Just a few minutes web surfing will introduce you to all types of contests and giveaways on websites, company and product blogs, sign-up pages for newsletters, ezines, online resource sites, and individual retailers' and marketers' websites.

Why? Because everyone loves FREE, and almost no one can resist a contest – so they can potentially draw hundreds, maybe even thousands, of visitors to your website.

Here are some guidelines to using contests and giveaways to drive traffic to your site(s):

1 – Entry rules can include tweeting about your contest, sharing the giveaway on Facebook,and writing blog posts about the contest.

2 – Free samples will get buzz going for new and established products. Use the same entry requirements as above. And while they're on the request page, ask people to subscribe to your blog feed, join your network on Facebook, and follow you on Twitter.

3 – Make your giveaway go viral. Promote it on YouTube, Digg, Stumble Upon, and other similar sites. Promote it on giveaway websites such as giveawayhub.com or giveawayroundup.com. Promote it in comments on blogs related to your industry, product or the giveaway itself.

4 – Offer prizes that are popular and worthwhile. Prizes don't need to be expensive, but unique, highly desired or currently “hot” – i.e., an iPad, Kindle e-reader, even dinner with a celebrity (if you know one who'll agree to work with you!)

5 – Create a web page just for your giveaways so readers can readily find them. Include a list of past winners (get permission before posting their names).

6 – Promoting successful giveaways and contests may offer you options to do more of them. Sponsors will see your success and want you to host their next contest, thereby sending more traffic to your site. Get more mileage by asking the sponsor to write about working with you, via either a recommendation that you post on your blog or website, or a LinkedIn recommendation.

The Benefits of Contests

The benefits of running a contest or giveaway on your blog will vary depending on the type and goal of your contest.

The benefits of running a contest or giveaway on will vary depending on the type and goal of your contest.

The most important idea you need to consider before undertaking a contest is to determine the objectives of your contest before you even begin to design it.

What do you want to get out of it? The answer will shape everything from the prize(s) you offer to the rules.

Generally speaking, there are two different types of contests to consider:

1. Internal – focus on the customers you already have and include them in the contest keeping your brand in front of them.
2. External – focus on attracting new clients.

What are the Goals of Your Contest or Giveaway?

1. Finding New Customers – the idea behind a contest is that the lure of prizes will draw new site visitors in, and that those new visitors will become clients. This objective is, however, harder than it appears on the surface: simply announcing that you’re going to give away a great prize isn’t enough to draw in new visitors.

2. Rewarding Loyal Clients – most businesses have clients who have been with them from the company's inception. It’s easy to take them for granted – so a giveaway lets you give a little something back.

3. Increase Website Traffic – a contest can be an avenue to increasing the number of visitors to your website. You could ask participants to register online. In the registration form ask if they would like to be added to your email list, giving you both a contest participant and a lead.

4. Create Good 'Buzz' – most successful contests or giveaways provide an increase in the general positive 'vibe' surrounding your company's image. This “buzz” impacts your brand and helps encourage clients to do business with your company.

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Scientists have determined that of our five senses, smell (scent) is our most powerful sense, the one that evokes or conveys the strongest memories and feelings. Similarly, the concept of scent marketing in landing page optimization and search engine optimization is one that’s vital to understand and take full advantage of.

"Scent marketing" alludes to Internet users as being information foraging animals; we use textual and visual signals, or scents, on each site and landing page to which we are directed, following a path toward the information we seek.

The scent of information on a website consists of textual and graphical cues that:

• Facilitate clear navigation (where can I go)
• Allow for quick orientation (where am I) and
• Communicate content value (should I click on this link)

As an online marketer, you want to map out the entire user journey, from the first search term or word he types in to the purchase of your products or services.

From a marketing standpoint, searchers should ideally be able to query search engines and be delivered to pages that contain exactly the information they want.

