Category Archives: Contests

What Do I Expect from My Contest?

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So, I have been asked more than once over the last few days what I hope to achieve from my Reader Interaction Contest, and so I wanted to address that here.

My only hope for the contest is that I get one entrant per prize listed. No more, no less. I hope that I have enough readers on this blog that would be willing to leave a comment or Twitter about the contest that I can give everything away without anything being left over, or anyone being sad that they didn’t win anything.

Do I expect to get a huge boost in rankings, back links, comments, new readers? Heck no! If that is what I wanted, I would have done the normal thing, and had people promote it heavily, got more people involved in making it this big deal, and went around to the contest blogs and got it listed.

This contest really is just for my friendly readers. So if you like this blog, leave a comment and you will be entered. So far, I think only half of the prizes have been accounted for.

Originally posted on July 22, 2008 @ 10:33 pm

XFEP Reader Interaction Contest

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Contest Time!

I have decided to run a small contest to giveaway a few things as a reward to the great readers of this site that constantly participate and make blogging here such a great experience. I haven’t run many contests before, but I have always enjoyed giving things away, and so I figured it was time to try my hand at it once again.

Prize Pool

Three Copies of Problogger: Secrets for Blogging Your Way to a Six-Figure Income by Darren Rowse and Chris Garrett – An amazing book for any skill level and worth far more than the twenty-five dollar list price on the back of the book. Problogger is already in its second printing and includes some very timeless advice. I have read the book cover to cover more than a few times now. Prize includes shipping fees from me to the winner anywhere in the world.

Various Domains registered at Godaddy.com – Each domain has a different expiry date, but if you have been looking for a great property to build that next project on, no doubt one of the below will probably inspire you. As winners of domains are selected, they will get first choice on which domain, or domains where listed as a possible package, that they would like.

  • BuyWPThemes.com
  • CelebReader.com
  • DesignRanked.com (and DesignRankd.com if winner wants it)
  • FabCeleb.com
  • HealthNewsFirst.com
  • OneBigCanada.com (.biz, .info and .net if winner wants them)
  • TheBlogJob.com
  • UpRanked.com (and UpRankd.com if the winner wants it)

One Hour Blog Consulting from Me – with a list value of fifty dollars, I believe that an hour of my time, one on one in any medium you desire, could be a huge opportunity for your blog to grow in exciting new ways. Looking to monetize, but you are confused on how to make more than a coffee worth of money per day? Wanting to leverage your content better? Trying to figure out how to promote things better in the social media world? Issues with your WordPress theme? I will use my expertise, and connections to help you with your blog.

One 468×60 Banner on the front page of Xfep.com for 3 months – with a value of $360, adding your non-animated banner just above the title of each and every single post on Xfep.com as well as above the first post title on the front page will allow your brand to be noticed resulting in new traffic to your blog.

One 125×125 Banner on Xfep.com for 3 months – with a value of $120, you will be able to add your square advertisement graphic above all others on Xfep.com for three months. The exposure could mean new readers, new subscribers, and the chance to promote your own products, services, contests, or just your brand. Building brand equity is invaluable.

How to Enter

I wanted to make it easy to enter, but I also wanted those willing to go the extra mile able to have more chances at the above prizes, and so like many successful contests, I have built in a system where the more things you do, the more entries you get.

One Ticket Each

  • Relevant and Approved Comment on Xfep.com
  • Follow me on Twitter – davidcubed
  • Invite me to a beta for a service I am not yet a member of. [dave.phoenix at gmail.com]
    Brightkite is off the list
    Aviary is off the list
  • Twitter about this contest (don’t forget to let me know)

Two Tickets Each

  • Promote Posts from Xfep.com on popular Social Media promotion sites like Digg, StumbleUpon, Reddit, Delicious or Sphinn. Make sure to contact me through the contact form with the relevant details of what you did, or it won’t be counted.
  • Post about this contest on your blog (250 words or above to qualify)

Five Tickets Each

  • Submit guest post for Xfep.com that gets approved (over 500 words).
  • Talk about Xfep, or one of its posts on your own blog (excluding the contest post). Add to the conversation.
  • Purchase an advertisement on Xfep.com

Winner Selection

Eligible participants will be randomly given a number or numbers dependent on how many ways they enter. Once numbers have been put into a spreadsheet and double checked for accuracy, I will run a random number generator online with a randomized hash as the seed for the random number generator. I will start with the domains, and then the advertisement positions, consulting, and finally the three copies of the books. Winners will be removed from the spreadsheet so that they cannot win multiple prizes.

Important Dates

Contest Open: Friday, July 18th, 2008
Contest Closed: Friday, August 15th, 2008 @ 11:59 PM EDT (GMT-4) [2359 hours]
Draw: Monday, August 18th, 2008
All Prizes Awarded by: September 1st, 2008

Originally posted on July 17, 2008 @ 10:23 pm

RealWD Premium Themes and a Contest

3 Replies

With the ever growing market of quality WordPress themes it can be hard to filter out the noise and find a worthwhile theme to use for your projects, but a new advertiser here at Xfep might have the solution you are looking for.

