Update: This contest has been extended up to July 25. For more info, read here:

It has finally come. Today I am bringing you probably the largest contest in the history of MelvinBlog Dot Com. This contest commemorates the second year of this blog (funny how I thought its 3 years) and as I’ve planned, we’ll celebrate it with a big bang!

I have been preparing this contest since early last month and I want to make sure that my contest is going to be different. Different in the sense that first, it will add a HUGE value to the blogosphere and second, that every blogger, big or small has an equal chance of winning. I’m very proud to have had this contest finally polished.

Introducing the MelvinBlog’s Best Blog Marketing Tip Contest

This contest says it all. The contest will be about blog marketing which is part of what this blog tackles on an everyday basis. The idea of the contest came after I witnessed (and won) the same type of contest held by Market Leverage w/c is entitled Affiliate Marketing  Secrets Contest. I’d like to first and foremost thank and introduce to you guys my media partner slash sponsor for this one. It is Fergal Crawley of the Business Advice Forum who will be handling all the promotions and stuffs for this contest. By the way Business Advice Forum is a good community forum giving out free business advice both to online and offline business forums. Its a nice forum so I highly suggest for you to check it out.

And to the sponsors. I can’t believe we were able to get this much prize for the contest. Compared to last year’s contest, we basically doubled the amount of the prizes and Im really thankful for the sponsors for that. As you know me, I just don’t get every Dick and Harry as sponsors. We got reputable and popular internet marketers as well as established companies that backed us up in this contest and again I’m giving them my biggest appreciation for helping out.

Sponsors

Gold Sponsors

• QuickSprout – Quicksprout is a blog about entrepreneurship and personal branding. It’s owned by a very successful entrepreneur Neil Patel who owns various software companies and also does consulting for big companies like TechCrunch and etc.
• LogoNerds – LogoNerds is custom logo design company that offers high quality custom designs, impeccable service and unbeatable prices, LogoNerds.com has quickly become the number one choice of small businesses everywhere.
• Shoutmeloud – ShoutmeLoud is a blog tackling blogging and technology and is owned by Harsh Agrawal. It is one of the most popular blogs here in Asia and is amazingly getting good rankings on search engines. He also offers a Blogger to WordPress migration service
• Themewars –  Themewars is a premium themes club owned by the ever popular Unique Blog Designs who have made the designs for a lot of popular bloggers in the industry.
• Carl Ocab – more famously known as KidBlogger, Carl is a turning 16-year old kid who probably has made more money than you. At that young age, he was able to fund several product oriented sites like the Ultimate Blogging Theme and YoungestBloggers.
• MyBlogGuest – MyBlogGuest is a serviceable forum aimed finding guest bloggers and blogs to guest blog. It is managed by SEO specialist Ann Smarty.

Silver Sponsors

• SmartBloggerz – SmartBloggerz provides useful tips for bloggers about making money online, blogging, SEO and etc.
• DailyBlogTips – DBT is a very popular blog when it comes to blogging and it is considered as one of the market leaders in the blogging niche.
• OIO Publisher – OIOpublisher is an ad manager that focuses on maximising your revenue, saving you time, and keeping you in complete control of your ad space.
• Blogussion – Blogussion is a blog handing out blogging tips and timely discussions all about improving blogs. They are a blog about blog­ging that pro­vides out­stand­ing tips for excelling your blog in a vari­ety of top­ics.
• GabFire Themes – Gabfire Themes was founded in 2008 by Mehmet Özekinci a 29-year old independent web designer and web project consultant based in Estonia.
• Dean Hunt – The ever popular Dean Hunt is the pioneer of Buzz and Personality Marketing. He runs a very popular blog at DeanHunt.com w/c gives out the best buzz marketing strategies on the internet.

Bronze Sponsors

• WebTrafficROI – WebTrafficROI is a web marketing blog aimed at people passionate about their Web Business and Blogging.
• Jimvesting – JimVesting is a blog owned by Jim Regan. The blog gives out stock market tips, business advices, and making money online in  general.
• Blogtactic – is a blog owned by Richard about making money online targeted more to Malaysia.
• FamousBloggers – Famous Bloggers is a multi-authors blog and Social Network platform for Making Money Online Tips built on the contributions of its authors.
• Elegant Themes – Elegant Themes is an all access WordPress themes membership site that provides the best themes on the market. It also offers exceptional support through forums.
• BetterBloggingForBloggers – BBB is ran by Liane who is one of the few talented young bloggers in the industry. The blog provides blogging tips aimed both for newbie and experts.

Contest Mechanics

So this contest like I’ve said is a creative writing contest. In order to gain an entry, the blogger/contestant has to write a blog post on his blog about his best blog marketing tip. That certain blog post accounts for 1 entry. Each blogger can submit up to 5 entries all throughout the duration of the contest. There is no rule aside from that the post has to be original, must never have been copied somewhere.

Each entry has to link back to this contest post so I can track all the entries. The link bank can either be in the beginning or at the end of the post. To be uniform with everyone,  you can just copy and paste this line:

This post is an entry to MelvinBlog’s Best Blog Marketing Tip contest where there are $2000 worth of prizes at stake.

