Had some free time today due to a pretty idiotic mistake on my part, so here’s another post. I still need guest posters though. :)

Contests.

A lot of you will have entered a contest in the past – heck, by just subscribing to this blog you’re automatically entered into any contest I hold, ever.

However, people have been asking about more ideas to help you guys make money, so here’s one. Your own contest.

When starting a blog, people don’t tend to hold a contest… they fear that it won’t get the attention it deserves, that they’ll be wasting their time, or that advertisers will not want to sponsor something on a brand new blog.

However, what people don’t realise that a contest, especially when website flipping can shoot up the value of your blog.

I like to call this (and I don’t believe the terms go together and make sense normally, or will be used anywhere outside of this post) contest arbitrage.

I do this a lot on my blog flips. Here’s an example.

I’m going to be listing the blog I developed just for you guys this week, so that you can take a look at it, see what’s done right (and see anything you think you can improve for your own site flips). Anyways, the first thing I did was hold a contest.

Nothing major – $50.00 in Paypal cash, a thousand Entrecard credits, and a load of advertising no one was going to buy (as it was a new blog).

Now, from that contest (with two minutes of promotion) I had around 100 people subscribe to the feed.

See, contests are a great way to boost feed count… and they’re even seen as ethically correct.

Tomorrow, if I started paying people $1 for signing up as a subscriber to my blog, there’d be a pretty large amount of outrage, people would accuse me of not getting ‘real’ subscribers, faking my stats etc.

However, if I gave away $50 in Paypal cash on this blog to a random subscriber just for signing up to my RSS feed, no one would beat an eyelid. :razz:

Now, contest arbitrage is where you spend money for your contest, only for it to repay itself double, treble, quadruple or even more when you sell the blog.

As a direct example, in the blog I’m developing for you guys, I spend $50 of my own money (for the contest) and had 100 subscribers sign up.

A blog with 100 subscribers is worth at least $200, and if you sell it right, a lot more than that.

Take away the amount you’d spend on a domain, hosting etc and you’re still left with a pretty spectacular ROI. This is something that ANY of you guys can do… and I see some are already doing it.

Organize a contest, promote it at all the regular webmaster forums and blogs, make it easy to enter (email subscriptions work well) and you’ll get people subscribing. After a month or two, sell your blog for a few hundred (or more).

This is probably one of the easiest ways to get started blog flipping. You can rinse and repeat this as many times as you like, however the blog will have to be webmaster related (as it is easiest to get webmasters involved in your contest).

Now – don’t worry about electronic gadgets, premium themes etc. Keep it simple – that works best.

Everyone wouldn’t mind some extra cash.

A contest offering cash that’s easy to enter and bang, you’re getting subscribers left, right and centre. Of course, make sure you disclose how you marketed your blog when selling it.

Now, here’s another type of contest arbitrage… this is a little more shady shall we say. :)

I did this recently on a video streaming site that had a prize for the person that posted the most links… anyways, here’s how it goes.

A lot of comments will have tasks that can be outsourced. For example, at the moment Shannon @ IBB is having a comments contest, giving away $100 to the top commentator… while Ryan at SW is giving away $50 to one of the top commentators. At the moment, you need to beat 17 comments on the first blog to have a chance of winning, and only need 5 comments on the second blog to break into the list.

I was going to do this myself, but I like to give you guys chances to make some money… now, you can generally buy paid posters from forums at around $0.1 per post. Make it $0.15 if you want them higher quality. :)

So, in the above example, I’d hire a paid poster, pay him / her $40 for 400 comments (300 comments on IBB and 100 comments on SW). That’s an almost guaranteed win (since I doubt anyone will make that many) on the first contest (netting you a $60 profit) and 100 entries on the second blog to win you a potential $50. You win both, that’s $150 cash your way.

This kind of thing works best in non webmaster niches, as paid posters don’t tend to enter contests because they like being paid up front.

Anyways, hope you took some ideas from this post. I may be talking a little bit more about other ways to make you guys some money, as that’s apparently what people want to see. Remember to send in your guest posts though, as I’ve gotta wake up at 7AM tomorrow :(

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