Here Comes Elite Retreat 2009

Last year (April 2008) I had the wonderful opportunity of attending Shoemoney’s Elite Retreat in San Francisco. At $5,000 a pop, Elite Retreat is considered by far one of the most expensive Internet marketing conferences on the planet. But is it worth it? An all-star cast of guys like Shoemoney, Aaron Wall, Neil Patel, and Andy Liu spill their “secrets” and definitely make it worth your while.

To be honest with you, my opinion of Elite Retreat is a bit biased because I went completely FREE of charge compliments of a contest held by Rocket Profit and John Chow. If you want to know whether or not a pass to Elite Retreat is worth $5,000, I’m probably not the guy to ask. Regardless, what I can tell you is that Elite Retreat is an amazing time of networking, learning, and reflecting on your business. I had the chance to meet some of the top Internet marketers I’ve looked up to for years and personally formulate my business plan with them one-on-one.

Each of the speakers had a unique story to tell and different pieces of advice to give. For example, we had Guy Kawasaki (venture capital and entrepreneur), Shoemoney (Internet marketing fiend), Aaron Wall (top SEO), Andy Liu (startup man), Neil Patel (social media superstar), Brian Clark (copywriting genius), and Matt Mullenweg (Wordpress founder) all share different perspectives based on their experiences. What sets Elite Retreat apart from the other conferences is its small group setting, which allows you to interact with everyone on a deeper level and share more business strategies. I had the chance to chat with Aaron Wall over a nice steak dinner. And oh yeah, Andy Liu, founder of BuddyTV was sitting to my left. If you’re interested in learning more, be sure to read my full Elite Retreat review.

Elite Retreat 2009 will be held February 18-20 2009 in San Francisco. There is limited seating and the event is expected to sell out fast so get on it soon if you want attend. Many of last year’s speakers will be present including Shoemoney, Neil Patel, and Andy Liu.  Fresh faces to the conference include outspoken wine blogger Gary Vaynerchuk, search expert Stephan Spencer, and Kris Jones of Pepperjam Network.  Shoemoney is even planning an Elite Retreat field trip this time around - including a sweet limobus trip to some top silicon valley tech companies.

What do you think? Would you be willing to shell out $5,000 to attend Elite Retreat?

Posted in Internet Marketing, Reviews | 6 Comments

Internet Marketing Top Blogs - Where Do You Rank?

Yesterday, you may have heard the buzz around the launch of Internet Marketing Top Blogs, the ultimate ranked list of the best Internet marketing blogs in the industry. The list uses a combination of 10 quality metrics that are weighted according to their importance and then combined in a way to give each blog a relative score in points (out of 1,000). IM Top Blogs uses data from Feedburner, Alexa, Compete, Technorati, Google PR, Yahoo links, StumbleUpon, delicious, outgoing links, and user votes to accurately rank each blog on the list.

I know that there are a few similar lists out there, namely the Make Money Online list from Digital Product Reporter and the Power150 from Advertising Age. Although these are fine lists, I’ve always been frustrated by that fact there isn’t a central resource that includes ALL Internet marketing blogs and takes into account a variety of different factors - not just Google PR, Alexa, and Technorati.

IM Top Blogs is my solution to that problem and I hope that you find it immensely useful in finding new blogs, monitoring the industry, and networking with the top players in the field. The goal of the list is to include and rank every blog under the Internet marketing umbrella - including categories like affiliate marketing, blogging, copywriting, Internet marketing, link building, make money online, SEO / SEM, and social media. If you see that I missed a noteworthy blog on the list (including your own), let me know and I’ll put it in.

I’m always working to improve the tool and tweak and algorithm so if you have any suggestions or feedback, simply contact me to let me know.

Winning the Web is currently ranked at #62. Where do you rank?