There will be 3 winners overall and they are gonna get determined by two factors: quality of posts, and popularity. In terms of quality, I have hired 4 judges who are gonna gracefully judge all the entries. I really like to disclose their names but I was told its better not to. Popularity on the other hand, is just about the no.of retweets and comments. So to increase  your entries’ popularity, you have to at least give maximum exposure to it (letting it in front for more days means better). Lastly, the criteria is 70 to 30, the higher one goes for quality while the latter is for the popularity.

The popularity factor which is 30%  hinges on few metrics which include the no.of retweets of that certain post and amount of comments. I’d like to point out that the popularity criteria is just 30% because I want to give a fair chance of winning especially to those smaller bloggers.

Just for this mechanics alone, I have created a sample entry located of course on my personal blog. (this is just a sample). You can use it as a reference.

Prizes

A little side note: Like in the previous year’s contest, I don’t want to boast just the value of the prizes based on its financial worth. I’m sure there are a lot of eBooks out there thrown for $1000 and by giving 5 copies, it would already be $5000 worth of prizes in a contest, lols. Fortunately, this is not. Like last year, I tried to gather the best prizes from the best people in this space. So just by looking on who they are you will know what I mean. 😉

1st Place – Total at stake = $877

• 6 months free for the standard package of CrazyEgg valued at $19 a month – $114 value
• 1 character design courtesy of LogoNerds – $97 value
• 1 multi-use package of Themewars premium theme –  $70 value
• WordPress SEO service courtesy of ShoutMeLoud.com – $250 value
• 1 First Class Package of Ultimate Blogging Theme 3.0 – $147 value
• 1 license of OIO Publisher – $47 value
• $20 cash from FamousBloggers.com – $20
• 6 months free Web hosting courtesy of MelvinBlog.com – $45 value
• 1 copy of Killer Domains eBook by Daniel Scocco – $17 value
• Premium Interview featured here in MelvinBlog.com – $70 value

2nd Place – Total at stake = $504

• $50 cash and one year PRO membership for MyBlogGuest – $170 value
• 1 copy of Blogussion Thesis theme package – $46 value
• 1 character design courtesy of LogoNerds – $97 value
• 1 license of OIO Publisher – $47 value
• 1 copy of Crowbar Content courtesy of Buzz Marketing guru Dean Hunt – $97
• 1 copy of Killer Domains eBook by Daniel Scocco – $17 value
• $15 cash from BlogTactic
• 1 copy of 70 Posting Ideas courtesy of Liane – $15

3rd Place – $302

• 1 copy of Gab Fire Theme – $59 value
• 1 year membership for ElegantThemes -$19
• $15 cash, one advertising space and one copy of Facebook ad coupon eBook valued at $15 courtesy of Smartbloggerz.com – $54 total value
• 1 copy of  Easy Blog Traffic worth $59, Insider SEO Revealed at $39 and Twitter Marketing Power worth $57 courtesy of WebTrafficROI.com
• 1 copy of Thirtyday blog eBook by Jimvesting – $15 value
• 1 copy of 70 Posting Ideas courtesy of Liane – $15

Retweet Contest

Due to some demands and also taking this advice from some of my blogger friends’, I would be running a totally separate contest on Twitter which is all about marketing this contest through Twitter. So in order to enter the retweet contest all you have to do is retweet this post using the tweetmeme button above or copying this text and pasting it directly to your twitter:

“RT @melvinblog, Best Blog Marketing Contest, win over $2000+ in REAL prizes http://bit.ly/bestblogcontest pls RT “

You can modify the text or do it your own way, just make sure you append the @melvinblog reply so I can easily track all the entries. This small contest would run the same as the main contest and would end after one and a half months so do keep on tweeting. At the end of the duration, 10 lucky entries will be drawn and will receive each of the following:

• 1 copy of Blogussion Thesis theme package – $46 value
• 1 copy of Gab Fire Theme – $59 value
• 1 multi-use package of Themewars premium theme –  $70 value
• 3 copy of Killer Domains eBook by Daniel Scocco – $51 value
• 1 copy of Social Media Marketing Book & Youtube Made Simple Video Series courtesy of WebTrafficROI
• 3 copy of Thirtyday blog eBook by Jimvesting – $60 value

Some Secret Contests

To add another layer of excitement (or confusion, whichever you prefer), I’d like to include some other contests that may go live along the way. Not really secret, but more of short contests within the main contests, that can make this whole thing more exciting and the best is that it gives more opportunity for the participants to win.

So lets say, you don’t have a tip. Still you can join the retweet contest and some secret contests that I am going to throw as well. So what’s the best way not to miss these other exciting hidden contests? Well make sure you’re subscribed to the blog, so you don’t miss anything out. 😉

Duration & Other Rules

The contest would run for one a half months and it will end on July 15th 12 am ET. After that date, no more entries will get accepted so make sure you start working on your entries right now. Also please give us 5-7 days max to compute all the stats and  announce the winners (patience is virtue my friend).

Questions, Clarifications, Suggestions?

No contest is perfect, most are faulty especially at the start. If you have anything to ask, clarify, suggest or criticize, feel free to do so in the comment form. Remember that good contests are good not mainly because of the prizes, but also with the participation from the audience like you. 😉

I will reserve this space for other rules which I dont have at the moment. But Im sure this comment box will get populated as soon as possible. And that would only be probable, if you start asking questions now. 😉

Note: An update and clarification on contest was published here. It also contains the official FAQ