Today we are going to introduce you to a very unique and mostly untouched way of free link building for your blog – Giveaways.
Even non-bloggers are familiar with this term and it’s quite likely that if you are a frequent internet user, you may have participated in a giveaway yourself.
People use giveaways for many reasons such as generating traffic, getting social media followers and even for gathering attention for their product or cause.
Although what’s not so popular is arranging giveaways for Link Building. Just like any other purpose you can also arrange a giveaway and get links for your site, only if you know how to do it correctly.
That’s why we have written this step by step guide on how to get links from a giveaway which should help you in arranging a successful giveaway for your intended purpose:
How to arrange a successful giveaway? (and build links from it)
There are basically 6 steps to arrange a giveaway successfully and if you follow them you are almost guaranteed to arrange it without hassle:
Step 1. Choose what you want
The first step of arranging any successful giveaway is, of course, choosing what you want to achieve from this giveaway since it will affect the whole process of the giveaway and whether you get it done successfully or not.
Here we are doing it for links mainly but you can also arrange one for other purposes such as social media followers, blog traffic and much more.
Step 2. Choose your price
This is presumably the most important step of arranging a successful giveaway since the price you’ll choose will ultimately decide if people would really participate in your giveaway and if you will achieve your goal.
Since we are doing it for links, we should choose something which would attract bloggers in your own niche. It can be an anything from a Premium tool for bloggers to the latest merchandise belonging to any famous person in your niche.
Although for Link building it will be better if you choose something which not only attracts bloggers but is also well known and is used by them on daily basis, but not something they can find a free alternative of.
For example, a premium plug-in could be a good prize but it would not attract the top level of attention since there are many free alternatives available and people would not interact with it on daily basis.
On the other hand, a good keyword research tool which is used by top bloggers may be a better option since it will be used regularly by any blogger.
Overall, it depends on what kind of participant you are trying to attract. If you can’t decide, you can shortlist a few prizes for the giveaway you can offer according to the audience’s interest and your budget, then ask you followers what which one of them will attract them the most.
Step 3. Find a sponsor/partner
The bigger the reward, the more successful your giveaway would be. However, it happens sometimes that the prize you think would be the perfect is out of your budget.
In such cases, you can try to find a sponsor or another blogger to make him your partner in the giveaway. For both, you’ll need to shortlist people who you think may be capable of sponsoring your giveaway or becoming your partner.
Once you have a list, outreach them with a small email or any other possible way. If you are looking for a sponsor you can either offer them to promote their product through this giveaway or offer them some other benefits such as a link.
Though keep in mind you’ll also need to remind them why they should choose you for this giveaway. For example, you can tell them about your list of followers or the number of visitors of your blog (whichever is more impressive, or both ).And for bloggers, you can simply tell them the benefit you are planning to get for your own blog and which he will get too if he decided to join.
Step 4. Make rules
Once you have chosen the right prize and have arranged the funds for it, it’s now time to make rules for the giveaway. The general rules are eligibility rules for the giveaway (who can participate), how the winner will be chosen and the time limit (from when to when people can participate and the result date).
One thing which you need to be very careful about is the participation rules or how will people participate. Since we are doing it for links, we’ll need the bloggers to write a blog post linking to our site. Though you can’t tell them to write a 1000 words original blog post.
Instead, if you have a sponsorer whose product you are promoting then you can write a good description for the product and ask people to publish it with a small introductory phrase of their own and linking back to your site.
Or you can ask them to write a small post of 300-400 words writing about the giveaway and linking to your site. Though be sure to let them know that the link needs to be do-follow.
Step 5. Market it like hell
Once you have set up the rules it’s now time for to tell people about it. For it, you’ll need to market it as much as you can. Share it everywhere including social media; you own blog and everywhere else.
If you have a budget you can pay people running social profiles with a high number of followers and other blogs to promote your giveaway though it’s not a necessity.
Step 6. The price giving ceremony
The final step is, of course, announcing the winners. If you are offering a big, or multiple prizes in your giveaway you can do a hangout or live YouTube session or if you don’t want that you can simply announce the winners through a post on your blog.
Wrap up
This was our guide on Link building through giveaways. Though you still need to remember that Google hates manual and especially paid link building.
So if you decide to try this technique make sure that you make it look natural. While mentioning that adding a link is an essential step for participating in the giveaway is important, saying it directly is not an option.
If you still have any doubt about this guide or have any questions left, do let us know about them in the comment section.
