Blog Challenges.
What a great way to get exposure, traffic, subscribers, money and maybe backlinks all at the same time.
Well, the above statement depends upon the challenge.
There is only one other way, that I can think of, that gives all these benefits – Guest blogging.
Nowadays, you can see a lot of blogging related challenges online. Participating in those challenges offers you a good deal of benefits. In this blog post, we will take a good look at the benefits of hosting and participating in a blog challenges.
Do You Host Blog Challenges?
Well, if you ask me, it ranges anything from a small giveaway to big bash writing contests.
Blog challenges also refer to personal challenges that you take (we will talk about this later in the participation section).
So, do you host blog challenges?
Why or why not?
It does offer a lot of benefits to you.
For instance, if you decided to harness the power of guest blogging and combine to a blog challenge, to form a guest blogging contest, here are the usual benefits:
- Traffic – Guest bloggers blog and they market their blog posts (And if they market the blog post, you get exposure along with it). And that, my dear friend, may mean a whole lot of new subscribers and readers for your blog.
- Fresh, new voice – You see, people always like reading things from a different perspective. So, why not give them that? Some of your readers might be bored reading your article (who knows, there are not really going to tell you).
- Vacation – Take a break from blogging or better yet, plan and write out some articles for future. Or may be, comment on some blogs.
- Backlinks – You will get backlinks, if you have about the contest as a required thing for the contest.
- Interaction – Interact with various bloggers, work with them, make friends.
- Community – Many guest bloggers do spend a lot of time to market their article and get more comments, which in turns helps you to build (or strengthen) your blog community.
You could also have more benefits depending upon the rules of the contest.
Hosting a blog challenge is not a bad idea at all. And you don't have to have money to host a challenge. You could host personal blog challenges – write a post everyday for next 2 weeks – that don't really require a prize or award your eBook/product for contest winners.
The Key is to be creative. You can really get the most out of this through creative thinking. I think, Jane is the first one to incorporate the idea of back link points to guest blogging contest.
Do You Participate in Blog Challenges?
- Ones hosted by you.
- Ones hosted by others.
The ones that are hosted by you (for yourself) are used to increase your productivity. For instance: I recently had a personal blog challenge in which I challenged myself to write at least 2 articles per weekday. With the exception of few days when I wrote one instead of two, I was successful with the challenge.
And can you guess what I accomplished:
Lot of guest posts = Exposure, Traffic, Backlinks and Networking.
The most important of all, Community, I was able to build a community at my blog.
When you are hosting personal blog challenges, be sure that you can find time for it, commit to it and it is something useful to your blog.
How To: Setup Personal Blog Challenges
- Identify something that you really need to work on – Commenting? Writing more articles? Networking?
- Form a really targeted challenge – for instance: Comment 3 times in at least 10 different blogs every week day.
- Commit to yourself to the challenge – If you want things to get a little more easier, write a blog post about your challenge, this will put more pressure on you – pressure to perform the challenge.
- Make a small schedule – Allot time to your personal challenge. Promise yourself to not do anything else by following the challenge.
- Accept the challenge and Take Action
- Write about it – After you achieve/fail the challenge, write about it. What were your positives? What were your negatives? If you didn't pass the challenge, write about what you could have done better? Share your experience because experience is the best tip.
Personal challenges are really a lot like Personal goals. They add up and help you to achieve your long term goals.
Blog challenges hosted by others – Well, the main incentive here is the prize itself. Participating in blog challenges may get you exposure, traffic, subscribers, and money (all of this depends upon the challenge).
You will probably know the benefits of participating in blog challenges hosted by others, so I am not going to write about those.
Blog Challenges – The Key
The Key here is to be creative and do things creatively. Participate in blog challenges. Enjoy. Don't Worry, Be Happy. Even if you fail, because mistakes teach us – failures are more valuable than success. By the way, if you liked the article, do let me know of your comments!