What I Learned From The Traffic Generation Blogging Contest

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Traffic Generation Contest Ends

Shortly after the official announcement of the Traffic Generation blogging contest winners, I have to admit that I was not that surprised to see the list of all 15 winners. As you know, this is the first time that I have co-organized a contest, and I have to thank both Hesham of famousbloggers.net and Andy of ComLuv.com, for having iblogzone.com become a part of it.

Running a contest is not easy, specially when it is as “big” as the Traffic Generation we just held. However, I can tell you right now that it was worth every single effort put into it. From choosing the topic, to finding sponsors, to promoting the contest, to review and publish entries, to moderating comments, to answering questions from participants, to finding judges (good job Hesham), to collating all results, and more, the experience was truly remarkable and the way I see it quite successful. Hesham and Andy were active “machines”, that were hard to coupe with :).

Anyway, before I tell you what I learned from this contest, let me once again provide you with a recap of the winners. Congrats to all that participated for your efforts, as I continue to say that this contest was a win/win situation for everyone involved. The list…

Winners Of The traffic Generation Contest

traffic generation winners

1 – Brankica Underwood, for 50 Traffic Sources You Should Milk Like Crazy

2 – Ariff Shah, for How I Got 50k Pageviews For A Single Post In A Day

3 – Brian Belfitt, for How to Drive Consistent But Free Traffic To Your Blog

4 – Mavis Nong, for How to Beat the Changes to Organic Traffic Generation Rules

5- Faissal Haithami, for Facebook Advertising Killed Google Adwords

6- Stacy Claflin, for How to Generate Traffic Without Spending a Dime

7- James Johnston, for Use Facebook to Drive Traffic To Your Site

8- Khalid Hosein, for Zen and the Art of Web Traffic

9- Jane Sheeba, for Traffic Generation: Using The Old And Boring Hooks Correctly

10- Lisa, for How Bing, Softball And Yahoo Got Me Blog Traffic

11- Cheryl Ragsdale, for Vibrant Ways To Generate Traffic And Build Relationships

12- Jeevan Jacob, for How to Tweet Your Traffic

13- Varda Epstein, for Charming an Overlooked Readership

14- Cosmin Stefan, for How to Really Get Targeted Traffic to Your Site

15- Michele Welch, for The 3 Star Rating Traffic Generation Report

What do these winners have in common that made them stand out?

OK then. If you noticed, I said in the beginning that I was not that all surprised about the winners. This is by no means to undermine some contestants. Rather, and since I was totally involved with the process, I noticed a certain trend from certain participants, of which, hinted that, should they continue what they were doing, they will likely fill a spot on the winners list. That said, here is what they had in common.

First and foremost, top notch articles. I won’t name anyone, but there were some that made it look that very little effort was given when writing their articles. The objective of this contest was to provide, useful and innovative information on how to drive traffic to a website and not old “school” stuff.

They promoted their articles very well. Some used standard tactics, such as Tweeting, sharing, stumbling and all that, and others actually implemented what they wrote about. Did you get this one? They took action on what they suggested in their article for you to implement ;-). Examples are, clever use of ComLuv enabled blogs, reaching out to “tribes” and reciprocating actions in favor of another.

In summary:

  • They wrote useful and very informative articles abut traffic generation. Some even optimized their content for SEO purposes.
  • They promoted their articles, like crazy.
  • Ask and you shall receive. They reached out for their connections.
  • They (some, not all) did their daily dose of “promotion” and several times a day
  • They wrote post about their entries and the contest, in their own blogs, and also promoted those like crazy.
  • Some went as far as writing guest post, to gain more exposure for their articles.
  • They Interacted with every single comment received.
  • Cleverly used Comluv as a driving force for traffic to their entries.
  • and most importantly, once again, they took action, something which sadly some participants chose to neglect, despite their articles being very good. They did not commit themselves enough and so are reflected on the final results.

What benefit did the traffic generation contest bring to everyone?

  • for our sponsors – massive exposure
  • for the winners – cash of course, they deserve it
  • for all the participants – also exposure and most likely increased traffic, more connections (like Mavis Nong), backlinks and improved credibility.
  • for the organizers – a combination of all the above, lol. It was a great experience and it provided many new opportunities for us all.

Once more, congrats to all the winners and for those who participated in this event. Now it is your turn to let us know what you learned from this contest and what you think “we” as organizers can change, for future similar events, to provide better experience.

DiTesco

DiTesco is a Business and Inbound Marketing Consultant, and founder of iBlogzone.com. iBlogzone's main objective is to help startups and small business owners achieve success in their online ventures. | More About Me and my Digital Marketing Services in SP Brazil.

36 thoughts on “What I Learned From The Traffic Generation Blogging Contest”

  • What a contest! 🙂

    Thanks DiTesco for the great cooperation in the contest, finally we’ve reached the celebration day 🙂

    It was really amazing learning experience! And to me, the most benefit from this contest was to engage more with others and strength my relationship with them!

