Crazy for Comments Cash Giveaway
News and Updates at Site Sketch 101
Comments are like the life-blood of a blog. They represent the interaction between the author and it’s readers.
In an effort to build that relationship between myself and the readers here at Site Sketch 101, I’ve decided to launch a contest that rewards users for leaving feedback. On August 1, 2009, I will reward six participants by giving away one prize of $50 cash, one prize of $25 cash, one prize of $10 cash, and three prizes of $5 cash.
Leave a comment on any post at Site Sketch 101 between now and the last day of July and you’ll be entered to win this month’s contest.
Each comment is another entry so the more comments you leave, the greater your chances of winning! With six winner’s you’ve got a huge chance of winning this thing so go ahead and get involved!
Contest Rules & How To Play
Every comment you leave will be another entry into the contest. You may leave up to a maximum of five non-consecutive, non-spam comments per post that will count towards the drawing.
Non-consecutive simply means that two comments in a row on the same post will only count as one. If you leave a comment, and then someone else leaves a comment, and then you add your second comment they will count as two entries. Multiple comments on the same post must be separated by other people’s feedback in order to count as multiple entries.
Non-spam simply means that it needs to be on topic and more than five words. I’ll use my judgment to determine what I think is legitimate and what I think is spam.
You may comment on any article on the site and your comments will count as entries in this contest.
The contest will end at midnight on the last day of July 2009 and a winner will be announced on August 1.
Arisu said:
Now, with 123 suscribers you´re going to be crazy with comments XD But I guess some people who haven´t leave comments around would give it a shot now. I know I would… if I weren´t so chatty already.
Anyway, good luck with the contest, good luck to all suscribers and good luck to me too ^^
Ruchi said:
This is a fantastic idea to increase the user base, i liked the concept, i will give this a try.
Jeff B. said:
Great idea… let the comments come! What a way to get the drive-by’s to participate!
Melissa said:
What a great idea! I like this!
SL said:
Thank you for the giveaway.
SL said:
The last comment was not more than 5 words. Oops. Thank you – I really appreciate the giveaway.
Diane C said:
This sounds like lots of fun. I’ll be stopping by again. Good luck to all the participants.
Jerry Russo said:
I guess this is a good place to start learning about blogging.
I’m a novice and I like to win contests.
Mike said:
Sounds like a great idea – see it got me to comment.
Michele H said:
Sounds and looks like a good resource. I will be back to check it out some more when I have time for more than a *fly-by*. Thank you for the time and effort you put in making this site.
InternethoeBlog said:
Well, I always wanted to say that your blog has a great design. Well this post definetly encouraged me.
Nicholas Z. Cardot said:
Thanks everyone for the awesome responses on here.
Speaking of fly-by’s, I have read that on average about 95% of blog readers never actually leave comments or interact with the author in any way.
I want this site to break that norm. I want to communicate with each of you and answer your questions, share advice with you, or hear your advice.
This contest is my attempt to get the ball rolling in that direction!
Thanks so much to all of you and best of luck!
Melissa said:
Another entry!
Arisu said:
Nicholas>>
Well, I guess some readers are just too shy even online… also, you seem a very aproachable author… unlike many bloggers around. That´s another thing I like about this blog.
Melissa>> That doesn´t count! Rules say: 5 words at least or is SPAM… now you have to bring the bread to make sandwiches with it.
Nicholas Z. Cardot said:
Arisu » Thanks. I definitely want to be thought of as an approachable person. I personally love being able to communicate with people and learn together about blogging and things like that.
Melissa » She’s right! I’m gonna leave it on there because I think it’s cute, but I can’t count it in the contest. The rules are clear! Sorry.
Arisu said:
Arisu>> Well, you´re doing a great job on that! And I am learning a lot about bloggin, altough I´m still unsure about making my own.
P.S. I´m a Girl ^^ Don´t I write like one?
Nicholas Z. Cardot said:
Arisu » Oh no. I feel so bad. I’m sorry. I’m going to go edit that comment right now so that it says she. I feel like a dog.
