Jul
12
Have you ever discovered a new site and said, “Man, why didn’t I think of that?” That’s how I felt when I heard about Phil Van Treuren’s new project at Contest Blogger.
URL
http://www.contestblogger.com/
About
According to the About Page, Phil has limited the focus of Contest Blogger in an effort to provide you with contests and promotions that will help you grow your blog’s audience, build backlinks to your site, rank higher for keywords in search engines, and increase your blog’s RSS readership.
There are other blogs out there that specialize in prizes and contests, but Contest Blogger deals exclusively with blogs and bloggers. Our webmaster, Phil Van Treuren, is a professional blogger who knows how much time and dedication it takes to build a successful blog . . . and he won’t waste your time with anything other than projects and contests that will help you build your traffic and make your blog more lucrative.
You won’t find posts about any contests, sweepstakes or prizes on Contest Blogger if they don’t have to do with professional blogging and link building. It just won’t happen.
Pros
You know you have a great idea when your site is less than a month old and has already received link love from the likes of ProBlogger and eMoms at Home.
- Content: These days it seems like there is a new blog contest or writing project announced everyday and now there is a place where you can find all the latest blog promotions. This idea is pure genius and there has never been a better time for this service.
- Win-Win Situation: If your looking for contests to enter, you can now find all the current contests and promotions listed in one place. And if you are running a contest, you get free exposure. What could be better?
- Ingenuity: If you look closely, you’ll notice that a lot of the contest listings at Contest Blogger actually qualify as entries! How cool is that? Not only is he providing a service, he is giving himself a chance to win.
- Generosity: If he does happen to win, which he already has, Phil vows to give any physical prizes won back to the Contest Blogger readers by running his own contest.
Cons
I had to try hard to find something that I don’t like here. Contest Blogger uses one of my favorite themes. I like the layout, the colors, the content, and the concept but I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t pick on something.
- Search Box: I would try to make the search box a little more obvious. It could be easily overlooked in it’s present position.
- Donations: I know this is a little picky but… I’m not a big fan of asking for donations on a site that is already monetized. In this case it’s a little different because bloggers who get free exposure may want to contribute to Contest Blogger so it’s probably a good idea to give them every opportunity to do so.
Final Thoughts
Contest Blogger is a great concept and is being introduced at what seems like the height of the blog contest craze. Congratulations Phil, I think you have a winner!
Exactly. There is also a similar site called Blog Contests (not contest blogger), and I don’t think they’re affiliated. And I agree on the donation box. I don’t exactly like it when sites/bloggers ask for money from a monetized site.
You’d be surprised. I used to not bother with donations, until a few people wanted to give a few quid, and it went on more and more.
Some people feel more comfortable giving money that way than say clicking on google ads (as it’s against TOS).
Ok, maybe I was a little hard on the donations thingy… but I reserve the right to be irritated when people are making $10,000-$12,000 dollars a month and still asking for donations. Of course, I won’t mention any names…
Don’t we all know it?
[...] Link to Article apple ipod You Could be a Winner at Contest Blogger » Posted at Blogging Tips, [...]
But I need coffee . . . to survive! If I remove my donation button, I’ll die!
I know… I know.
I had to find something… if I said all good things they might think you paid me or something. We can’t have that.
I’ve seen this site before and I must say I really like it. It is a great idea, although there are a few other blogs which revolve around the same idea (theprizeblog.com and another one I can’t remember the domain of).
hey … nice site … good idea …
Darin
Contest blogger looks awesome (especially this latest google bot drawing contest) and I subscribed to the feed, but alas, I don’t use RSS, and I haven’t seen any posts.
I wish he had an email option.
You are right… I missed that. There isn’t a way to get updates by email.
You should look into that Phil.
I also don’t agree abou Donation Page, if the sites is monetized. I appreciated more the people who give a great freeware but want some credits as donation
David, thanks for letting us know about this. It will be great to have one site that will keep up all of the different contests out there.
Unless the community of your blog makes an uproar about the “buy me a beer/coffee/milk” plugin and it makes money then why not keep it?
I agree though that it does seem a bit dodgier on make money online / linkbaiting blogs as opposed to informative article-based blogs on other niches.
Content Blogger is a great site by the way, I just subscribed
This certainly does look like a good idea - for those who enjoy regularly entering contests.
Kind of like a competitions website for those that prefer to read and contribute to blogs rather than offer up their personal information to marketing companies to qualify for a competition entry!
- Martin Reed
i really like his design … real clean !
Darin