Posted in Internet Marketing, Winning the Web | 21 Comments

Thank You October 2008 Sponsors

I’d like to use this post to thank all Winning the Web sponsors for the month of October. My blogging wouldn’t be possible without all of your support! If you’d like to advertise your Internet marketing-related product or service on Winning the Web, be sure to check the advertising page for the latest rates.

Thanks to the October sponsors!

• Submit Edge
• T3Leads
• Netklix
• Romow Web Directory
• PublisherRev
• Motive Interactive
• Convert2Media
• Storestacker
• Sheer SEO
• Ranksense
• Net Spray
• Million Dollar Blog Log

Posted in Winning the Web | 2 Comments

What I Learned From Running the Ranksense SEO Launch Contest

The Ranksense SEO Launch Contest was a big success where everyone involved benefited in some way. The Ranksense team recruited new affiliates and made more sales, my readers won some amazing prizes (including an all-expenses paid vacation to the Dominican Republic), and I received a lot of new exposure and subscribers to Winning the Web.

Let’s break down the results of the contest…

In the time frame of the SEO Launch Contest (October 1 - November 2, 2008)…

• The contest post had 1,631 total page views, which only translates to about 49 per day. Not spectacular and I’ll explain why later in this post.
• I generated 37 leads and sales to the Ranksense software as an affiliate and my sub-affiliates generated 45 leads and sales. What does this mean for me? Around $200 in recurring commissions (i.e. I get paid monthly as long as my referrals continue using Ranksense). The payout isn’t as much as I expected from a big event like this, but I’ll take it.
• 70 new subscribers to the Winning the Web email newsletter from the contest page. Again, this is solid but isn’t great considering that my previous huge contest yielded over 500 new subscribers.

Overall, I’m satisfied with the results since running the contest literally cost me nothing. Hamlet Batista, owner of Ranksense, provided all of the awesome (and expensive) prizes and paid for all of the advertising costs - including reviews on John Chow and Shoemoney. I supported Hamlet by organizing and masterminding the contest and ensuring that it ran smoothly. I acted as an evangelist for the Ranksense product and even wrote a couple related posts that made it to the front page of Sphinn (What SEO Software Means For the SEO Community and What Does Sphinn Think About SEO Tools & Software?).

The contest was a great learning experience that helped to increase awareness for Winning the Web. Below are some of my key learnings and takeaways from the promotion.

It’s better to be known for something

Hamlet approached me in September asking me to work with him in setting up an affiliate contest for Ranksense. He liked what I did in my previous contests (especially this one) and thought I was the man to create another buzz-worthy contest. He provided the prizes and I did the rest to promote Ranksense and Winning the Web.

Apparently, it seems that I’ve developed a reputation as “the contest guy” over the past year that I’ve been blogging here. Just recently, John Motson of DNXpert and Joe Tech separately emailed me letting me know that they’re starting new contests inspired by my own efforts. I feel honored to be a contest inspiration.. Ha.

Anyway, being the contest “guru” has helped me to realize that it’s always better to be known for something than to follow everyone else and fit in. No matter how stupid or insignificant it is, it’s always more advantageous to be the best at something than to be mediocre. There’s some food for thought. We could use a circus clown blogger in our niche..  maybe a new career for someone?

Always leverage bigger companies - they’re willing to work with you

The Ranksense SEO contest goes to show that you don’t necessarily need money to run a successful contest promotion. In my case, Ranksense paid for everything - including over $14,000 in prizes and over $1,000 in advertising. Sure, I put up a lot of my own cash in previous contests, but you could easily work with larger companies with deep pockets to help you out. Companies need bloggers to generate buzz and to reach their audiences through trusted figures in the industry. They gladly pay for that and you should always look to leverage their needs for your own benefit.

Don’t be afraid to approach companies and ask them about how you can work together for mutual gain. Just look at Tyler Cruz… he’s worked with Market Leverage to run 4 contests already and the referrals earn him over $4,000 per month!