You should go to gravatar.com and set up an avatar so that it will appear at this blog and other blogs like it.
Arisu said:
Nicholas>>
Don´t worry XD Weird thing is… that´s the line that made me meet my bofriend, I still bother him about it ^^
And thanks! I didn´t know how all of you had avatars, I thought it had somwthing to do with having your own blog
Nicholas Z. Cardot said:
Arisu » Gravatar.com is a cool resource because it allows you to register your email address (they don’t ever email you) and then whenever you leave a comment on a gravatar enabled blog and you drop your email address in the email field then your avatar automatically shows up!
You met you boyfriend like that!? How funny.
Arisu said:
Awesome! ^^ You forgot to mention that Gravatar pays/doesn´t pay you for each registration you deliver.
And yeah, I met my boyfriend on an online forum and he started talking to me by saying: “are you a boy or a girl? Cause you write like a boy” … talking about weird pick-up lines -_-U
Nicholas Z. Cardot said:
Arisu » Gravatar pays for new registrations? I didn’t know that, but I still highly recommend their service. I really enjoy it. If they do pay it wouldn’t bother me to still promote it on here because it is a service that I believe in. I’ll check that out to see if I can get in on that….checking now…as far as I can tell there is no way to get paid by recommending Gravatar. I don’t make anything by recommending them.
The Gooroo @ Finance Advisory Stop said:
Nicholas,
Great idea for a contest. I’ll be commenting
Nicholas Z. Cardot said:
The Gooroo » Thanks! I believe that comments are the life-blood of a blog and I need to do whatever I can to encourage people to feel comfortable and leave feedback here at Site Sketch 101.
Jeff B. said:
24th.
Funny, huh? In all seriousness, I think it’s already working. 24 Comments in less than 24 hours ain’t bad at all for a blog less than 5 weeks old.
Congratulations!
Nicholas Z. Cardot said:
Jeff B. » Thanks Jeff and good luck!
George Serradinho said:
Wow, another small contest. This is surely to get all those subscribers of yours buzzing on your site.
Lets us know maybe the average number of comments per post once you started this contest, would like to know.
Nicholas Z. Cardot said:
George Serradinho » I sure will. I’m sure you saw my ‘Looking Back at the First 30 Days’ post. I’ll be posting another one at 60 days. My email subscriber count went up 10 on Wednesday this week when I launched this contest. You’ll see that reflected whenever the number of subscribers at the top updates…probably in a few hours. That’s more than any other single day during that last contest where I was trying to get subscribers!
I’ll be sure to post about what the average of comments per post and the average of comments per day have been during the contest as well!
Mona Lisa said:
Hello, Worldstart told about this site, so I thought, why not. They are always so good about neat and cool sites. I’m glad I did, I really would like to Blogg, I think, lol, as am not sure how to go about it. I need an outlet and maybe this is one way to start. So will continue to read and see what I need to learn and about Blogging, any help from anyone would be so very appreciated. Thanks and good luck to you and all your bloggers, Mona Lisa
Nicholas Z. Cardot said:
Mona Lisa » Thanks for coming by. I’ll be sure to start posting some more articles for beginning bloggers. You’ve revealed to me that there is a definite need to teach people how to start blogging and how to start out STRONG! I’ll try to put some information out soon on this.
Arisu » That would be pretty crazy! Just remember that comments on any posts count toward the contest not just comments on this one. The only restrictions are the spam restrictions, the non-continuous restriction, and the start and end dates. Otherwise people can just go comment crazy on here!
Arisu said:
Nicholas>>
Just kidding, some people write things like that when recomending something :3
Now, I thought I would find like 100 comments this morning… maybe by the end of the month?
Good luck with the contest!
Arisu said:
Nicholas>>
I´d love to read about how to start bloggin, specially to an specific audience.
And yeah, I knew that already. But everyone keeps commenting on this post only!
Melissa said:
Another entry for me!
Arisu said:
Melissa>>
Uh, did you read the rules? Or everyone elses posts?
Just wondering…
Nicholas Z. Cardot said:
Arisu » Now she has two comments on here that aren’t going to count!
