One of the alternatives to make money online is lining up for a blog contest.

If you don’t know it already, there are literally hundreds of blog and website actually give big money for their contest winner

The interesting part is, that the chance to win a blog contest is pretty good, i read daily blogs article where it stated that not many people actually willing to line up and join for a blog contest.

The odds are pretty good, are you prepared to to win a contest? Here is the deep insight on blog contest.

Why People Run A Blog Contest

What is the catch of running a contest and give away something for free? The main reason people run a blog contest, is for exposure. Exposure means traffic, traffic means money. More exposure they get, more money they will get. Another reasons is to make their reader loyal, running a blog contest will surely make people stick to the blog as the blog has something to giveaway for “free”.

Contestbeat here might give you reasons why people need to run a blog contest, and you should to

There is people i know, run a contest for the celebration of their birthday. Mr. Javo here, is the man.

What Does It Take To Sign Up A Blog Contest?

What will you have to do to win a blog contest? Mainly, people would like you to do their “to-do” list, to qualify the contest. Basically there are two popular “to-do” you have to do, they are :

• Write a Review about contest host’s blog, make a review is a sure thing to get one link back to contest hoster. A link back in a blogger’s post are usually permanent and non-reciprocal. It also is cheaper and less risky rather than buying or exchanging link.
• Signup for their feeds or email feeds. Some CPM advertising company use feeds subscriber as the parameter whether the blog is good enough to run their ads. That’s why the more feed subscriber one have, the higher value he is in front of advertiser.

Lesser to-do list i found are, be the best and most commenter for a week, dropping an E-Card, adding blog to Technorati, Stumbleupon, Digg, even adding the contest host link to your blogroll (which you can revoke if you don’t like it, after the contest is over off course)

What Does It Take To Win A Blog Contest?

If you are really into this blog contest business and think it is a piece of cake to win, be prepared to get discouraged. Most of the contest host pick the contest winner based on the result of random.org. This means, you are gonna need lady luck all around you.

However, there are little tips that might can enhance your odds as well as still giving benefit even if you failed to win the contest.

Most of the contest just need you to write a short review about their blog.

Make sure you make a good one, don’t make it just a paragraph or two. Whilst a paragraph or two might sufficient to enter some contest, you got nothing to lose if you make a detail and good one.

If you make a good review for a blog contest, i am 100% sure contest host will remember your blog and will be very happy for your effort. You will never know what happy blogger could give you. A link love maybe?

Make a good review will give your blog a positive effect as well, such as traffic. People will eventually come to your blog, they will check for competitors. If you succeed in making a good review, there is another reward waiting : you are making your way to paid review.

Know JohnChow? Now it cost $400 to have him review products or blog.

While i am not an expert on this blog contest area, i will refer you to those who seems to know much on how to win a blog contest :

• Daily blog tips my favorite blog has an article on how to win a blog contest,
• Erzology, wrote 5 tips on how to win a blog contest here.

Where To Find A Blog Contest?

• Famous Blogs. These blogs usually run a contest periodically, you can always come and check your favorite blog that you know has once run a blog contest. The reason why they can run periodically is, basically because they had already allocate some money for it, if not, there are sponsors who sponsored for the prizes. Famous blog i care to check almost everyday are : Problogger.net, JohnChow.com, CopyBlogger.com,Doshdosh.com, Dailyblogtips.com
• New comer or rising star blogs. Most of these blogs i saw are mainly talking about how to make money. You can find them as a guest poster or active commenter in famous blog. Yeah, you should stick to four or five famous blog you like, eventually you will find one new comer run a contest up in their own blog.
• Websites or blogs, dedicated on providing blog contest informations. My search shows that, there actually many blogs like this in the internet, i sure their existence are not just to provide informations, but also a contestant of the contest thy inform as well. Some of these kind of blogs are :
  • contestblogger.com. I found this one come handy, the owner gave a list of contest site link according to their popularity. This site itself maybe enough to make you busy for a week working on all available contest. But still you might want to check these other site as well.
  • there are many other decent site who also made a good list of contest running, incase you are out of contest to work on : blogcontestsite.com myblogcontests.com , bloggingcontest.com.

What Can You Win From A Blog Contest

You will be surprised on prizes available for a contest winner. It is not just an internet or TV related, it might beyond you r wildest imagination. You name it :

• money -mostly tranfered via paypal-
• ebooks, training package
  
• advertising spot
• electronics such as ipod, plasma TV
• hosting package.
• premium theme for your blog.
• holiday package.
• and many more

Show me the proof, where is the links for those contess, you might ask. Actually there are many contest run currently on the web that had one of those prizes prepared for the lucky winners, it’s a problem for me to list them all up there in the list.

But i do know one contest that offer 80% of the prizes listed above in just one contest. Check it out for your self in feed flare.

How To Run A Blog Contest?

Are you tickling with the idea of blog contest? Do you want to benefit tons of traffic from blog contest?

If you are going make one, make sure you make it right and “boombastic”.
So far, i am not an expert in this one, but i surely can give you a link where you can get the right guidance.

• Daren Rowse at problogger, have wrote about this last year on his blog.
• Vijay from the Contest Radar, mentioned three aspect to keep in mind on running a blog contest ; prize, concept behind the contest, and Publicity.
• Contest blogger gave another easy to read and short but brief explanation on how to run blog contest a Radical Blog Contest
• Jerkbeef also made some point on how to run a blog contest, check it here

My Personal Experience

I never had any luck winning any contest in “real world “, I guess lady luck never find a way to reach me and struck me with prizes, lol.

But, looking at the percentage of chance to win a blog contest, i think i should start give it a try.

If you have any tips regarding how to win a blog contest or where new contest are held, i would be glad to know. Just drop me a comment here.

Thanks!

Now, don’t just admire! Try make one for your self, it not as hard as you might think, and it won’t cost you a dime. You can start as soon as possible if you already had the necessary software installed in your computer.

I’d said it is so easy, the one you see up there made not more than 15 minutes.

My friend teddY who run a well designed blog, have given detail tutorial how to make Web 2.0 Style Badge for free. He use photoshop on his tutorial. I have seen some tutorial like this before, but none gave as much detail as much teddY.

Yea, it might not as good as teddY’s creation, but hey, its my first trial, give me a break please

If you don’t have photoshop, don’t worry, you can still use free license software which also has good quality. It is Gimp, and you can easily find tutorials too. Just google it using keyword “gimp web 2.0 badge” or whatever suit you, and you will find some in no time.

Below i have compiled some for you to check :

• This one is quite famous as it is digg-ed already. You will find topics about Using Gimp to make Web 2.0 Buttons and Graphics, Creating Badges/Violators using Gimp, Creating Reflections for Logos in Gimp and Creating Shadows in Gimp.
• This video will give you clear tutorial how to do it
• This one just give a simple text tutorial, personally i’d prefer tutorial which at least has picture on it, you will know if you missing something.

Web 2.o graphics are booming at the moment, you better make sure you’re not left behind, create one for your blog today!