Promoting an affiliate marketing competition is hard

When I was in the planning stages of the Ranksense contest, I thought nothing of the affiliate marketing component. With the insane high-ticketed prizes, I was sure that the contest would generate buzz and go viral in the SEO and Internet marketing community. Little did I know that affiliate marketing contests are extremely difficult to promote. Why? Because no one wants to talk about the actual contest, they just want to win! The biggest problem I had in getting the word out about my contest was that everyone would talk about Ranksense (to get more referrals) but they wouldn’t talk about or promote the contest (since competition is bad). There’s no reason for people to mention it and it actually hurts their chances of winning by doing so.

The lesson I learned here is that you shouldn’t run an affiliate marketing competition of any sort unless your blog already has a large audience or unless you have a big budget devoted to advertising. The viral marketing potential is naturally low so you have to promote it through your own efforts.

Free trials by themselves aren’t enticing enough

Ranksense offers a free trial to test out the software, but it requires a credit card number to sign up for an account. Believe it or not, this was actually a large barrier to sign ups as many people didn’t want to risk getting charged for something they weren’t going to use. John Chow even offered a free review to a lucky reader who signed up under his affiliate link, but many people were still turned off by the credit card requirement.

What I learned through this observation is that free trials by themselves aren’t enticing enough to attract new customers. People aren’t going to download something for free if they aren’t really interested in it. The credit card barrier proves this point. In your own marketing efforts, remember that generating interest comes before offering any free incentives.

Contests are losing their luster

Earlier this year, I started a few contests and the reception was huge. Hundreds of people participated and the results were enormous. However, these days everyone and their mothers seem to be holding blog contests and contests have lost their luster as a result. No one wants to spend their entire week trying to win prizes from the same old contests copied on thousands of blogs.

I’m going to continue running contests here on Winning the Web - there’s no doubt about it. However, I sense that most people are tired of the same overused promotions and are looking for something new to get involved in. It takes something a lot more unique and creative to get attention these days and that’s what I’ll strive to do.

For everyone who participated, I hope you enjoyed the contest and I hope that you can take a few lessons away from it as I’ve done. Was there anything else that you learned that wasn’t mentioned in this post? I’d love to hear about. Leave a comment!

Posted in Articles, Contests, Internet Marketing | 14 Comments

Revolution 2 Now Live - Free Wordpress Themes

As I mentioned a couple weeks back, Brian Gardner of Revolution Theme is taking a new approach to his Wordpress theme business. He’s going open source. In other words, all of his amazing magazine-style themes are now available to you for FREE.

You might have noticed that Winning the Web uses a customized version of the Revolution City Theme, which is no longer available for sale. Once the old Revolution site was taken down, all of Brian’s previous themes went down with it. In a way, I’m actually glad this happened because it means that my theme is more exclusive and that less people will be using it around the web. Not bad for a $60 investment on my part.

The new Revolution themes simply look amazing. It’s actually pretty crazy that Brian is giving them away for free.

Here are a few of my favorites:

Revolution Black Canvas - This one uses Wordpress as a photo portfolio site. Great for photographers looking to showcase their work.

Revolution Lifestyle - This is actually pretty similar to the theme I’m using here at Winning the Web, but with some added features and vibrant colors.

Revolution Office - The tabbed navigation in this theme is just beautiful. Something like this would work extremely well for an article site.

Revolution TV - Wow, now you can use Wordpress as a video review site. It’s sleek and clean and like nothing I’ve ever seen before on the Wordpress platform.

As you can probably tell, I’m totally a fan of Revolution themes and plan on using them for many of my new sites. It doesn’t get any better than this. I highly recommend you check it out as well.

In case you were wondering how Brian Gardner makes money from his new business, he’s offering support memberships that go along with his free open-source themes. Benefits include unlimited theme support from the Revolution experts, customization techniques with detailed theme tutorials and professional design services.