Arisu said:
Nicholas>>
By the way how do you keep the count of the comments? Numbers? Notches on a piece of wood? Notebook? Do you give extra points for cuteness or cleverness?
Nicholas Z. Cardot said:
Arisu » In the WordPress dashboard their is a page that I can go to to view all the comments. Right now the site has 320 comments and I can browse through them in order from the most recent to the oldest.
So for this contest, for example, I will go until I see the date that the contest started on and then count to the present. Whatever number of posts have been created I will enter into a number into a random number generator and it will enter a number somewhere between 1 and the total number of comments. Then I will start counting until I come to a winner. Then I’ll select another random number for second place, etc.
So the more times that your name is in the bundle each day, the greater your chances of being one of the winners!
Arisu said:
Nicholas>> Mmm, so stadistics and luck is it?
I think I´m doing good with both so… at least I can hope for a coffee… or new iron XD
Darryl L Smith said:
I didn’t even know your site existed until today when I was surfing worldstart.com. This looks interesting. I think I will subscribe and most likely stick around here for awhile.
Nicholas Z. Cardot said:
Darryl L Smith » Great to hear! I’m glad that you found me here and I’m thrilled that you plan on sticking around. Site Sketch 101 is only 1 month old and that is likely why you haven’t hear of it before.
Satkrit said:
Thanks for this great giveaway. I really need the money for a website i am planning to make. Keep the contest coming
Nicholas Z. Cardot said:
Satkrit » Thanks for playing and good luck!
Melissa said:
Thanks so much for the contest! Definitely gotta remember to post more than five words!
Nicholas Z. Cardot said:
Melissa » Yup! I’m glad you noticed that. Good luck to you!
Arisu said:
Mmm, still no 100 comments per day… but I´m getting out of opinions to comment.
At least there ain´t more spam
Nicholas Z. Cardot said:
Arisu » That’s alright. One of the most important principles about blogging is to stick with it. Most of the most popular blogs on the internet are blogs that have been doing amazing work and have been around for a while. My blog is still too new. I just have to keep growing the subscribers and keep working to attract regular visitors and readers. Then the comments will continue to grow and the community feel will continue to gain ground. I just have to be patient and keep doing the best that I can do!
Arisu said:
Nicholas>>
So just keep doing what you´ve been doing and I don´t think you´ll need too much patience.
Yeah, but it also means that you have a terrific blog going on if you had managed to get a little community around it already
Nicholas Z. Cardot said:
Arisu » Thanks! I sure want it to be a terrific blog. That is my goal. The community is already coming together nicely and I’m excited to see it moving forward!
Arisu said:
Nicholas>>
Yes, me too. Later on you can organice pijama parties and people could fight and fall in love while commenting XD
Nicholas Z. Cardot said:
Arisu » Pajama parties, huh? Hmmmm. That’s not exactly what I had in mind but I’m only able to be on here so many hours a day. I have no control over what happens on here during those hours that I’m away. LOL.
Melissa said:
Hello to everyone! Just wanted to check in and see how y’all are doing today? Getting a bunch more posts?
Satkrit said:
Just curious do you use WordPress. And if you do why is there no WordPress on the footer. I am watching you -_-
Just kidding
Nicholas Z. Cardot said:
Satkrit » I sure do use WordPress, but unless I’m mistaken we are not required to keep a link in the footer. Here is a link to the WordPress license page: http://codex.wordpress.org/License
Arisu said:
Nicholas>>
Well, no one showed up for the pajama party today XD So I´ll try to pull out a Happy Hour!!
Nicholas Z. Cardot said:
Arisu » It seems like my traffic always takes a dip on Saturday and Sunday and then bounces right back up on Monday and begins growing again. So no worries about the pajama party and thanks for stopping in and helping out with a happy hour!
Melissa said:
Hope everyone is having a great day today! Thanks again for the giveaway!
Srikanth AD said:
Sounds cool! Thanks for the giveaway.
