have to feel that there is a personal benefit for them (whether that is a comission on sales, broadening their resources for their readers, or even an exchange of resources. For instance if you want a link on their site offer to put one on your site.)
3. They have to feel recognized. Bloggers work hard at what they do and they want to be appreciated for those efforts.

Never Start a Conversation with How Good your Company is:

Nobody likes to hear how good you are until they know you like what they do. If you start your letter out with statements all about you and how you are amazing a lot of people will just skip over the email and move on to something else. Acknowledge their strengths and what about their work attracted you to their blog. Then proceed to explain to them how a partnership would be beneficial.

How to Find Blogs in Your Industry:

Go to one of the following blog search engines and type in some industry specific phrases.  You should be able to find quite a few that write about your industry.  Don’t forget to search for blogs in related industries as well.

1. technorati.com
2. blogsearch.google.com

Wrapping Up:

Contacting bloggers takes a lot of one on one effort but it is worth your time because of the link value it will give you. Who knows, a blogger may even be willing to post about you, your business, or review a product you offer allowing you to be introduced to all of their readers.

Any questions?

In my opinion, blogs serve three purposes.

1- To voice your opinions and ideas about the current industry that you are blogging about. In our case it is about SEO and internet marketing principles and strategies that we have developed, tested, and proven to work.

2- To increase the amount of traffic coming to your website. You see, the search engines love blogs! I would say probably even more so than normal HTML websites. Blogs, whether they are run by Word Press, Blogger, or any other blogging software make it easy for people like you and me to add new and fresh content to our sites without having to hard code anything. I’ll tell you what, Google loves websites or blogs that have new content and they come back to your site frequently to see what’s new. Because blogs are so easy to post to, you can save time and add new content all of the time.

As the search engines see new content and new internal links they will begin to rank your posts in their results. Blogs can generally get ranked pretty high with relatively little work in niche markets and with long tail keywords that you might not be focused on targeting at the moment. If you are using Word Press as your blogging software, you can use plug-ins like the Related Posts plug-in to supercharge your internal linking structure and get ranked even faster and get even more traffic.

3- For SEO value. It is no secret to anyone marketing on the internet that incoming links fuel search engine optimization and make or break your organic search rankings. It is vital that when adding new content, like blog posts, to link to other blog posts within your blog or related pages on your website. Yeah, it’s great to have a sweet internal linking structure down in your footer or side bar, but it has been proven that links within the body of your text have more value than those in other areas of your website.

Links are not the only reason why blogging helps your SEO efforts. It has also been proven that sites with over 100 pages do better in the search engines. It all goes back to the idea that you need to add new content to your website or blog regularly. The experts in the SEO industry suggest that you are adding content to your website every single day. This is why blogging is so great for your SEO efforts.

If you don’t have a company or site blog, you need to get one. Word Press blogging software is free and relatively easy to set up on your domain. If you don’t have the ability to set up a blog attached to your website, get a free blogger account. Anything is better than nothing! Take action today and work hard to add content every day! It will pay off.

1. Setting up a WordPress Blog
   1. Hosting (BlueHost: Fantastico, Simple Scripts)
   2. WordPress Installation & Setup
      1. Installation
      2. Settings
         1. www
         2. permalink structure /%postname%.html
      3. Plugin Essentials
         1. What are plugins & how can they help me?
            1. Explanation
         2. Uploading your first plugin
            1. Plugin Central – List of Plugins to paste
         3. Setting a Stable base
            1. Publishing
               1. Google Sitemap Plugin
               2. Twitter Tools
            2. SEO Your Site
               1. All-in-One SEO Pack
               2. SEO Friendly Images
               3. SEO Smart Links
               4. Simple Tags
            3. Networking
               1. Social Links
               2. Tell-A-Friend
            4. Usability Features
               1. Featurific
               2. Awesom Dropdown
               3. Favorite Posts
            5. Creating Stick
               1. What Would Seth Godin Do?
               2. Comment Relish – emails a thank you to first time
               3. Subscribe to Comments
               4. Comment Thank You Page
         4. Others
            1. Askimet
               1. Registering for WordPress.com & API
            2. Ohz Dropdown Menu
            3. One Click Plugin
         5. Find more plugins
            1. WordPress.org Plugin Directory
            2. Google Search
      4. Installing Your Template FREE ONES
         1. Finding a Template
            1. WordPress.org Themes
            2. Google Search
         2. Installing & Activating
2. Building Community
   1. Read
      1. Search for your topic of interest
      2. Skim or read 5 a day
      3. Setup Google Reader or iGoogle
   2. Bookmark
      1. Onlywire
      2. Shareaholic Firefox Add-on
      3. AddThis
         1. Digg
         2. StumbleUpon
         3. Twitter
         4. Facebook
   3. Commenton on Blog Posts (links)
   4. Tweet
      1. 3 times a day is solid
         1. 1 blog post (Twitter Post)
         2. 2 links to good resources (in your reading)
         3. 3 Thoughtful replies (TweetDeck – Twitter Search)
   5. (Make New Friends & Connect)
      1. Twitter Search – Tweet Deck
      2. Facebook Groups
      3. Youtube Channels
3. Content, Content, Content
   1. Principles
      1. QUALITY 1.
      2. Engage Your Reader
         1. Ask questions
         2. Respond to User Comments Quickly
      3. Think SEO, at least partially
         1. Categories/Tags
         2. SEO
   2. Push Content
      1. Facebook Notes/Page
      2. Twitter – Twitter Tools
      3. LinkedIn