    Congratulations for all the winners!

    • I agree, quite a contest!

      My first time participating in a contest of this magnitude and I learned a lot! Some things I did right and ways I can improve for future ones.

      Anyway, awesome job DiTesco. You were a true professional in your participation with this contest. Many would think you’ve been doing it for years. Great practice for sure. 😉

      I can only imagine the amount of time, commitment and dedication it takes to pull one of these things off and it I have no doubt I can speak for everyone that it was very much appreciated!

      Congrats to all those involved and looking forward to next one. 🙂

      • Hey Michele, congratulations! It’s really nice to read your thoughts about participating in the contest.

        I am expecting an email from you to let me know about your paypal.

        Thanks for participating, and have a wonderful day.

        • Hmm…sent it through Famousbloggers.net contact form. Maybe it was never sent. Will do so again.

          Thanks again. 🙂

          • Thanks, I got it 🙂

  • DiTesco,

    I loved what you learned from the contest. It looks like every single one of them followed the strategies required to generate traffic.

    Thank you for listing exactly what they did and for supplying links to their posts. You’ve provided me with some great reading and learning.

    Connie

    • Hi Connie. Welcome to my blog. The list is almost a “bible” for traffic generation as the entries covers almost every aspect to generate “free” traffic to a website. I am sure that you will find a lot of useful techniques that you can easily implement. thanks for stopping by

  • that is really cool. Hopefully I can participate in the next one.

      • Thanks for the info. I really need to get more involved with the community.

        • Yes Brian, I agree. Being more involved with the community is a wise move. If I may make a suggestion, you should start by getting yourself a gravatar 🙂 Its much better to see the face of whom we are interacting with 😉

  • Hey DiTesco,

    Actually more than winning and the money, I learned loads of stuff from participating in the contest and this is the first contest I am participating ever. Lovely connections, traffic, exposure, oh and I just can’t think how I went crazily promoting the post.

    All in all great lessons learned. I wouldn’t have regretted even if I didn’t make it in the 15, the lessons are more than worth anything.

    I am awaiting the ebook now 😉

    Congratulations to all winners and participants who didn’t make it in the 15, everyone deserves a raise. And the sponsors, organizers and the judges are rock stars 🙂

    Cheers,
    Jane.

    • Hi Jane. So it seems that both you and I have something in common 🙂 It is your first time to participate in a contest and my first in organizing, lol. Anyway, for first time participant you got me fooled as your entry was great and you promoted your articles very well. As for the eBook it should be out sometime at the end of the month. Hesham is organizing that one.

  • Congratulations to all of them who participated and much more to them who converted their effort to enter the top 15! A big Kudos to big machines to make it all successful. Now, its my time to look at those posts once again and look closely.

    Thank you Francisco for the round up.

    • Hi Suresh. Thanks for your kind words. It really has been a great experience and the “exposure” was great. I managed to create new connections and opportunities did come too 🙂 Thanks for your comment and all the best

      • I’m gone some of those posts and a few more yet to. Because I was busy setting up bivori.com, I could not take the taste in due time, but thanks to you for compiling all of them in this post. Its been a good reference point to browser through those posts.

        Brankica and Shah has some great to share. I found them really unique. They deserve the positions.

  • Hey Francisco, that’s a cute one at the beginning of the post, you have some fine friends I see, lol.

    Thanks for the mention and this great recap.

    I agree with Jane that it was way more than just money and I created some great new connections while promoting my post.

    I want to say that you are completely right about the main thing – most of us did what we wrote about. I forgot to ask Hesham, but I would love to know that amount of traffic my post received because I really did my best to promote it. Considering that I did not have as many connections as I would have liked, I am satisfied with what I did.

    As an interesting observation, I checked backlinks to my post in Yahoo the day the voting was closed, and it reported 699!!! That is how many links are going towards my post and most of them I built myself.

    I was teasing Hesham I will charge him for it, but I got paid after the contest obviously, lol.

    I have to say that this was a monster contest, so big and the contestants were mean blogging machines in the best sense possible. If I had known what I was getting myself into, I would think twice before doing it, lol.

    I want to thank you all for organizing this, it was really a great experience and I hope you will all get some deserved rest because I bet you worked your butts off 🙂

    • The only thing I regret in this contest is that I was not lucky enough to host your post during the event, it would have been kawabanga, haha. Just kidding.

      You did a fantastic job Brankica and the results speaks for itself. The money is just an extra incentive 🙂 Keep it up..

  • Hi diTesco

    What a great contest and I learnt heaps from reading the competitors’ posts. Brankica was a worthy winner and kudos to all those who entered and gave of their best.

    Visit many of the blogs that are in the top 15 here and I’m sure they will continue to provide really great information on their sites.

    Patricia Perth Australia

    • Hi Patricia. The good thing about this contest is that everyone who participated in it, was able to obtain added exposure. Now it is up to them to coupe up with the new responsibility of providing “fantastic” content on their websites, just they did during this event, lol.

