Site activity

If you own a blog—or a static site that includes comment forms—you know how important comments are. A lack of reader’s feedback can make your blog look “dead.”  This is where domain name giveaways come in handy.

• See what Kat has been doing right here at The WebMaster Blog. It’s an excellent idea that you can adapt to your own sites.
• Before you start giving domain names away to commenters, decide whether you’ll tolerate lame messages like “great post” or not. Make your comment policy clear and easily accessible.
• If your blog or site displays a list of top commenters (many WordPress blogs do), you can choose to reward only those who make it into said list. Remind them that your comment policy still applies, no matter how many comments they post.

Readers’ attention

Are you a fiction writer, poet or artist looking for more feedback? Or do you have a special article you’d love to get more comments on? Yes, you guessed it: you can use free domain names to “bribe” your readers into paying attention to your pieces.

• Do not aim at quantity. If you want true, valuable feedback, remember that quality always comes first.
• Start a review contest. Explain exactly what reviewers should write about. For instance, if you want them to read your novel, have them analyse plot, character development and dialogues. The authors of the best reviews will get free domain names as prizes.
• Decide whether you want both positive and negative feedback or only the former (or maybe only the latter, if you’re brave enough). In case negative reviews are allowed, make sure you’ll have the strength to recognise a  devastating comment as the best of all if it really is.
• Some people have the ability to write convincing reviews on things they’ve just skimmed (yes, it is possible, believe it or not). To make sure your piece has been thoroughly read by those who claim to have done so, you can send them one or two very specific questions by email. Don’t make the questions public, otherwise someone could share the answers with people who may never read what you wrote.

And this is the end … of the “giving free domain names” series, not of The WebMaster Blog! Keep on checking back for more site promotion tips and don’t forget to subscribe to our blog now.

Karen Zara is a full-time writer and blogger. You can read more of her articles at Abaminds Entrepreneurs, a blog for business owners, freelancers and entrepreneurship enthusiasts.

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Link building

Since building links is a major concern for many webmasters nowadays, I chose to start with this topic. Here’s how you can use domain giveaways for link building purposes:

• Create a contest (e. g., “write a blog post about my site”). Domain names will be the prizes.
• Have contestants link to your site or blog. Make sure they use your desired anchor text. If I were you, I’d offer various anchor text options and let each contestant pick their favourite one.
• It may be a good idea to limit participation to webmasters who own sites related to your niche.
• If your contest is a one-shot event, those who don’t get any prizes may simply remove your links or add a no-follow tag to them afterwards. To avoid this, you could run periodic contests, so contestants feel encouraged to keep your links on their sites for longer.

Subscribers and members

Do you want to get more subscribers to your newsletter or RSS feed? Or more members for your forums and membership sites? Domain giveaways can help you a lot:

• Offer free domain names to your most active forum members. Make it clear that only those who write quality posts will be awarded. Unless you really don’t mind having lots of “me too” messages on your boards.
• Ask your blog readers to subscribe to your RSS feed by email. Then compile a subscriber email list and run a draw. The owner of the drawn address will be given a free domain.
• The idea above also applies to newsletters. To ensure that your subscribers will actually open and read your emails, you could have them answer questions about each issue. Only those who sent you correct answers would be entered in your free domain draw.

These tips are enough to keep you busy until I publish the final post in this series. It will show you how free domain name offers can be used to generate more visitor activity on your site. Remember, you won’t miss my future suggestions if you subscribe to The WebMaster Blog.

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Audiences interested in domain give aways

If you own a blog, website or forum in any of the niches below, you’re guaranteed to catch your visitors’ attention whenever you offer free domains:

• General Internet marketing
• Make money online
• Affiliate marketing
• Article marketing
• Ebook writing and selling
• Blogging
• SEO and SEM
• Web hosting
• Domains (duh!)
• Webmaster tips and resources

This should go without saying, but just in case you’re wondering, the reason why domain name giveaways are successful in such niches is the fact that their typical audience already knows the value of a good domain name. So you won’t have to educate anyone. You won’t have to explain why your visitors should care for your offer.

Audiences that may or may not be interested in free domain names

Here are niches whose typical audience isn’t always aware of the importance of domains:

• Small business
• Work-at-Home Moms/Dads
• Anime/Manga

If your site belongs to any of these categories, should you offer free domain names to your visitors? It depends on how educated they are. For instance, some small business owners don’t even realise the importance of a website for their companies. Others are partially or fully engaged in online marketing practices such as SEO and social media. If your typical visitors fall into the latter group, your domain giveaway will likely be successful. So the first step you must take is knowing your audience, really.

Subscribe to The WebMaster Blog so you don’t miss the next post in this series. It will contain some concrete examples of benefits you can obtain when you distribute free domain names.

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