Using competitions to generate content for your website	1.3/5.0 (3 votes total) Rate: Select 1 - Terrible 2 - Poor 3 - Average 4 - Good 5 - Outstanding
Barry Goggin December 03, 2008

Continuing the theme of how to generate content for your website, I wanted to talk about using competitions as an incentive to get “free” content. Writers, photographers and artists love to have recognition for their work and what better recognition than to have the bragging rights to winning a competition.

Competition for website content

Need 5 or 10 original articles for your website? Running a competition can be a cheap way of generating content. The most cost effective way is to do this through a website where you already have good traffic and the appropriate user base. If not, then you will need to spend some money advertizing the competition as well as spending time in appropriate chatrooms etc.

How to set up a competition

• Know the laws. The first and most important point is to know the laws in your state or country. Competitions may be regulated by law depending on monetary value of the prize and other variables. Make sure you know this before you proceed.

• Set your goals first. I usually want at least 20 applicants per 1 winner at a minimum because otherwise the winning content will be worthless.

• Set a time limit. You want adequate time for people to see the ad and have time to create something worthwhile but you do not want to set the time limit too long or people won’t be bothered entering the competition.

• Set the prize monetary value. The higher the value, the more applicants you should get. The best way to calculate the appropriate amount is to know how much it would have cost you to get the content done by a professional and divide that by 2 or 4 as appropriate.

• Set up rules. There is always one who will try to spoil everyone’s fun so make sure you have carefully thought through the rules. Look at other competitions to get ideas.

• Make clear how you will communicate. To avoid conflict, make sure you are clear on how you will make announcements to competitors including the winner announcement.

• Make clear exactly who owns the content / submissions. This should be laid out up front and not just in small print. Also communicate whether the winners names or other information will be used and get permission. Respect people who want their submissions to remain anonymous.

Aim for win-win situations

You want your winners to feel good about winning and not feel ripped off. There are many ways to do this. For example, setting up a page for winning submissions or allowing congrats comments on the winners submissions. For an artist, you could provide a link back to the artist’s web page.

Another good thing to do is to create runner-up prizes which could be just that their content appears on the website with a commendation and a link to the author.

Use categories to get different kinds of content

Need content on different subjects? You can set up the competition so there are multiple categories each covering a subject you need content about. You could also run a writing competition and an art competition in parallel.

Keep it going

If you succeed in running a competition and it is providing you with value, make it a weekly/monthly/quarterly part of your website. Not only will you gain content but you will also gain visitors as the word spreads.

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