If a business owner needs to write an employee handbook, for example, she wants to see samples of employee handbooks; details about local, state and federal HR policies; perhaps even case studies of how to incorporate a new employee handbook into overall business operations.

Information retrieval on the web is, of course, far from perfect. Coupled with the fact that most content providers don’t necessarily understand search-engine-friendly copywriting, searchers are often not taken to a page with the information they want. They might, however, land on a page that can lead them to that desired information – perhaps a category listing or FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) page on your website.

The scent of information actually originates with the user before they even type a word or term in the search field of the search engine. It starts with how they think and feel about your product, service or brand — in other words, the user’s mental model.

This pre-disposed mindset will dictate what users search for and how they search, so it should also dictate how you design your site. If you aren’t matching your user’s mental model, chances you are losing revenue, as your users probably aren’t finding your valuable content.

A study conducted by search expert Jared Spool revealed that when visitors spotted "trigger words" — keywords that either get stuck in their heads, either consciously or subconsciously, often from advertising — on the page they’re sent to, they were content with what they found a whopping 72% of the time. But, when these same visitors didn’t see their trigger words on the pages they found, they deemed their search successful only 6% of the time.

When designing your website, ask these questions as if you were the searcher:

• Is the information I wanted available on this page?
• If not, where can I go to find this information?
• How can I get there?
• What pages have I visited? What pages haven’t I visited?
• How can I go back to pages I viewed previously (if applicable)?
• How confident am I that I’ll be taken to the desired information if I click on this link?
• After clicking on a link, was I taken to a web page that had the information I was looking for?

An effective information scent also lets searchers feel comfortable navigating your website. A keyword-focused information scent can make a site search-engine friendly as well as user-friendly.

To learn more about scent marketing, watch this short video interview with Bryan Eisenberg, author of Always Be Testing: The Complete Guide to Google Website Optimization and Call to Action: Secret Formulas to Improve Online Results.

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Your business plan outlines the goals of your company or organization; so, too, should your website have goals. Just as you do for most all of your business activities and processes, think of your website, and its goal(s), in terms of ROI: Return On Investment. If you invest in a website, you expect a return on that investment – in time, money and effort. To realize that return, your site needs to have a goal.

What is a website goal?

Any website can (and should) have a goal:

• educate, inform, enlighten
• sell products, information, services
• stay in touch with family and friends
• share news and links about interests, hobbies, passions
• communicate with people in your community and around the world
• entertain
• express opinions and beliefs

Your website goal emanates from the reason to establish and maintain a website, so your goal should clearly define:

• who your audience is
• what exactly you are offering
• what the benefits of your offer are
• what you need to have on your website
• where online and offline your audience hangs out

Once you know your website goal, you can define the action you want your audience to take:

• contact you
• sign up for an RSS feed, newsletter, ezine
• download/purchase product(s)
• post an article
• make a comment

By defining the action you want your visitors to take, it’s simple to build your website around it, as well as to track your website and its visitors, and the actions they take once they have arrived; i.e., placed an order, what other pages they visited, signed up for an RSS feed, requested contact, etc.)

How do you benefit from defining a website goal?

Knowing the webite’s goal helps you define the actions you need to take to gather intelligence and draw up the blueprints to build your site:

• research: target market/audience, competition, other sites
• determine keywords
• design, layout and structure of your website
• create content (copy as well as graphics)
• make the site user-friendly and easily navigable>
• promote and drive visitors to the site

Investing some time initially for research and planning of your website goal will bring you a great ROI, not only in terms of visitors but also in converting those visitors into customers, building brand awareness and recognition, establishing relationships and other business activity that contributes to profitability and other business goals.

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To keep visitors coming back to your blog, establish yourself as the go-to expert in your industry or field.

What is your expertise? What is your passion? How do you tap into everything you know, everyone you’ve met, every place you’ve been, everything you’ve learned.

Start by making note of ALL your experience (write it on paper or create a document on your computer – just be sure to get it in writing) – volunteer and work– as well as your education (including seminars, workshops, individual/non-credit classes, etc.) and your interests, whether work-related or not.

