Blog Contests: What They Are and How to Find Them

How to Get Started Winning Prizes from Bloggers

Image of a Keyboard that Reads "Blog"
Blog Contests Are an Underrated Way to Win Prizes.

 Image (c) Peter Dazeley / Getty Images

Blog contests are often overlooked as a way to win prizes. Many blogs offer fun giveaways with far less competition than most online sweepstakes. Plus, blogs that you enjoy will usually give away prizes you are sure to love since they try to gear their prizes to suit their audience. Parenting blogs usually give away prizes for parents, video game blogs often give away video games and game consoles, and so on.

If you aren't entering blog contests yet, here's how to get started.

What Are Blogs?

The word "blog" is a shortcut for "weblog", the original name for journaling online. The first blog, which belonged to an American journalist, went online in 1994. Originally, blogs were little more than online diaries.

Today, however, blogs serve both personal and business purposes, and both types of blog can earn good money for their owners if they bring in enough readers. Many bloggers run giveaways, or blog contests, to help promote their writing and bring in more traffic.

Many companies are often eager to give away prizes to a successful blog. Popular blogs can have millions of readers, making them an attractive platform to spread the word about a product. So it's a great marketing match-up.

Blogs and sweepstakes go well together. Bloggers attract new readers when they hold giveaways, companies build buzz about their products at a low cost and with low risk, and sweepers get chances to win prizes, often with very good odds.

How to Enter Blog Contests

Blog contests use various methods to collect entries. Here are three of the most popular:

Leave a Comment to Enter

Many blogs let their readers leave comments on their posts. In many cases, that's how you enter the blog contest. The blog post that tells you about the contest will ask you to leave a comment voicing an opinion, choosing a favorite product from the company providing the prize, or just saying you want to enter.

Pay attention to the instructions to make sure that you:

  • Don't get disqualified for not posting what you're supposed to.
  • Give the sponsor a way to contact you if you win.

Enter by Filling Out an Entry Form

Sometimes, blog contests work just like other online contests: They ask you to fill out an entry form. They either embed the form in their post or they include a link that brings you to the form.

Use an App Like Rafflecopter

Many blog contests use a program called Rafflecopter to manage their sweepstakes. With a Rafflecopter account, you can easily sign in to these giveaways.

These kinds of blog contests give extra entries for performing various actions, like referring friends, leaving comments, or following partner blogs.

Where to Find Blog Contests

Of course, if you follow blogs that often run contests, you'll know when there's a new chance to win. But what if you want to enter even more? There are a lot of blog contests running at any time, and not every sweepstakes directory lists them. So how can you find blog contests to enter? Here are some ideas:

Sweepstakes Advantage's Blog Contest Section

Sweepstakes Advantage (SA) is a large sweepstakes directory that offers a blog contest section. If you want to spend some time concentrating on blog giveaways, going straight to that section will let you scan the available giveaways for the prizes you want to enter and win, saving you time.

You can also use the SA website to track your entries and to see how popular contests are with other sweepers.

Contest Girl's Blog Sweepstakes Section

Contest Girl has a blog sweepstakes section with opportunities to win. You can add the giveaways that interest you to your own "My Sweepstakes" list, which is helpful for tracking the sweepstakes you've entered and for marking giveaways that you want to revisit to enter daily.

Giveaway Promote Lets Bloggers Announce Sweepstakes

Giveaway Promote is a site that lets bloggers spread the word about their contests. It's intended only for blog giveaways, and bloggers can pay additional money to have their contests featured.

It offers search options that let you filter by prize type, entry method, the number of people who have already entered, and more. You can also filter based on your location: US, Canada, or Other Locations.

Blog Contests on Contest Canada

Contest Canada offers a selection of blog contests to enter. While the site is geared toward Canadians, some of the contests are open to residents of the United States and other countries. They use handy icons to show which countries are eligible to enter, so it only takes a moment to scan them.

Follow Your Favorite Bloggers

When you find blog contests that you want to enter, be sure to take the time to check out the blogs behind them. If you like the content, follow them (signing up for emails or following on social media are good ways to do this, and it might even earn you extra entries into the contest).

Not only does following the blog encourage the blogger to hold more contests, but it also helps you be among the first to hear about new giveaways in the future.

Ready to Give Blog Contests a Try?

Entering blog contests is a lot of fun, and you can find interesting new sites to read while you win prizes. Why not give it a shot right now?