Giving away products to high-profile bloggers can be an excellent way to let people know about your business and what you have to offer. However, if you go about things in the wrong way it can be a minefield full of potential disasters. This guide will show you the various ways you can run such promotions and the risks you might face along the way.
Let’s start with the worst possible scenario.
Ugly blogger giveaways
Earlier in 2013, flower delivery company Interflora was removed from Google searches completely. Although we can’t be entirely certain about why this happened, the overwhelming suspicion is that it was at least partly to do with the blogger giveaways it was running.
For a closer look at what the company was up to, you can read this piece – but generally the problem was this: It was sending products to bloggers and in exchange asking for an article with a link back to its website.
This in itself is a breach of Google’s webmaster guidelines and would have been enough for the company to penalise the Interflora site. However, things were compounded by the fact the bloggers were asked to use exact match anchor text and were often cramming three links into very short posts.
When the penalty hit, Interflora was put in the awkward position of having to contact bloggers to remove or no-follow the links they had put in their posts – something that can often lead to a negative reaction.
This kind of promotion is far more trouble than it’s worth.
The “bad” blogger give-away
Of course, it is possible to run a giveaway that breaches Google’s guidelines without getting caught. You just have to be more subtle about it than Interflora was. Not asking bloggers to use exact match anchor text is a good start, as would be specifying a minimum word length for each post.
However, even if you manage to slip under Google’s radar while doing your giveaway, you could fall foul of the government, depending on their rules on promotions. In the UK, all advertising has to be clearly disclosed and similar rules apply in the USA.
This means that your subtle link building campaign may land you in hot water with regulators, even if Google doesn’t catch you.
It’s also important to remember that bloggers themselves are covered by these regulations, so they may insert “sponsored post” at the top of the article whether you want them to or not. If they then include a followed link back to your site, your tracks become almost impossible to cover and you may end up in trouble with Google anyway.
The “good” blogger giveaway
So how can you run a giveaway that won’t incur the wrath of Google, advertising regulators, or both? The only real answer to this is not to use giveaways as a link building technique and instead focus on PR and traffic generation.
The only truly safe giveaway post is one that is clearly marked as sponsored and features no-follow links. That means your rankings won’t benefit, but if you target high-traffic blogs then you can expect people to click through to your site and they might even become customers.
Offering something for the blogger’s audience, such as a special discount, will help encourage this behaviour.
Of course, you can still run a giveaway as a link building campaign, but it’s important that you understand and accept the risks that go along with doing so. For many firms, playing it safe is increasingly attractive.
The best alternative
If you do want to build links through bloggers and have a budget to spend, then you should also consider running a meet-up. Invite along key bloggers from your niche, show them a good time and maybe make a product announcement. That way, the posts they write afterwards won’t be considered sponsored and neither will any links they might choose to include.
Latest posts by Will Stevens (see all)
- The Good, Bad and Ugly Guide to Blogger Giveaways - October 2, 2013
I got a new WordPress website http://www.mywordpresstricks.com and launched a month ago..starting with few things in here. The reason I’ve contact you give guys is for SEO issue. I know I run a website with similar niche but just trying to clear my few doubts about SEO.Things I use in my WordPress website for SEO• Yoast SEO PluginI have 69 articles out of which almost some articles are very unique and written in my words. Used best of best SEO on page I have all the green ticks for Yoast Plugin before I publish. I use unique hand made pics and unload them. Now the my website On page SEO is as suchhead title : My WordPress Tricks (19 characters)description : Start blogging using My WordPress Tricks, Hacks, Plugins, Themes and SEO tricks. Create your free blog today! (109 characters)robots : noodpkeywords : My wordpress tricks, wordpress tricks, wordpress hacks, wordpress tips, wordpress plugins, wordpress themes, wordpress seo tricks,wordpress tips and tricks,tips for wordpress,tricks for wordpress ( 10 items )The sad part is when I do some random online SEO Tools and says everything is perfect. By when I check the keywords That I used for my website are not doing well. I don’t get traffic at all hardly just 10-30 views a day. Whenever I post a full on page optimized article it’s automatically shared on social media sites like : Google+, Facebook, LinkedIn, stumbledupon, Pinterest, Tumblr, Twitter, Reddit, Path and DiggDigg. However zero traffic!I recently did my homepage current keywords ranking search and here what I get..My wordpress tricks 34, wordpress tricks (not on 100), wordpress hacks (not in top 100) wordpress tips (not in top 100), wordpress plugins (not in top 100), wordpress themes (not in top 100), wordpress seo tricks (not in top 100),wordpress tips and tricks (not in top 100),tips for wordpress (not in top 100),tricks for wordpress (not in top 100) so how am I suppose to get any traffic to my website with this disappointing results.Ive used a keywords in title, description and meta tags..yet no results! Can anyone suggest a good unique meta description and best keywords for my website so it ranks better than other competitors and probably on 1st page or may be 2nd. Would much appreciate if you can help me with this. Desperately waiting for this. Many thanks in advance.P.S : I’ve done all things like keywords research but failed, hence please suggest some good keywords and meta description.
Hi Pratik,
As you have discovered, just publishing an SEO-optimized post does not mean it will rank for anything. If you want your site to take off, you have to attract incoming links from more established sites.
Gail Gardner would love you to read ..How to Connect With Tens of Influencers on Twitter Without Looking Like a Beggar
Thanks for replying. I’m trying focus on Keywords. how do they rank on google search. this takes alot of time. but I hope it will do some tricks. my basic motive is to create unique content, share on social media website, keyword research and of course on page and off page seo. I read your article thanks for sharing. 🙂 I hope you can allow me to write a guest post in here. 🙂 Thanks.