      All the best and I hope to see you as a participant (perhaps) in the near future.

  • Very well put Di, it would seem almost ridiculous to write up an article on traffic generation and not use the same methods to promote said article.

    I for one am really looking forward to the ebook being made of all the articles. 🙂

    • You are absolutely right Dennis. The whole contest was to provide information on how to generate more traffic. It would have been pointless if the participants wrote about something that they themselves do not do, haha.. As I told Jane, hopefully the ebook should be ready by the end of the month. thanks for stopping by buddy and all the best

  • Hi DiTesco,

    Congratulations and many thanks to you, Hesham and Andy for doing such an amazing job!

    This was a huge contest indeed and I’m glad I took part in it. I was quite shocked that I didn’t make the top 3 but hey, I got a lot out of this more than winning the top prize.

    I learned a ton from fellow participants, got amazing exposure and traffic back to my blog and made great connections too :).

    Congratulations to everyone who entered the contest and put a lot of work into it. Many thanks to the sponsors too, for their remarkable generosity.

    I can’t wait for the ebook now 🙂

    Thanks very much for a nice recap and kind mention, DiTesco. You ROCK!

    Mavis

    • Hi Mavis. I am glad that the contest is over… one more day and I would banged my head against the wall for having to moderate so much comments you received, LOL

      In my books, you just like everybody else have won, in that we all learned something more, got added exposure and met new people to connect with. It was a pleasure to host your article in my blog. I really had lots of fun. Keep it up and good luck to your new found connections..

  • DiTesco, contests like these are learning experiences for everyone involved, and thanks for letting us know some of your lessons. I learned that it is much easier on the eyes to be a sponsor than to be a judge. 🙂 I’ll be judging Kiesha’s WeBlogBetter contest (I can never say no to her for some reason LOL) but I think sponsorship is a good fit for me.
    Congratulations to you, Hesham, Andy and Ann for organizing a great competition! Thank you!!

    • Hi Ileane, I agree with you. Such type of events are really amazing. I for one was actually nervous before it all started as I was a newbie for this kind of thing. After it took off, I realized that it was going to be a big hit and started to cool down 🙂 Thanks for your sponsorship and support that you have always given us… it really means a lot

      For the record, you are right about being a sponsor, hehe.. it is a lot easier than being a judge. It is very hard and I know you do because of your previous experience with Hesham and Andy. I too am a sponsor on Kiesha’s contest, and I hear you on not being able to say NO to her… I have the same decease, lol

      All the best. Focusing my eyes on Kiesha’s contest now to her her attain maximum exposure.

  • This is very educational. The methods mentioned above that the contestants did to win are practically strategic key points in increasing traffic on your site. Kudos to all the winners.

    • You are welcome Jonathan. Thanks for stopping by.

  • DiTesco,

    I am glad to hear that you have great learning experience and sharing your knowledge with us. Your blog is very informative from which I have learned a lot. I am feeling sorry for you that you haven’t won but winning doesn’t make your knowledge down, you are very knowledgeable person and keep writing such informative posts.

    • Hi James. Actually I was one of the organizers of this contest and just by being one was already a huge win situation for me. All of the participants also won in my opinion as they were able to meet new people, increase their exposure and for some even going out of their comfort zones. Thanks for your thoughts and I hope to see more form you here in the future.

  • Brilliant contest Ditesco and the beauty about it is that you have the brians behind a combination of you and Hesham anything is possible A brilliant job Ditesco and i know that all participant work their buts of to promote their entries. That is simple the power of networking.
    on a personal note. Glad you love the spin i put on the thesis them

    • Hi Gary. Yeah, working with both Hesham and Andy has been proven very challenging and was a great and rewarding experience. If they ever asks me to “partner” with them again on any other venture, maybe the only question that will immediately pop out from me is when, lol.

      As you said, the is simply a good example of the power of networking and proof that it pays off. Thanks for your visit and all the best.

      BTW, the spin you gave on your site looks really great. Keep up the good work

  • DiTesco,

    Very well done! and a great list of winners, I have been going down this list and reading few posts for the first time and reviewing some that I have read.

    The fact that they put into action what they taught in each article really is key to making it happen. It is their ability to make things go right that really impressed me.

    Thanks you guys, this is an invaluable resource.

    • Hi Sheila. I agree, all of them did what they dad to do to make things happen and right. I am sure that this was a great experience for many and hopefully will carry along what they have accomplished. Really a great resource for traffic and no point of looking anywhere else, lol. thanks for stopping and all the best

  • This was really a great contest and the only regret I have was not being able to participate. Maybe next time. Will read the entries. Thanks!

  • For a contest. Promoting like crazy is a must! These days contest organizer always put social network sharing as a requirement. More sharing more points. Yes useful and good article will give a credit but promotion is number one if you really wants to win a contest. Thanks for the contest DiTesco.

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