Step 1: Decide upon a theme for your contest

The first step must be to decide a theme for your contest. For best results, keep it seasonal or holiday-themed.

Step 2: Contest Details

Now you need to work out the details. What will people be required to enter your contest. It might be as simple as signing up with their email addresses to something much more interesting and creative as sending you their tips, stories, recipes etc. You can also plan a scavenger hunt as it will give your website and its content maximum exposure.

Step 3: The Prizes

Keeping in mind the theme of your contest, offer prizes to winners. If you sell a product, you can give away your own products as prizes. You can even get other vendors to sponsor your contests. Depending upon your audience, you can offer products, services, discount vouchers, e-products, free advertising etc. as prizes.

Step 4: Place a Form

To enable visitors to enter your contest, you will need to prepare a form which will need to be placed on a separate page on your website.

Your form can even be your mailing list subscription form (if you are going to plan a draw from the mailing list). Otherwise, prepare a proper form asking for the following details:

Name
Email
Snail Mail Address (for shipping the prize) - you can also choose to ask for this later when you contact the winners Contest Entry - the required tip, story etc.

Test your form to see if it is working properly. This is very crucial.

Step 5: Your Contest Page

Dedicate an entire page on your website to your contest. This page will list the following:

1. Contest Description and Details, start date, end date etc.
2. Prizes Offered
3. Form mentioned in the previous step
4. Mention Your Prize Sponsors
5. Terms and Conditions (who can enter, how many times can 1 person enter, disclaimer etc.)

Do not forget to set a page title and add description and keywords to this page. This is the page that you will be promoting at contest sites and search engines are also likely to list it.

Step 6: Promote Your Contest

Only after your contest page is completely ready and uploaded on your server, should you start promoting it.

Promote your contest by listing it for free on Contest sites. You can also consider purchasing paid listings on these websites. You can also go in for other forms of advertising like website and ezine advertising.

And most important, do not forget to mention the contest (along with an active link) on the main page (and other important pages) of your own website. Also mention the contest in your newsletter, if you own one.

Step 7: Receiving Entries

Once you get listed in contest websites, you will start receiving entries. Place entries in separate folder on your computer or in your Outlook Express so that they are all in one place.

Step 8: Closing the Contest

On the day you have chosen to end the contest, remove the entry form from your contest page so that you do not go on receiving entries. Instead, place a message for all visitors to see, informing them that the contest has ended and thanking them for the response to the contest.

Contest participants will be likely to visit the page to see the results. Declare a date on which the results will be announced on that page. Request participants to bookmark your page and return to it on the said date to check out the results. You can also ask them to join your mailing list and then declare the results in your newsletter.

Step 9: Choosing the Winner

Sort out the entries and choose the winner/winners. You can choose according to accurate answers, best tip submissions or early bird entries according to the theme of your contest.

. Inform the winners by email that they have won.

. Inform the contest sponsors the names and addresses of the winners whom they are required to ship the prizes to. Don't forget to thank them for their generous prizes.

. Post the results on your contest page

. Announce the results in your newsletter

About the Author:

Lata Tokhi is a successful website publisher with a network of popular websites. She shares her internet success secrets with you at http://www.MomTycoons.com

Visit some of her other popular websites at http://www.DotComWomen.com, a Home & Lifestyle website and an online community and http://www.Celebrating-Christmas.com, a complete Holiday portal.

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