Then, start thinking about how your unique experiences make you an expert.

For example, how do you believe problems should be solved in your field that you don’t see others doing? What do you see for the future, based on what you have seen and experienced in the past? Whom do you know/have you met with an out-of-the-box viewpoint?

Your blog should provide plenty of information, facts, figures as to the viability of your proposed solutions to demonstrate your expertise in custom-tailoring knowledge to prospects’ needs. Yes, you have to give away a lot to gain the attention, interest and then loyal following of readers. It takes time and a strong commitment to establish your following – and it pays off once you’ve established a relationship and your readers have learned to trust what you tell them.

Which brings up a crucial point – don’t ever make up figures or “spin” the facts to make your case or support an idea. For one, there’s plenty of information available online to back up just about anything you want to present. Second, if you’re caught “cheating,” all the time and effort you’ve put into establishing credibility vanishes in an Internet instant.

Post quality content on your blog: advice, resources, insider information, ideas, links, people to know/meet through social networks such as Linkedin – and invite readers to comment and share their thoughts, advice and contacts.

Write papers, reports, and e-books on topics of interest to those in your industry, prospective customers and/or your target audience, available exclusively through your website.

Offer presentations to industry networking groups to Kiwanis Clubs to PTAs to high schools and community colleges – and promote your blog at these appearances.

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Are visitors to your website or blog doing what you want them to – opting in for future communication, clicking through to links, commenting, purchasing products or services?  If not, look at your content and ask yourself, “Did I ask them to?”  Chances are, you haven’t – you don’t have a call to action.

Online content is, in many ways, no different than print or broadcast ad copy – or a sales call, for that matter. And the sacred rule, the bottom line (literally and figuratively) of advertising copy as well as sales technique is, “Ask for the order.” Think of it this way: do your kids clean up their rooms if you don’t ask (tell) them to? Of course not. They know they should, they know they have to eventually, but they won’t move until they’re TOLD to do so – and often, HOW and WHEN.  More importantly, think about the customer who wants your product or service. He or she has decided to make a purchase, but without a strong, implicit, easily spotted call to action – the directions to finalizing the sale – your prospective customer doesn’t know how to go about placing and paying for the order. And that’s why so many websites fail to convert visitors to customers.

The Buck Stops There

If you don’t include a call to action, everything before is a waste of time and effort. You may have the most expertly written, riveting sales copy that brings the prospect careening to the finish line -– the purchase. But, without that critical call to action, all forward motion comes to a screeching halt, and your prospect, not knowing what to do, wanders away to the next URL on the Google list of search results.

Be Specific

Don’t be afraid to take your prospects by the arm and guide them to the action(s) you want them to take.

A strong call to action is NOT: “Contact us for more information.”

A compelling call to action IS:

“Call 800-600-7000 today to place your order.”

“Click here to place your order using our convenient order form.”

“Quantities ARE limited, so place your order NOW by calling 800-600-7000.”

“Ordering couldn’t be easier – just click here and you’ll have your order placed within 5 minutes.”

“If you don’t order today, right now…. will you remember to tomorrow?”

“For the peace of mind you long for, call Jim Smith today at 555-450-6789 or email jim@smith.com”

“Now that you know this product (service) is what you need, your next step is to….”

Don’t Want to Seem “Pushy” or Desperate for the Sale?

If you don’t have enough confidence in your product or service to believe that your prospects should have it, then you’re either in the wrong business or your product is no good.  In fact, it’s almost rude to sell your prospect on your product, and then not tell him or her how to get it. It’s frustrating to want something and have no way of knowing how to get it. Be perfectly, crystal-clear about what action you want prospects to take; don’t leave it to chance. If you want your reader to take action, use highly specific language with clear, concrete details. Don’t leave any question about what you want to see happen. And don’t be afraid to be a little “too obvious.”

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