A friend of mine Compounding Dividends is hosting a competition where he is giving away over $250 in prizes. Here's his blog post: If you build it they will come. I left that phrase in a comment on Ryan’s website last night when he asked me how I could possibly think that his goals were not set high enough. He also asked if I had any advice on how he could gather more readers. I let him know that he had more blogging experience than I did so I could not provide him any direct advice but I decided to inform him of the compounding effect. If you’re readership is steadily increasing it will continue to increase at a faster and faster pace as long as you keep pumping out content. Your traffic starts to build off of your steady work and then also off of the readers themselves. Just like dividends bring more shares and in turn more dividends. Readers bring links which in turn bring more readers. I’ll be the first to admit that I know very little about blogging but what I do know is business and the principal behind growing a successful Blog. Recently I’ve been thinking about advertising and ways I can start building up on my backlinks. Purchasing links crossed my mind but after I looked into it I decided that it is not the route I want to take, I don’t feel like giving any money to a company to promote my website. I would rather give money to my readers and have them do it for me. So I started thinking…what can I do to generate a substantial amount of traffic and backlinks in a short period of time. Taking cues from Ryan’s website I decided I’d throw a comment competition. Everyone seems to try and copy John Chow these days but I’ve decided to go a different route. I’m going to keep giving away cash, not sponsored products. I was going to wait until the end of the month so I could get all the kinks out of my website but there’s no time like the present so lets move on with it. Competition starts immediately. Comments already posted on my site are valid. Competition rules: 1 comment = 1 point Referencing my website in a post on your Blog with a link = 5 points Posting a single post on your blog solely about my competition with a link = 10 points Spamming will not be tolerated and will be deleted. Commenting is highly encouraged so unless it is blatant spam or a +1 or something along those lines it will be a valid comment. Talking back and forth with each other is acceptable, talking to yourself is not. Prizes - 1st place - $200 USD 2nd Place - $25 USD 3rd Place - $15 USD 4th Place - $10 USD 5th Place - $1.37 USD Competition will end 00:00:01 10 Oct 2008 Iraq time +3 GMT My site is pretty new and has a few issues that need to be worked out so if for any reasons I need to freeze the competition I will do so. By freeze I do not mean stop, the competition will resume and will not be canceled. I just want to give notice in case any unforeseeable problems should arise. Have fun and rack up some points by spreading the word! Will my money be well spent? Who knows, it may be advertising dollars well spent it very well may not. It will provide some entertainment while I sit in Iraq though. Good luck.