If you’re looking to customize your Revolution theme, you should get a support membership with it. The Pro Package costs $99.95 per year and the Pro Plus Package offers the same benefits only you get lifetime access for $149.95.

Take a look at the Revolution 2 Wordpress themes.

Posted in Blogging | 15 Comments

6 Crucial Factors to Determine Whether Continuity is Right For Your Business

Do you have continuity in your online business? Last week I talked about why the continuity model makes sense. If you haven’t looked at it yet, now is the time. There are some big advantages of continuity that you may not have realized before. For example, did you know that with continuity you get continuous cash flow, long term profits, lower price points, more efficiency, higher conversion rates, and higher perceived value?

Sounds enticing, right?

Well, although its many benefits, it’s important to note that continuity is not for every niche or market. There are some critical factors that determine whether or not the continuity model is appropriate for a particular audience. If you’re looking to incorporate continuity into your business, be sure to look at the list below.

6 Crucial Factors - Is Continuity Right For You?

Need for ongoing support - will they be around in a few months?
First and foremost, a continuity program or membership site automatically assumes that there is a need for ongoing support. Without it, the continuity model would fail miserably in your business. What do I mean? Say for example that there are 2 membership sites - one for fixing a car engine and another for learning how to play the guitar. Which is better? In this case, learning guitar is a much better market for continuity because playing the guitar is a lifetime journey and requires ongoing support. On the other hand, fixing a car engine is a one time ordeal. If you want to create continuity, be sure that you’re working in a market that supports it.

Year-round sales - will they be interested once the season is over?
One of the main benefits of continuity is that you constantly accumulate new members and build on your current customer base. However, in order for this to happen, your business needs to support year-round sales. Seasonal markets are not conducive to continuity because they kill momentum and require that you start from scratch every new period. Continuity programs on snow sports and the summer Olympics, for example, are not optimal. Find a market where you can build upon your efforts without having to worry about seasonal factors.

Online market - can they be reached via the Internet?
This is more of an obvious factor, but does your business cater to people online? The majority of people in developed countries are connected and using the Internet on a daily basis these days. However, many continuity programs and membership sites are technology-heavy and require that users be savvy online. For example, a membership site targeting visually impaired senior citizens probably won’t see much action. Search online for related online websites, blogs, and forums to see if your target market is reachable online.

Market with passionate/desperate people - how bad do they want you?
People who join continuity programs or membership sites are usually deeply interested in the subject matter at hand. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be investing so much time and money into it. If you want to start a successful continuity program for your business, it’s important to work in a market full of these passionate and/or desperate people. Niches like fitness, self improvement, business, finance, and hobbies are lucrative for this very reason. For instance, a woman desperately trying to get into shape, a passionate musician, and a businessman trying to take his income to the next level are great candidates to join membership sites.

Unique angle or story - why should they care about you?
Everyone loves a good story - they’re fun and engaging and help people to connect on a deeper level. Continuity programs are essentially relationships with your customers and you’re much more likely to get their attention and keep them on board if you have a unique selling proposition and a story to tell. If you’re in the “make money online” niche you can describe the struggles you’ve overcome to reach the income levels you’re at today. If you’re in the fitness niche you can show your before and after photos and leverage them as living proof that your methods work. Maintaining a successful continuity program requires that you work in a market where you can tell your unique story and engage your members.

Magazines in your market - is there money to be made?
The final factor in determining whether or not your market is ripe for continuity is to look at the existing magazines in your niche. Most magazines already use the continuity model via subscriptions and the existence of trade publications usually means that there is money to be made in that market. For more info, be sure to read my article on how to use magazines as a market research tool for your sites.

So what do you think? What’s your market and how does continuity fit in? Be sure to leave a comment below.

Posted in Articles, Internet Marketing | 31 Comments

Ranksense SEO Launch Contest Winners

After a full month of promoting the Ranksense SEO Launch Contest, it has finally come to a close. Hopefully you’ve all had a chance to try it out and optimize your sites for the search engines using the software.

