Every summer it’s noticeable that contests spring up like mushroom as you can almost find them anywhere. In fact, here in this blog there is a current contest running that started this June. That being said, we can conclude that summer is contests season.
Anyways, the days where the contest is all about subscribing to feed, blogging about it, digging, stumbling it are probably gone. What you’d notice today is that a lot of bloggers have become more creative in creating their own contests. What’s in today is guest blogging contests which at the same I’d like to talk about.
The latest is the one that Smartbloggerz is currently running while the other same type of contest can be found here and there. That being said, guest blogging contests is something that will happen more in the future as its becoming the newest trend for contests.
Guest blogging has really exploded for the past 2 years now as evident with the whole scene. In fact some bloggers like Carl Ocab and even Problogger have already let the guest posters post majority of their content. Back to the contests, I can say I’m not really a big fan of those although I participate a lot into it. For me it’s kind of like ruining the whole guest posting strategy and here are my thoughts.
The Goal Becomes Different
People would argue about it since in order to win these contests you have to write good content right? The problem with this is that your focus shifts from reaping the benefits of a guest post featured to winning the contest all out. I mean normally with guest posts what I usually do is make sure the readers of that post will be catered as much as possible to my blog, get replies for their comments and me tracking numbers, optimizing whats working out and what’s not.
With contests, it becomes really different. Instead of doing things I listed above, I would then focus more on writing more and more guest posts for that contest, observe where am I currently standing, do I have a good chance of winning or not and things like that. Nothing really bad about but its like the true essence of doing guest posts diminishes.
Readers’ interaction Differs Considerably
Another thing I don’t like with it is that its really hard to reap the same benefits from it as oppose to writing a guest article for the sole purpose of making a guest post. I was tracking my stats (again my fave hobby, lols) and what I found out is that not a lot of people really read the article and go to your blog. For instance I wrote a guest post before and it gave me like 35% bounce rate to my site which is an exceptional rate. After quite some time I did another guest post with the same blog but this time just got a 69% rate. Of course things could vary depending on other factors but I’m sure the “contest” factor is one of the bigger factors.
When guest blogging becomes a contest, most of the consumers of the post becomes the contestant and oftentimes they are just lurking there to see and track how other contestants are doing.
Lesser Traffic
This is the obvious disadvantage of this. We, as guest posters will receive lesser traffic and obviously lesser bang for our efforts when we guest post more for the contest than for the intrinsic purpose of it. I mean if you see an awesome guest posts and then you saw a note saying “this is an entry to blah blah, join now and get a chance to win $XXXX”. I mean what would you do? Naturally we will participate. There’s really nothing to blame. You can’t blame the owner who hold the contest nor you can blame the sponsors that made that pot got that high. There’s no one to blame because its human nature, you see a contest related to you, odds are high that you’ll join it.
Overall, if guest blogging contests keep on growing more and more, it will definitely have a big impact on how traditional guest blogging works. With things I mentioned, it can be hard to really see the essence of doing guest posts aside from targeting those contest prizes.
But then I don’t have any problem with that (or just a small problem), in fact I’m even one of those who are competing to dominate win it. But still at the end of the day, you’re still gonna wonder where all of these things head into. What say you?
There is no doubt that Contests will create a high level of content, and to win you actually shouldn’t target winning as your main goal, just write a normal post and add the most quality you can to it! I have seen those who put winning as a goal falling!
Also getting traffic from a guest post depends on lots of factors, the main factor is the quality of your post, time/date of publishing… etc!
By the way, linking to a post using the “here” & “there” text without any anchors is…. mmmm.. what to say? 🙂
I completely agree with Hesham,
If you go into a guest posting contest with only the goal of winning, then there”ll be a lot of content but it might suck haha
CJ
i do not agree with you melvin….infact if i am guest posting somewhere and with the primary motive of spreading brand and bringing traffic and the secondary motive gets me an opportunity to win some cash or prizes, its the best deal i can get…i think you believe in two kills from one bullet…its the same thing
I suppose guest blogging contest encourage people who are usually on the verge of doing it but doubt it’s usefullness. Other than that the traffic will depend on the subscribers and the traffic the organizer gets.
I am trying my best to get as much traffic I can get for my guest bloggers
Well personally speaking, In my guest blogging contest, “writing more and more guest posts” for the contest is seriously not required.
Even with one GOOD guest post and having a great network of friends can help you in winning a guest blogging contest..At my blog, see akira007 or maybe akira07, (not remembering right now), he has just published one guest post, but he didn’t tried to post more, rather he is getting his friends on that post to comment.. And 1 comment = 1 damn point which is a smart technique. And I think he has the possibility in winning any prize.
PS. you can cut the word running in “Smartbloggerz is currently running” since the contest has stopped now..just need to wait for results 😀
I agree but then most guest bloggers who join contest actually do it that way. I think it’s crucial for us bloggers to actually have a conversion goal on each guest post just so to do it the right way.
For instance, I myself usually track my guest posts and have a strategy behind it so even If I’m doing it inadvertently for the contest, Im still not getting away from my game plan.
Lols, for now i like to use that anchor text, sorry. =p
I welcome your opinion. But with that the question becomes what is really the higher priority? I’m sure most contestants focus too much on winning because of the prizes and because of that, they forget to do simple things like “replying back” or setting up something on their blog to welcome that new visitor.
That’s one positive impact of it perhaps, incentivizing. But still does that mean, if there’s no contest, then no guest post?
I’m glad to hear that you are trying to get as much traffic for your guest bloggers.
Thats a good insight Typhoon. I think Akira was one of your winners in your other contest before right?
Anyways, good luck to us I guess.
Btw, thats the problem when you set your post in the draft first, publish it, without proofreading it. lols.
Great information and a very touchy topic! Will be back for more!
It’s not that, I get guest articles even though i don’t have the contest. It’s the number that increases with the contest
What I’m not liking about the guest posting in a few contests is how tacky the subject matter is. Getting everybody together to spam google about how wonderful some product is a great way to have low PR for the rest of a number of blogs’ lives, and keep talking to the same audience, the blogging-about-blogging group.
I’d like to see a contest where people were encouraged to be writers, not bloggers, and get a bunch more people who are online as readers and eager to see the other entrants.
I completely agree with you “if guest blogging contests keep on growing more and more” it will change the face of the traditional guest blogging as time goes on.