Promoting your Giveaways

I recently had a few bloggers ask me what sites I submit my giveaways to, so I thought I would share some tips to submitting giveaways.

Submitting giveaways takes time, so make sure to spend it wisely. Not all sweep websites include giveaways from blogs. So before you submit your giveaway to a website, make sure that the website accepts blog giveaways.  There are a number of websites that list giveaways, and it would take forever and a day to list all your giveaways to these sites, so it’s best to find the sites that bring the most traffic to your site.

You can list your giveaways on the big sites that have thousands of giveaways and thousands of visitors like online sweepstakes.  However, your giveaway may get lost among all the other giveaways.  I list all my giveaways here, because I find it brings me a lot of traffic, it is also very quick and simple to list your giveaway.  I find online sweepstakes is time well spent.

I also like to list my giveaways on sites that include pictures, such as Mom Giveaways.  I find when people can see what they could win, they are more likely to visit and enter.  It can be difficult to get good traffic by explaining what the giveaway is, with a picture people can easily decide if they like the giveaway or not.  With just words, potential visitors may pass over without really reading what the giveaway is.  Just like the old saying “A picture is worth a 1000 words”.

Another option is to list giveaways on others people blogs.  Once a week some blogs post a MrLinky where giveaways can be uploaded to their blog.  Uploading your giveaways on MrLinky is a great idea, but it can take a long time because you need to upload to each giveaway individually to each blog, and there are 100′s of blogs that offer MrLinky.  To try to support all the other blogs, I spread my giveaways around to different MrLinky’s. Once a week I visit a blog or two and upload all my giveaways.  It helps that blogger get more giveaways on their site, and also brings my site to different people each week.

Social networking sites like Twitter are also great places to list your giveaways.  Getting people to retweet the giveaway as an extra entry is also a way to get your giveaway spread amongst many people, it’s quick and easy.  A Facebook Fan Page is another way to advertise your giveaways.  I love my Facebook Fan Page, because I find my readers are very loyal, and visit my website regularly.  It’s not just a Fan Page, it’s a community.

These are just a few of the options that have worked for me.  Spread your giveaways among many sites and using programs like Google Analytics, you can track what sites are bring you the most hits and traffic.  Give each site a fair amount of time before deciding if it is a good fit to list your giveaways.  I find that certain days and topics bring more traffic than others, so make sure to give the website a chance before placing judgement.

Do you have any tips on listing giveaway?

What has or hasn’t worked for you?