The contest was a big success, attracting new customers and affiliates to the Ranksense SEO software and new subscribers to the Winning the Web newsletter. There were 50+ people who actively participated by downloading the Ranksense trial and blogging about the product.

Without further adieu, here are the winners…

Affiliate Marketing Competition

After John Chow offered his readers a chance to win a free $500 review on his blog for trying the Ranksense SEO software, he quickly led the competition with 19 referrals in a single day. However, Daniel Scocco of Daily Blog Tips stole the win in the last week by writing a post on his popular blog and engaging in an efficient paid search campaign. Congrats Daniel! (and sorry John).

1st Place Winner: Daniel Scocco of Daily Blog Tips - 20 referrals
An all expense paid, 7-day trip for 2 to La Romana, Dominican Republic

2nd Place Winner: John Chow of John Chow dot com - 19 referrals
Panasonic Viera 50-Inch 720p Plasma HDTV

3rd Place Winner: Donna Fontenot of SEO Scoop (6 referrals)
PlayStation 3 80 GB Metal Gear Solid 4 Pack

Random Draw

There were over 2,000 entries into the random draw portion of the contest including existing newsletter subscribers. Basically what I did was enter all participants into a spreadsheet followed by the number of entries they had. The higher the number of entries, the higher the chances of winning. Using the random number generator, here are the 2 winners I came up with…

1st Place Winner: Brian Weaver of Prof Web Marketing
Apple MacBook Air 13.3 Inch Laptop - 1.6 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo Processor, 2 GB RAM, 80 GB Hard Drive

2nd Place Winner: David Schloss of The Daily Dollar Report
Apple iPod touch 16 GB 2Gen

Congrats to all the winners! And thanks for taking part in another successful Winning the Web contest. Better luck next time for everyone else.

Posted in Contests | 24 Comments

Why the Continuity Model Makes Sense For Your Internet Business

What do I mean by continuity? A continuity program is anything that requires you to pay on a recurring basis to access a product. Magazine subscriptions, membership sites, pay-for-access tools, and product-of-the-month clubs are all examples of solid businesses that use the continuity model. If you think about it, a continuity program has huge potential; you’re continually paid even after creating a product and making a sale. There are opportunities to incorporate continuity into almost every business. It’s just a matter of realizing the potential, coming up with a new idea that will lure people in, and executing a proper strategy.

I’m currently focusing on building membership sites mainly because I love the continuity business model. There are many reasons why it’s beneficial and makes sense, especially for independent webmasters. I’ve listed out some of the advantages below.

6 Reasons why continuity makes sense for your business

1. Continuous cash flow & long term profits
One of the biggest concerns of most Internet entrepreneurs is sustaining a level of cash flow that can carry them through month to month. Sure, a new project might be successful this month, but what happens next month with new projects? Most people prefer to be tied to corporate desk jobs mainly because of the financial security that jobs provide. Getting a salary paycheck every couple of weeks means that there is a steady flow of cash coming in regardless of new projects.

Well what if I told you that you could get the best of both worlds - to be an entrepreneur who is paid on a continual basis? The continuity model provides that solution. By charging customers for access, you’re essentially increasing your cash flow for the long term - which is crucial in times of economic recession.

For example, say that you have a membership site that costs $57 per month. With an average member base of just 50 people, you’re set to make $2,850 every single month. That’s not bad at all.

2. Lower price point means more customers
Another benefit of continuity is that you can sell your products at a lower price point, knowing that you’ll profit from recurring membership fees. Lower prices mean more customers, which will then lead to huge long term profit potential.