Arisu said:
Arisu>>
I guess it makes sense, at least I make most of my comments in the office
Nicholas Z. Cardot said:
Melissa » I’m having a fantastic day and I certainly hope that you are too! Good luck on the contest and thanks for stopping by to put in another entry!
Srikanth AD » You’re welcome and I wish you the best of luck.
arisu » So did you want to throw a pajama party from your office? LOL
Melissa said:
Hello everyone! Me again! Thanks for the contest!
Nicholas Z. Cardot said:
Melissa » Hey! Thanks for checking in and good luck again.
Satkrit said:
Ohh! They changed it. Last time I checked (long time ago) you were required to put it on your footer.
Nicholas Z. Cardot said:
If that is their policy then I will gladly put an attribution link, but as far as I could tell I’m not required to. They certainly make outstanding software and they provide regular updates with enhancements and security fixes. I’m relatively new to WordPress but I love it so far!
Satkrit said:
Wow! I thought you would have a lot of experience looking at the design. Did you use someone’s theme. If so can you guide me?
Blog Contest said:
Very cool idea for a contest. I gave you a shout out on my blog contest blog
Nicholas Z. Cardot said:
Blog Contest » Thanks! I appreciate that.
sharkbytes said:
Well, I have to admit that I had never thought of doing this to get comments. It will be interesting to see how meaningful you decide it has been later. (But I’ll take the prize if I win. wink)
Nicholas Z. Cardot said:
sharkbytes » I’ll be sure to let you know how useful it was in accomplishing my goals here. Honestly I just want to be able to engage with my readers and get my readers to engage with me. I hope that you’ll stop by other articles on the site and earn yourself some more entries into this contest with some more comments. Good luck to you!
Roseli A. Bakar said:
I never leave a comment here before so I guess this is a great idea !
Melissa said:
Wow! The comments are definitely adding up quickly here!
Satkrit said:
This comment idea is surely a hit with so many comments. Very creative and the first one I have seen like this.
bangchoy said:
still confused, how do you determine the winner ..
whether based on the number of comments?
or based on the quality of the comments?
you should explain it clearly..
that are not considered as scam ..
Nicholas Z. Cardot said:
bangchoy » It’s a random drawing like a raffle. So every comment you have is like a ticket in a hat. At the end I will reach into the hat and pull out six tickets. It you have 50 tickets in there and everyone else only has 20 then you have a huge chance of winning.
Roseli A. Bakar » Welcome to Site Sketch 101. I hope that you find something useful throughout the rest of the site as well.
Satkrit » I think it’s been a huge hit so far. Thanks for coming by and commenting so much. I always appreciate your feedback and your thoughts.
Blogging School said:
No No No, You are not crazy to hold this “crazy” contest.
Nicholas Z. Cardot said:
Blogging School » Thanks! I know I’m not crazy but I am crazy for comments. Thanks for stopping by and participating. Best of luck to you!
Contest Hunter said:
Nice contest.
Nicholas Z. Cardot said:
Contest Hunter » Thanks and good luck!
Melissa » Good to see you again. I hope that you’ll visit some other articles and leave some comments and get even more entries to the contest. Good luck to you!
Melissa said:
Commenting here again for another entry! Thanks so much!
Satkrit said:
Yea sorry I know I post too much but need the money you are offering.
Satkrit said:
sorry i meant to say comment not post. My article propably wouldnt interest anyone.
Custom term paper said:
wow fantastic idea to get most of the feedbacks and attract readers to comment on ur blog like number of comments can be seen on this post as well
Yashiro said:
This is a great way to get more traffic, more readers and more followers as well. You will surely get a lot it.
Arisu said:
Mmm, almost reaching the 100 comments ^^
And stats are getting higher from other posts too! Congrats Nicholas, and good luck to everyone!
Nicholas Z. Cardot said:
Arisu » I had just over 200 comments when we started this contest. It might have been around 250 or something. We now have over 510 comments site wide. They are growing fast. Every day it seems like we’re taking on about 20 or 30 comments throughout the articles. It also take on about 10 – 20 spam comments per day that I delete.
