Buy your way to A-List status
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I was reading John Chow today and noticed he has a review up for the contest running over at Winning the Web where the first prize is a $400 dollar review on John Chow dot com. There have been multiple plugs all over the net about this contest. I’m sure what we have here is a Joint Venture between some big name A-listers in the make money niche of the blogsphere. Right now Winning the Web is on the recieving end, but I’m sure John Chow, Shoemoney and who ever else is involved has some benefit on the backend.
Actually if you think about this its a great idea. We are seeing more contests on different blogs throughout the net and its really a great way to build traffic. I’m sure some Internet Marketer will be selling you the best way to build your blog up to flip eBook soon. Don’t buy it just think of some unique way to build up traffic and RSS subscribers with some method such as a contest. Maybe that is John Chow’s and Shoemoney’s angle, they will be the ones selling the eBook 
As many of you regular readers already know I’ve been working on improving my understanding of the Blgosphere and what it requires to gain a decent amount of exposure to a Blog. I’ve never really tried to monetize this blog or really any true blog up to this point. I have websites that are built using blogs that I earn money from, but I don’t really consider them a blog where I post to every day in hopes of gaining RSS subscribers. I use Wordpress on quite a few domains, but I consider those just content management platforms and not really Blogs. Watching actions such as these play out on the web can teach you a lot about how to really launch a site and gain a lot of traffic in a short amount of time. Whether you use that traffic as a method to generate revenue from advertisers or in anticipation of selling the site is a decision you would have to make, but it would be very possible to utilize these or similar methods to build a high traffic site.
This contest requires you to subscribe to their feed to win the prize. With all this exposure how many people do you think the site will have as subscribers in the next week or so. This contest could very easily create subscribers in the 10s of thousands. I doubt all of them will stay around after the contest is over, but chances are quite a few will. Even if they don’t everyone will not unsubscribe at once and that will give the owner time to auction off the site. I’m sure there are quite a few companies that would pay some decent bread for a blog with 10,000+ subscribers. Would not be a bad profit for a couple of thousand in expenses and a couple of months work.
So get out there and think of ways to buy your way to A-list status.
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Comments
Yeah, I’ve read about this such contests to increase blog traffic. But I’m not sure if the trouble, time and money spent in these contests worth it in the end.
This is from your post “I’ve never really tried to monetize this blog or really any true blog up to this point.”
What exactly are all the ads on your sidebar and the Kontera if not monetizing. Thank god you have never tried because if you did it would be about 90% ads? LOL
Buying your subscribers and readers may work for the short term, but just as you mentioned many, most even, won’t stick around very long. Contests are good if you can attract people who are actually drawn to your content, but if you have nothing to offer them when you get to your site, you’re just wasting your time.
If your motives are genuine then you will gain and keep subscribers but if not then it will just a waste of money.
@Jason Clark
You’re right that contests by themselves don’t really lead to loyal readers. However, I view contests as the hook. In competitive industries, people aren’t going to notice you unless you somehow push your content out to them. Once you push and leave out the bait, the interested people will start coming to you - leading to a snowball effect.
[…] Buy your way to A-List status | No nonsense Internet Tips - I was reading John Chow today and noticed he has a review up for the contest running over at Winning the Web where the first prize is a $400 dollar review on […]
Hey Bruce,
Thanks for the mention. Very true insights on this post. However, I don’t necessarily think it’s possible to buy your way to A-List status. Rather, you’re just buying the traffic to get visitors in front of your content (which should really be doing the selling)