As an example, many of the big Internet marketing product launches feature packages that cost in the thousands of dollars. This is a huge barrier for many potential customers and they’re ultimately unable to invest in the product. However, say that the product was turned into a continuity membership site instead that cost $97 per month to access. Wouldn’t that bring in more customers? Not only will you make up the cost in volume, but you’ll also receive recurring fees that will increase profit margins even more. PPC Classroom is a recent launch that followed this model with great success. They went on to do $1 million in sales from a $77 + $22/month membership site in just a week. Crazy! That just goes to show you the power of continuity. Smaller recurring fees (rather than a big lump sum) means more customers who pay you over a longer period of time.

3. Do work once, get paid forever
Are you tired of constantly writing blog posts and thinking of new ideas to generate income for your business? The beauty of membership sites and continuity programs is that you essentially do the work once, and get paid for it forever. Think about it. You can either work yourself to death constantly producing content so that you can sell advertising against it or you can produce premium content once and sell access to it forever. Which would you rather do?

Continuity programs significantly increase your efficiency - you create a product or idea, market it to gain subscribers, and move on to new projects that interest you. Unlike blogs and service-oriented businesses, continuity programs can run themselves without needing you to be there all the time. By setting up a continuity program now, you could be paid 2 years down the line for work you do today.

4. Easier to sell to existing customers
You know how the saying goes… It’s easier to sell to existing customers than it is to obtain new ones - and it’s very true. Continuity programs are effective because that’s exactly what you’re doing - selling to existing customers. If people like what you have to offer and think that it’s valuable, they’ll continue to pay for it on a recurring basis. Your product is essentially your marketing and you’re developing a strong relationship with your customers in the process.

Since current customers are more likely to continue than new prospects are to sign on, lead generation costs are significantly decreased. You can then take the higher profit margins and invest in new marketing channels that will bring in more people to the continuity funnel - which will lead to a snow ball effect for profits.

5. People are willing to pay for updates & community
So far, we’ve mostly discussed the benefits of a continuity model for you, the Internet business owner. But how is continuity advantageous for consumers? Do they really want it? The answer to that question is yes. People are willing to pay for exclusive cutting edge products that are frequently updated and kept up to date. For example, SEOmoz PRO is a member’s only area that provides the best tools and resources related to SEO. Marketers want to pay for access because it gives them a competitive advantage - something that wouldn’t be possible if everything was publicly available for free.

In the same way, there’s a need for continuity programs in almost every niche imaginable. Marketers want access to the latest tools and tactics, day traders want insider information and expert advice, shoppers want to know about the best deals, and students of any topic want convenience and ease of information. People want this kind of stuff and are willing to pay for it. The possibilities with membership sites and continuity programs are endless.

6. Exclusivity = higher quality, better branding & increased demand
By nature, continuity programs are exclusive because they require recurring payment. Someone who doesn’t have $50+ to spare every month won’t be allowed to join. This weeding-out process naturally ensures that everyone involved is serious and significantly increases both the real and perceived quality of the program. What does this mean for you? First of all, the continuity means that everyone involved in your program is serious about your product and is considering staying with you for the long term. This increases the community aspect of your site as well as your branding; your program essentially becomes a high quality hub in your niche. That in turn increases demand and thus your membership levels and profit.

If you take a look at all of the successful continuity programs on the web, they’re all very exclusive with a tight-knit community. For example, SEO Book, SEOmoz Pro, and Teaching Sells are all very high quality Internet marketing membership sites that follow this model.

Does your Internet business utilize a continuity program? If not, you’re probably leaving a lot of income on the table. Now that you know about all of the benefits, it’s time to figure out how can you successfully incorporate continuity into your current sites.

I recently discovered Ryan Deiss’ Continuity Blueprint, a marketing course that outlines everything you need to know about membership sites and continuity. The price is pretty steep ($1,997) but if you’re serious about the model, I suggest you at least take a look at what it has to offer. I bit the bullet and paid for it, but I know that it’ll pay off once I implement the strategy. Be sure to watch Ryan’s continuity videos if you haven’t already. There’s a lot to be learned from those alone.

