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How to Create a Giveaway Contest that Drives Traffic to Your Site?

What do you do when traffic to your website is slowing down?

It can be difficult to get more traffic to your site. You need to find ways to get people excited to visit your website and engage with you.

What can you motivate your audience with? Try something that is rewarding and interesting.

Like a giveaway contest!

You can create giveaway contests to give your audience the chance to win something. This creates an incentive for people to visit your website and give you their email.

Using contest giveaways is a surefire way to bring more traffic to your website. Here’s what you need to know about planning a contest giveaway that will boost your site traffic.

1. Benefits of creating a giveaway contest

While doing a giveaway benefits your audience, it also works to help you. Here are the major benefits of using contest giveaways:

  • Getting more leads: Giveaways convince people to submit their emails because they have a chance to win something. You’ll soon have an email list with leads you can target.
  • Increasing traffic: You can direct people to your website with a giveaway contest. A giveaway can also build curiosity about your business.
  • Building brand awareness: Contest giveaways always get people’s attention. It’s the perfect opportunity to build brand awareness. Use your logos and brand colors with your giveaway.
  • Selling more products: A contest giveaway creates the opportunity to build your brand and get leads. This will increase sales for your business.
  • Increasing social media followers: Using contest giveaways helps increase the followers on your social media pages. With the right tools, you can automate this by using social media buttons for participating. You can create social media buttons that let them follow your page and enter the contest at once.
  • Creating a buzz about a new launch: Contest giveaways are great for promoting a launch. Website and product launches already generate interest. Giving people the opportunity to win something raises the level of excitement. This can make the launch more successful.
  • Increasing your email subscriptions: Giveaways can help blogs grow. You can get more email subscribers when people know that you are offering something that interests them. Using contest giveaways is a great promotional tool.

Using giveaways can increase excitement and generate a buzz. It’s a fun way to get more traffic to your website. A great example of this is a case study on a fine food company that used a multi-tiered giveaway to get a 288% increase in traffic.

2. Choose a great prize to giveaway

You want to create a prize that your audience will value. A great prize is also the perfect opportunity to showcase your brand as well. This can lead to more buzz about your business online and through word of mouth. Here are several great ideas for prizes that you can give away.

  • A useful item with your brand on it like a mug, calendar or T-shirt
  • Access to your software or solution for a month, year or for a lifetime
  • Gift coupons for an online store or restaurant
  • A travel package if you work for the travel industry
  • A cash prize or a gift card
  • A spa experience
  • An informative ebook, checklist, or report

For example, it makes sense for Bloomsbury Publishing to give away a signed copy of a newly released book.


Choose a giveaway that makes sense for your business. You want to offer a prize that helps your audience while showcasing your strengths.

3. Create the contest with RafflePress on WordPress

Creating a contest giveaway is quick and easy on WordPress with a plugin like RafflePress.

Making an online giveaway can seem like a daunting process especially for businesses that do not have web development skills.

RafflePress removes the need for programming or development knowledge and anyone can create an online contest in a few easy steps.

Here’s how you do it:

A) Get on your WordPress dashboard and install RafflePress

You can download RafflePress from the plugin repository. Once downloaded, activate it and you should find it in your menu.

B) Upgrade to a premium version for full features

To get all the advantages of RafflePress it’s necessary to upgrade to a premium version. You will get access to features such as complete design options, integrations, and more.

C) Enter your license to active your subscription

Once you have upgraded your account, you’ll find your license details on your dashboard under Overview. Copy your license key to verify it with your plugin. Go to your WordPress dashboard. Find Settings under RafflePress. You can enter the license key under the General tab.

D) Get started! Click ‘Add New’ to create a new giveaway

It’s that simple. Hover to the RafflePress icon in your menu and click Add New.

E) Choose a template

RafflePress offers just about every type of template you need. Choose between a classic giveaway template or a viral template that works on different social media platforms. First, give your campaign a name. Next, select your template by clicking ‘Use This Template’

F) Fill in the details asked

After choosing your template, you will find yourself on the Setup tab. All you have to do is to give details such as the name of the campaign, start and end dates and other relevant details.

G) Add actions

Under Setup you can add actions for different platforms. These actions direct the user to follow you on social media. You can also choose an email optin or a refer-a-friend action. Add as many actions as you like for your campaign.

H) Make it look good using the design options

This is where you customize your contest giveaway. RafflePress lets you change images, the background color, fonts, and the call to action button. You can make a great-looking giveaway campaign in no time!

I) Finalize rules and other settings

You can also create a giveaway rules section that has all the important details. On your RafflePress dashboard, click on Settings then Giveaway Rules. Click on Generate Rules which will bring up a form. Fill in the information about sponsors, locations, address and company.

J) Publish!

Once you’re done with selecting all the options you need, you can publish. You can publish in three different ways.

  • You can use a RafflePress block to add the giveaway to a post or page.
  • Use shortcodes and paste it in posts, widgets and pages.
  • Create a Giveaway landing page.

There are many things you can do to create a great campaign. Use an attractive design and create great content. Use high-quality images and short but emotionally charged words. Create excitement with content.

Use appropriate hashtags on social media for the best visibility. Target the right crowd by gearing your giveaway towards people who are interested in your domain. Also, promote your giveaway to different platforms like forums, community pages, and blogs.

4. Promote your contest

Once your contest is live it’s very important to start promoting it. You can draw attention to your giveaway with these contest promotion ideas.

  • Share on social media: Even if you have an amazing contest giveaway, it won’t reach anyone if you don’t reach out. Share your campaign on your social media pages. You can also post to different groups interested in your area of work.
  • Send it to your email list: People on your email list will be interested in your giveaway. It is likely that they are already familiar with your business. Sharing your giveaway contest with them gives them an opportunity to get something of value.
  • Work with influencers: Influencers have followers who trust them. You can reach out to a large number of people effectively by working with influencers.
  • Collaborate with complementary blogs: You don’t have to share your contest giveaway only on your website. You can collaborate with other websites that complement your product. For example, a WordPress theme development business and a hosting platform can collaborate to promote a giveaway.

5. Choose a winner and announce

Once the end date of the contest giveaway is over, you want to announce the winner.

You can use RafflePress to make it fair when you select a winner. It can randomly pick a winner for you.

Once you have your winner, you can contact them to let them know. You can also request them to share their win on social media. This works on the principle of social proof and gets more people to trust you.

6. Check analytics for outcomes and to see if you’ve reached your goals

It is always useful to go back and find out if you have achieved your goals.

RafflePress allows you to link with Google Analytics. This will give you detailed insights about how users interacted with your campaign. You can use it to gauge how successful your giveaway was.

Such data will allow you to tweak future campaigns for greater success. It can also tell you a lot about the demographics you should target. This makes your future campaigns more precise and effective, which can drive traffic to your site. To track traffic across your WordPress site, you can add Google Analytics to WordPress.

An effective and affordable way to boost traffic

Contests appeal to everybody. A great contest can make people more willing to engage with you. It can help you get more visibility, more followers and more traffic to your site.

Using the right tools for a giveaway makes a difference to your success. It is important to make an attractive, well-written giveaway that gives something of value to the right audience.

Giveaway contests will help you grow your eCommerce website or blog. It’s a proven way to get more traffic to your website.

The Author

Syed Balkhi is the founder of WPBeginner, the largest free WordPress resource site. With over 10 years of experience, he’s the leading WordPress expert in the industry. You can learn more about Syed and his portfolio of companies by following him on his social media networks.

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