9 Ways to Ensure Your Victory in our Best WordPress Design Contest

So, you’re excited about winning $500 worth of awesome prizes, huh? A Become a Blogger Membership, the StudioPress All Themes Package, an OIOpublisher WordPress Plugin, the Affiliate Marketing Sweetie Course and a FREE Review of Your Blog on FresheVenture.com doesn’t sound half bad, but are you doing everything you can to ensure your victory?

Getting people to do what you want them to do online is a really fascinating art form. And to some, it comes easy. For others, it’s a complex concept that requires practice and experience.

Fortunately, you don’t need to be an expert on Internet marketing to win our contest. In fact, all you really need is your virtual voice, which needs to SPEAK UP and ask for attention.

True, nominees who already have a following online will have an advantage – more traffic means more potential votes. But, traffic doesn’t offer us value unless we learn how to use that traffic. Yes, we need to learn how to capture an audience of our own, but we also need to learn how to utilize and persuade the audience we already have (however big or small it may be).

At some point, we have to begin making strides with our blogging. At some point, we have to put our insecurities behind us and start asking for help.

Conversion vs. Traffic

Are you focusing on traffic or your conversions? This is important. Remember, our contest is only open for one month. You may not be able to increase your traffic by 10 times within 30 days, but you can certainly learn to capitalize on your existing traffic!

Let’s say one of your fellow nominees receives 200 visitors every day on their blog. Now, let’s say you only receive 50 visitors every day. Based on these numbers, it’s easy to lose confidence in yourself. That’s why you want to forget about the traffic. That’s right – FORGET ABOUT THE TRAFFIC! What should matter to you is the conversion rate of voters, not blog vitals.

Your competitor might surpass you in traffic stats, but what if they only convince 1 out of every 100 of their visitors to vote? Our contest voting is open for a total of 32 days. So, 32 days multiplied by your competitor’s 200 visitors per day equals a total of 6400 visitors. If their voter conversion rate is at 1% (1 out of every 100), then they will have convinced 64 people to vote for them.

Now, what if you can surpass them, not in traffic, but in conversions? Let’s say you convince 5 out of every 100 of your visitors to vote for you. We multiply your 50 visitors a day by 32 days to come up with your total traffic during the contest – 1600 visitors. If you convince 5% of that traffic (5 out of every 100) to vote for you, you will have received 80 votes and guess what… YOU WIN!

Do you see the power of your conversion rate here? In this scenario, you received only 25% of the traffic your competitor did, but with the power of marketing and relationships, you were able to surpass their votes!

So, how can you increase your voter conversion rate? Easy – SPEAK UP! Build relationships and then leverage those relationships. Use what you already know, have access to or enjoy using. Want specifics? No problem – here are 9 tips to help you convince visitors to vote for you!

1. Badges

This is a pretty easy one – display your nominee badges on your blog! It doesn’t get much easier than this. Your badge tells your visitors you’ve been nominated and sends everyone who clicks on it directly to our voting page.

Some people will click on it to vote for you while others will click just to learn more about the contest. A badge alone won’t ensure you get their vote, but it does add a call to action to every page of your blog (if you display it in your sidebar). Plus, it puts off a powerful vibe – a feeling of importance, uniqueness and honor (makes your blog look special).

2. Posts

This is by far one of the most powerful tools you have for convincing people to vote for you. Writing about the contest and explaining why you entered and why you deserve to win can easily draw in tons of votes for your blog. Your readers are READING your content, so why not write something about the contest?

Within your post, you can explain the importance of the contest and ask for your readers’ support. Don’t just rely on your contest submission post to do the trick. Write a post today explaining there are only 4 days left to vote for you. Instill a sense of urgency and excitement and be sure to thank them for their support.

3. Announce Standings

If you’re in the top 20, let your readers know how far away you are from number one. Let them know that at this point you only need “10” more votes to win. By filling them in on the details and explaining how close you are to victory, you help make them feel like they’re part of the contest.

4. Bribe

Yes that’s right – bribe your readers. Offer something of value to each voter (like a free report). Now, there is no way to track who votes for who (of course, your readers won’t know that), but you can tell your readers that after they’ve voted, they just need to leave a comment on your blog and the voting page on FresheVenture.com letting you know they cast their vote. You can then make a list of these people and send them something special as a thank you. After all, they are taking time out of their day to support you.

5. Twitter

It doesn’t matter if you have 50 followers or 1000 followers – Twitter is a fantastic way to remind your audience about the contest. Tweet at least three times a day (morning, noon and night) asking for votes. You can retweet the voting page, which makes this task super simple.

6. Facebook

Did you know you can add your nominee badges to your Facebook profile? Yup – it’s simple if you use a FB application like FBML (Facebook Markup Language). It turns html into FB compliant code. You can add your badge to your sidebar or create a tab for it. You can also use the “Notes” feature to post about the contest, update your Wall with voting requests or sync your RSS feed with your FB profile using an application like Simplaris Blogcast.

Remember, every time your profile updates, all of your FB friends will see it on their home page. Ask your friends and family for their support. Seriously – go track down Auntie Em and start buttering her up!

7. Email List

The contest may not be in any way related to your blog niche, but if you have an email list, it’s imperative you use it for voting requests! Hey, you offer something of value to your readers, which is why they joined your list. Now, it’s their opportunity to give something back to you. Don’t spam or bug your readers too much, but definitely send out a couple of requests. If you’re concerned about bugging them, send out the request with other information that is related to your blog.

8. Forums

Do you have a forum membership? Are there lots of other members on that forum? Then use it! Ask for the community’s help. This one method has been quite effective for a couple of our nominees.

Truth is people like to help other people. This task opens up a channel of communication between you and other forum users and could end up connecting you with a potential business partner, friend or new loyal blog reader!

9. Count Downs

Try doing post, Twitter or Facebook countdowns for the contest. You can do it daily and then switch to hourly on Friday. For example, at 9pm on Friday night you can tweet “Just 3 hours left to vote for me.” Then 2 hours at 10pm, 1 hour at 11pm and so on. This instills a strong sense of urgency and excitement and let’s people know there is NO TIME to look into this later.

If At First You Don’t Succeed…

I’ve listed only a few of the social networks and available online platforms you can utilize. Some may work quite well for you while others perhaps will fall short. Use your preferred networks and communities and continue to use them until the very last second this Friday.

Some of our nominees have been able to gain over 20 votes in just one week, so it’s not too late to take the lead! But, don’t get discouraged if your first attempts don’t work.

Internet marketing is all about consistency and persistence. Remember, the widely believed statistic is it takes up to 7 communications between you and a customer before they will purchase your product. Apply that statistic to your voting requests and you should see results!

Good Luck Everyone!!!

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become a blogger, best wordpress website design of 2009 contest, blog design, bloggers, blogging, contests, internet marketing sweetie, oiopublisher, studiopress, wordpress