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This is the eighth post in The Link Building Cookbook series, showing you the best ways to build links to your blogs or websites to increase website traffic.

One of the easiest and greatest way to promote your new (or old) blog is to run a contest on it. The general rule of thumb is to make a blog post on your blog announcing the contest that you are hosting, the rules, and of course the prizes. There is generally at least one new blog contest on the web per day, and it has even started a niche of blogs that blog only about blog contests. So… you are probably wondering why giving away cash, prizes, and gifts will benefit you. Here is why:

• Many anchor text backlinks from other blogs joining your contests
• Many trackbacks
• Many comments
• Lots of buzz
• Lots of new website traffic
• Lots of new rss subscribers (potentially)
• New eyes seeing your website who would not have heard of it prior

Now skipping the reasons and benefits of running your own contest, I am going to kill two birds with one stone and enter a blog contest that I have read about yesterday.

A fellow internet marketer named Douglas Karr is currently running a massive contest on his blog to reward himself (as well as his readers) for reaching 1000 daily visitors, 1000+ RSS subscribers, and 1000 posts.

$1,000 Giveaway at The Marketing Technology Blog

The sponsors of this blog contest:

1. The Marketing Technology Blog
This is Douglas Karr’s personal blog. Doug has an excellent resume relating to technology/marketing jobs, which you can read in detail on the about page.

2. FormSpring
Formspring is a web2.0 website that allows you to easily build forms to use with your websites or blogs.

3. PPC Hero
PPCHero is a blog that covers exactly what it should, PPC! Their goal is to educate the world with basic PPC techniques.

4. Search Engine People
Search Engine People is a search engine marketing and optimization firm located in Canada. The company is very aged and assumed highly reputable, having begun operations in 2001.

5. EverEffect
EverEffect is a web design and online marketing firm based in Indianapolis.

6. Wrike
Wrike is a web2.0 website that helps you with project management and planning software.

7. Tracy Garnier
Tracy Garnier is a real estate agent located in Indiana.

8. A pound a day diet
A pound a day is a report that shows you an ‘easy’ way to lose a pound of fat per day.

9. Vontoo
Vontoo is a revolutionary voice marketing, broadcasting, and messaging software.

10. GoCollege
GoCollege is a micro investor of mine (with WordHugger), and it is dubbed as the number one college bound website on the internet

Yup, you guessed it. Blogging about the contest and advertising the contest sponsors was all that was required to enter the contest. I now have a 3% chance at winning $1000 + prizes. You can also enter this contest for a chance to win $1000, or else run your own blog contest to increase traffic and build links. If you do run your own contest, make sure to leave the link in the comments!