Pratik vyas would love you to read ..5 Killer Tricks To Increase Followers on Facebook Profile
Hi Will, whatever you wrote in your post is indeed true. Giveaways are actually being used as a link to get rankings, but seems like people forget Google is omnipresent. It will not let anyone get the better of it by using a bit of wit. Thanks for the post, it was helpful.
Agree with admin and i also suggest to beginners that, Quality content and quality Back link are two basic way to improve the Rankings. After hummingbird Google also focus on these two things
Hi
I never thought it would make a Giveaways for the blog. Now I know how to do. thanks for tips.
Great tips especially for newbies like me. It’s good to be able to give away freebies to your target audience but I never really thought there are certain giveaways that can get my website into trouble. Thanks for sharing.
Great to hear that this article helped you before you had your website targeted!
I am new to this game and this article is useful for me and it gave me some very useful Google’s guidelines. Specially, it categorizes blogger giveaways into three categories like ugly, bad and Good blogger giveaways.
We always study new guideline and updates for avoid penalization.
Thanks for explaining about this wonderful post. I am new to blogging world and is planning to run a giveaway on my blog. After reading this post i am sure my giveaway will be successful. Cheers
Thanks for explaining about this wonderful post.I am new to blogging world and is planning to host a giveaway on my blog.I am sure this post is going to help me now:)
Great Share Will.. And thank you for sharing about the business dealings of Interflora, and what we all should gather from it. Giveaways should be to attract new readers or customers, and should be giving something of value as a contest
I Completely Agree with this article. Giveaways for the sake of link building is one of the most suicidal moves any person can do. After all, we are just playing by Google’s rules and if Google says that thing is not allowed, we’d best follow.
If not, we can be certain of placing ourselves “at hot waters” as you speak.
Finding a loophole around the system would not be as effective either. One algorithm update later and WHAM, you’re busted.
Its best to play it safe when it comes to Google. I agree with your best Alternative for good giveaways. That way, even Google does not consider what the blogger says or what they links as sponsored by somebody else or as music fans call it, a sell out.
It just does not bode well if people mess around with Google through bad giveaways. keeping mind of the rules and being generally careful online will save a lot of problems when Google comes a knocking.
to know “”The Good, Bad and Ugly”” is very interesting for us as a new bloggers this can make us know more things and avoid so many mistakes that can make us feel so week as well as our post too…. i like so much this ideas that you are share with us here … really thanks so much for sharing it with us ..
This is something that we are aware about. Whether it is a good, bad or ugly giveaways for the sake of Google ranking, I would rather than move on to other major search engines. Google always do regular updates on their Panda, Penguin and the latest one; Hummingbird which I believe bring a disaster to bloggers as well as businesses. Why wasting your effort, time and money while you see the risk clearly. Move on guys!
Hi will
Thanks for explaining about this wonderful post. I never take part in giveaway because I didn’t know very well that how to win that giveaway but your post teach me some thing about these giveaway contests and I agree with you. 😉
Hi Wills,
Thank you so much for sharing with us about Bloggers giveaways,specially mentioning its pros and cons. We were unaware about the bad blogger giveaways and also about the safest giveaway post that is clearly marked as sponsored and features no-follow links.
Good Job 🙂 keep going 🙂
Hi,
Thank You Wills for sharing with us the pros and cons of Blogger giveaways .Many of the points that you said , was unaware to us, specially about how the “bad” blogger giveaways effect us in the business.And the very strong-safe way of building links by giveaway post ,that is clearly marked as sponsored and features no-follow links.
Keep going Wills 🙂 Good Job 🙂
I was never aware that blog giveaways can go so wrong in so many ways. It does not shock me, though, the Interflora example, as I know tens of other examples that have escaped the Google punishment and are still running as such. Thanks for the article!
hi thanks for this post this reminded me of those sort of formulas by which related to this article for bloggers
Agree with will, most blogger make many criticle mistakes like this and this is the main reason why they can’t make money with blogging but apart from that if we follow the right tricks then blogger enjoy is profession
That is a really interesting strategy. I never thought about doing a meet-up inviting other bloggers. But I can see how powerful this can be once you know the right people.
thanks for sharing.
Great info. I never really thought about the SEO impacts of running contests on blogs. I always see them and they usually are being used to build social media likes and shares. I will keep your suggestions in mind if I decide to run any contests on our blog.
I hadn’t considered some of the downsides to this type of promotion – thank you for making me aware. I could see how numerous business owners can shoot themselves in the foot without realizing it. Your suggestions of safe giveaways are helpful.
Hi Will,
I’ve yet to do a blog giveaway….but I’ve seen several people do really well with theirs. When I do decide to do one, I know that your tips will definitely help me out. Thanks for sharing these tips, I hope you have a great day.
Quite an informative article you’ve shared here, with which I have to agree. Having no back links for a sponsored post in blogger giveaways is quite important.
OMG !! I was never aware of these things . Dangers of Giveaways ? But i think now a days lots and lots of bloggers are listing giveaways for people . You have made me to think about this . Thanks for sharing it with us , now i will keep these things in mind . Very helpful post .
Hi Will,
Giveaways used to be one of the most effective ways for link building before InterFlora got penalized. But, what is your opinion about product reviews post ? If blogger receives a product and writes a review about it , will it be a sponsored post because all big Tech blogs keep writing reviews of latest gadgets or travel bloggers reviewing new hotels.
Is it also against google guidelines ?
Thanks
Hi Deep,
I think it would considered as sponsored post, and bloggers should use nofollow links while directing to product site instead of dofollow. This will ensure safety for both blogger and product site.
There are lot of websites which are not following Google guidelines and are not affected by Google penalties but it doesn’t mean that Google won’t catch them. Instead they should be more careful and follow the mentioned guidelines.
Thanks for guiding and sharing the details. Really worth reading your article. The examples you shared will always remind me to stop my mistakes.