PRIZE MONEY

I have tried to figure it out, but I just can’t come up with any answer. How much prize money do I need to offer to attract people to my website contest? When I launched the site three years ago, I set the prize money for the biweekly contests at $50 for funny photos and $10 for cute photos and $500 and $100 for the 6-month bonus prize winners. I had hoped advertisers would cover the cost. However, I have yet to line up any advertisers and thus, must pay the prize money myself.

Last fall, to lower my expenses I cut the prizes for the funny photos to $20 and $200. Unfortunately, since last fall, the number of visitors to my site dropped about 25%. Obviously, I thought, my reduced prizes have also reduced the traffic to my site. And so I’ve been feeling discouraged until yesterday. The winner of the $10 bi-weekly cute-photo contest not only sent me an email to confirm her address, but sent me in CAPTAL LETTERS a very excited thank you. She was absolutely thrilled to win the contest!!

You can imagine my surprise. She won only $10, yet couldn’t have been happier. So the question remains, “How much prize money do I need to offer to attract people to my website contest?”

By Hannah --www.FunnyPhotosContest.com a photo contest for cute or funny photos and photo captions.

LESS TRAFFIC

A year ago, I received an average of 90-100 web site hits a day. And, of course, I was very pleased to have so much traffic. But in the last six months the hits to my site have drastically decreased. I didn’t know fewer people visited my site and feared that maybe my site had simply run its course and its short life was over.

But I heard good news today. I spoke with a woman who has a very successful website business and spends thousands of dollars on Google Adsense. And so, I asked her if she had also had a change in the traffic to her site. “Oh yes,” she replied, “The Internet has been hit just like the Malls whose business have diminished close to 50%.” I certainly didn’t feel any pleasure hearing about the misfortunes of other businesses, but to finally realize I was not alone was very reassuring.

By Hannah --www.FunnyPhotosContest.com a photo contest for cute or funny photos and photo captions.

WEBSITE CRITICISM

When I launched my website, www.FunnyPhotosContest.com, I had expected to make a lot of money. Unfortunately, I have earned almost nothing. And so, my business has turned into a hobby. Yet, I need to keep in mind my viewers on the other hand do see it as a business and so when I receive any criticism I must remember it is business not personal.

Each month, I send an email to all my previous contestants, to invite them to view the new contest. I also allow them to easily remove themselves from my mailing list by simply replying and typing unsubscribe. Nevertheless, I felt a bolt of shock, when one of my rather “loyal” contestants sent an email to unsubscribe and included the comment, “Your contest sucks now!”

Of course I initially felt awful. But I know that successful business owners always strive to keep their customers happy. And so, I sent a reply to tell her I was sorry to hear of her dissatisfaction and to inquiry what prompted her comment. Well you can imagine what a pleasant surprise I received when she apologized. She said, she thought it had been an automated message and never suspected that a real person would read it. She explained the contest had previously been a lot of fun. But now it seemed that fewer people entered the contest and the photos weren’t as funny. In addition, she said she would continue following the contest a little longer and even invite some of her photographer friends to enter.

By Hannah --www.FunnyPhotosContest.com a photo contest for cute or funny photos and photo captions.

SO MANY CHANGES

It probably sounds strange, but the changes to my website, www.FunnyPhotosContest.com since I launched it in June, 2006, really do amaze me. In the beginning, the site consisted of just six pages – the home page, of course, a page for photos, another to display (and update every few days) the current number of votes cast for the photos, one for the winners and another two pages for the contest rules and for submitting photos. At the time it seemed like those six pages were sufficient. What more was needed?

Well, I was wrong. Websites like many other things grow. To begin with, as the number of viewers expanded and the number of photos increased, we decided to add a second photo contest. Instead of only one contest, we felt we should separate the photos into two categories – one for “funny” photos and another for “cute” photos”. So a seventh page appeared on the website.

As the second month of our contest began, we removed the previous months photos and replaced them with the new entries. But it seemed a shame to eliminate all those great photos we had received. And so our “Photo Archive” was born and now each month another page is added to the site. We also started receiving emails from our visitors making suggestions, comments, etc. Why not share these interesting messages with all the viewers, we thought? You guessed it, another option appeared on our navigation bar for “Your Comments.” By now I began wondering how much more could it grow?

Of course, it continued to expand and soon we had a third contest. We offered viewers a chance to create captions for a monthly featured photo. We now had three contests for “funny photos”, “cute photos”, and the “caption contest”. With so many options, we wanted to avoid confusion and produced yet another page, the “Details” page.

As if all these pages are not enough, we have also included a page for links and a page for potential advertisers. It seems to me we now have quite enough. But I thought the same thing a year ago. So I can only say, “Who knows what new pages the future will bring?”

Anniversary

Well, we just celebrated our first anniversary ! A year ago on June 1, 2006, we launched our website, www.FunnyPhotosContest.com. And during the past twelve months, we have experienced an exciting and fabulous year. Hundreds of wonderful and loyal followers have submitted over a thousand wonderful photos.

And although we are certainly pleased with the results, at the same time I must admit, I can’t help feeling disappointed and discouraged. But, of course, it’s my own fault. Like many other entrepreneurs, with grandiose expectations, I had anticipated way too much. After all, YouTube.com receives millions of hits a day and made billions of dollars when Google purchased the site. I simply assumed that like YouTube, FunnyPhotosContest.com might get lucky too!

Of course, YouTube is the exception. As it turns out most sites have only a small number of visitors each day and the quest to increase website traffic plagues an incredible number of website owners. If I were to make up a statistic, I would guess 90% of all website owners, blogers, etc., are not receiving anywhere near the number of hits they would like. And efforts to generate more traffic only bring more frustrations than successes.

Nevertheless, it’s a huge endeavor. If you search Google for the phrase, “increase web traffic”, you will receive 33,400,000 results! Not only that, among those millions of hits, you will find that many clever people have written numerous books, newsletters, etc. on the subject and are greedily raking up nice profits. Guess I missed the boat. I should have written a book instead of creating a website.