RealWD has created two great WordPress themes with their RealWD Corporate and RealWD Elegante premium themes.

RealWD Corporate WordPress ThemeRealWD Corporate looks to me like it would work best for a business blog but especially for the smart make money online blogger, as it gives strong positions to recent posts, RSS subscriptions, and information about the site and author. It comes standard in a really nice blue, orange, grey and white colour scheme. It includes space for some large standard advertising sizes as well as some non-traditional ad positions that will work well with the design.

RealWD Elegante moves the meta data box to the bottom of the page, moving the posts higher up in the page. The colours are grey, red and beige, and seem to compliment each other well. It includes the 125×125 pixel advertising spaces that are very popular today, and has a strong sense of style.

Both themes are widget ready, and provide support for Gravatar. Both themes have also been tested in a myriad of web browsers and will work with WordPress 2.2 and above.

Out of the two, I would personally be more inclined to use the RealWD Corporate theme, but I always recommend users pick the theme that suits them the best.

Each theme is $75 and includes lifetime access to support, as well as being special in that for the $75 cost, the authors do not require you to retain any footer link, something that usually costs hundreds of dollars to remove in other premium themes.

The Contest

Interested in the themes, but don’t have the money to shell out currently? Link to the WordPress Themes page on RealWD (that’s www.realwd.com/wordpress-themes/) and comment here to let me know that you have linked to it with the URL of where I can find the link, and you will be entered into a contest to win one of the two themes.

Some ways to quickly earn opportunities to win:

  • Link to this post as well as the RealWD theme page: 5 entries
  • Link to RealWD’s theme page from a post on your blog relating to WordPress themes: 3 entries
  • Link to RealWD’s theme page from your sidebar or blogroll: 2 entries
  • Twitter the link to RealWD’s theme page: 1 entry

If you don’t comment here to let me know where I can find your entries, they won’t be counted. Enter now, as this contest will be over soon. The end date is May 6th, 2008. Prizes will be awarded on the 7th.

Originally posted on April 25, 2008 @ 10:44 pm

Domain Giveaway Contest #3 Ends in One Week

1 Reply

In case you hadn’t seen the post, I have an easy giveaway contest running that hasn’t had any entries so far. If you have won before, or haven’t yet entered, now is the time to do so. With over half a dozen domains to give out, and no entries so far, your odds are pretty much one hundred percent.

Domains you can win include:

Uprankd.com (Upranked.com as well)
Onebigcanada.com (and .net, .info, .biz if you want them)
TheHealthBattle.com
FabCeleb.com
DesignRankd.com (DesignRanked.com as well)
CharacterDir.com
CelebReader.com
BuyWpThemes.com

So if you want to feel like a winner, and snag yourself a good domain, check out the Domain Giveaway Contest.

Originally posted on April 4, 2008 @ 6:20 pm

Domain Giveaway Contest #3

6 Replies

For those of you that have been itching for another domain giveaway contest (see Domain Giveaway Contest #2 and the original Domain Giveaway Contest), that time is back, with the next in the series of domain giveaways. See, I have an issue. I love registering domains, but I don’t have the time to use them all for the grand ideas I have for them, and so rather than let them sit forever, I love to reward my readers with the chance at winning one of the domains in hopes that they will use it better than I did.

All of the below mentioned domains are registered with Godaddy.com, and so you will have to have or create an account for me to send them to you.

Uprankd.com (Upranked.com as well)
Onebigcanada.com (and .net, .info, .biz if you want them)
TheHealthBattle.com
FabCeleb.com
DesignRankd.com (DesignRanked.com as well)
CharacterDir.com
CelebReader.com
BuyWpThemes.com

To Enter:

If you want to enter, you have to write a post on your blog about blogging, web marketing, affiliate sales, advertising, or something with a similar focus to this site. Suggestions I have include writing about your history with blogging, blogging software, affiliate programs you’ve liked and disliked, etc…

The post must be over 350 words, I will copy and paste the post into NeoOffice on my Mac to check, and they must link to a post or page on this blog. I might be lenient on the length, but a 200 word post on why WordPress is the best won’t be close enough to be considered an entry.

You must also promote one of the posts on this blog to any of the social networking/promotion sites out there in the blogosphere. I have easy to use buttons at the bottom of every post.

Once you’ve done both things, come back here, let me know where I can find your post, which post you promoted, and which two domains you are interested in. If you select OneBigCanada, DesignRankd or UpRankd, please let me know if you want both, all or just certain ones.

If you have any questions about this giveaway, please let me know. The contest starts today, and ends on the 11th of April.

Originally posted on March 19, 2008 @ 2:35 pm