I’m going to put up a post about commenting so that I can teach people how to leave effective comments on other people’s site and to identify the spam policy on Site Sketch 101. Comments are a great way to promote your own site and to get involved and make friends with other bloggers. But too often spammers use it also especially on a site like mine that uses ‘dofollow’ links instead of ‘nofollow.’ But I’m working on a post that explains what that is and why it’s useful. I’ll be publishing that in the next few days also.
Arisu said:
Nicholas>>
Wow! Congrats! ^^
And yeah, spam is such an annoying thing… do you use any pluggin or program to get rid of some of those spam comments?
Satkrit said:
Do u use not use Akismet? Because it gets rid of a lot of those spams.
Nicholas Z. Cardot said:
Satkrit & Arisu » I actually use Akismet which is both nice and annoying. It catches most of the spam comments which is good but it also catches some of the non-spam in it. So I manually review all the spam that it catches and then I delete it. For the most part it works great. I also have it set to require my approval before publishing any comments with two or more links in it. So if your comment gets caught in the moderation queue that is why.
Satkrit said:
Thought you wouldn’t use it because it catches most of the spams.
bangchoy said:
yup, by drawing..
its nice…
but i hope les comment also have chance to be your winners…
nice work..
Melissa said:
Nice drawing! I’m here again for my entry today.
Nicholas Z. Cardot said:
Melissa » Maybe you forgot to read the rules here. First you were posting comments that were too short and now you’re posting tons of comments on here that aren’t going to count. Here’s an excerpt from the article on this very page:
“You may leave up to a maximum of five non-consecutive, non-spam comments per post that will count towards the drawing.”
So far you have left 8. That means that I am going to skip three of them when I do the drawing since I’m only counting 5 per post. I recommend that you check out some other articles and that you interact with myself and the other users other than just trying to use us for a few quick dollars. Not only is that more meaningful, but it’s also going to increase your chances of winning.
Best of luck to you!
Aftercancer said:
This is a great idea but I wonder if it would work on my site. I’ve done a couple of giveaways before and participation has been slim. Cash is a motivator though, I guess I should think about it. Thanks for the idea.
Nicholas Z. Cardot said:
Aftercancer » You’re welcome. Just make sure that it doesn’t bring it wasteful comments. If people post spam comments or useless comments just delete them. Reward those who are actually getting involved in the conversation.
riish said:
cool idea! Im still qualified to join, right?
Goodluck. More power and keep the comments comming!
Nicholas Z. Cardot said:
riish » Of course you’re still welcome to join. Remember that you can leave comments on other posts to receive entries also. Good luck!
riish said:
yeah thanks. and im looking forward also to learning more from your entries
Nicholas Z. Cardot said:
riish » Great! Let me know if you have any questions or comments about anything!
Sherry said:
wow awesome contest how can I miss this out. I love to win some cash!
Nicholas Z. Cardot said:
Sherry » And it’s not too late yet. Best of luck to you. We’ll be announcing the winner on Saturday.
BM said:
Arrrghh! i’m too late for this.. *sigh*
Nicholas Z. Cardot said:
BM » What are you talking about? You have until tomorrow night at midnight EST to still enter this contest. In fact your comment is one entry right there!
All about Samarinda said:
Great action… I hope you will get ‘more blood’ for your blog after this time, friend!
Nicholas Z. Cardot said:
All about Samarinda » I hope so too. Thanks for stopping by and jumping in and best of luck to you.
Noelevz said:
This is truly effective. This made me comment which I don’t normally do often. Goodluck in this contest and more power!
Nicholas Z. Cardot said:
Noelevz » Awesome! And you got in on it just before the deadline also.
Arisu » I’ll be announcing the winners in the next few minutes!
Arisu said:
Can´t wait to know if I´ve won something! XD
P.S. Yeah, I can… but I´m so bored at the office… T_T
Hua Chen said:
I knew this game 4 days later after the end of the game, depressed.:(
Nicholas Z. Cardot said:
Hua Chen » Sorry that you’re a little too late. Just be sure to get in on the next one.