What do you think? Are you ready to use continuity to improve your business? Tomorrow, I’ll be going over the niches that work best with continuity as well as a few examples of continuity programs. Be sure to subscribe to the RSS feed and check back for the post.

Leave a comment below. Your feedback is much appreciated!

Posted in Articles, Internet Marketing | 26 Comments

Winning the Web on Alltop - A New Milestone?

By now, I’m sure you’ve at least heard of Guy Kawasaki’s latest online project, Alltop. Alltop is an “online magazine rack of popular topics” that updates stories every hour from the RSS feeds of popular blogs around the net. Most important categories are included and sorted in alphabetical order and the concept is pretty much the same as that of popurls.

Technically speaking, Alltop is super simple and can easily be replicated by any web geek working in a basement. All it really does is aggregate RSS feeds and display recent stories in each category. In fact, when I saw Guy at the Elite Retreat in San Francisco, he confirmed that the site only cost a few thousand dollars to create and run. You can probably hire someone on elance to create something similar for you.

Before you start bashing on Alltop, it’s important to note that aggregators are valuable to visitors. People appreciate convenience and will reward sites that provide it. For example, Google search simply organizes content on other websites and now it’s a $100 billion business.  In the same way, Guy is looking to leverage other people’s content and monetize the traffic.  Minimal expenses, almost no effort, and a pretty good flow of income.  That’s pretty ingenious if you ask me.

The business model is very interesting, but I wouldn’t recommend starting a similar site unless you enjoy uphill battles. Guy is a well-known venture capitalist and has a huge network of contacts that he was able to utilize and bring Alltop exposure. Most people wouldn’t be very receptive to another copycat entering the market unless you have a new unique angle.

That being said, I bribed asked Guy to include Winning the Web in the Blogging category. Here it is…

I guess that’s confirmation that I kick ass. Unfortunately, there are over 50 blogs included and Winning the Web is listed last. In 1 week’s time, there haven’t been any referrals to WTW from Alltop and I would imagine that most tech-savvy audiences probably wouldn’t use Alltop on a regular basis.

Is your blog listed on Alltop?

Posted in Internet Marketing, Winning the Web | 22 Comments

Just 6 Days Left in the Ranksense SEO Launch Contest

The Ranksense SEO Launch Contest is quickly coming to a close in just 6 days and there are still a lot of opportunities for you to win over $14,000 in awesome prizes. In case you missed out on the original contest post, the top prizes include an all-expenses paid 7-day vacation to a luxury villa in the Dominican Republic, a Panasonic Viera 50-Inch Plasma HDTV, PlayStation 3, Apple MacBook Air, and an Apple iPod Touch.

Random Draw Update

How do you win? Easy. The contest features a random draw portion where all you have to do is sign up for the Winning the Web newsletter, try the Ranksense free trial, or review the Ranksense SEO software. On November 3rd, we’ll pull a random winner based on all of the entries.

At the time of this writing, there are only about 50 people participating so your chances of winning a Macbook Air or iPod Touch at this point are actually quite high…

Affiliate Marketing Update

The second part of the contest involves affiliate marketing for the Ranksense product. The top 3 affiliates who generate the most referrals (including free trials) in a single day between October 1 - November 2, 2008 will win the free vacation, plasma TV, and Playstation 3.

Think you don’t have a chance? Think again. Here are the top 3 affiliates so far.

• 1st Place: John Chow - (17 referrals on Oct. 15)
• 2nd Place: Tie between Donna Fontenot (4 referrals on Oct. 6 ) & Shoemoney (4 referrals on Oct. 25)
• 3rd Place: Kevin Muldoon (3 referrals on Oct.9)

There’s still a ton of opportunity for someone to step in and take away the prizes. 4 referrals in 1 day is not a lot. 17 referrals is a little bit more difficult to beat, but do you really want John Chow to win an all-expenses paid vacation to the Caribbean??

Take a look at the contest post and be sure to participate before the week is up.

Posted in Contests | 10 Comments

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