Crazy for Comments Valentine’s Day Giveaway
News and Updates at Site Sketch 101
I love comments and so on Valentine’s Day I’m going to be giving away some cash to those who join in the conversation here at Site Sketch 101.
I’m wanting to take the level of conversation and interaction here up to the next level. I want users interacting with me and with other readers. I want questions, suggestions, information, personal experiences, opinions and more.
I want Site Sketch 101 to continue growing as a thriving community built around creative discussions and genuine interaction. So let’s get that party started.
Near the bottom of the sidebar on every page, I’ve placed box which displays the names of the top users who left the most comments on the site. Late last night, I reset all of these numbers back to zero. But they’re going to start growing again until Valentine’s Day.
If you can get your name at the top of that list then I’ve got some great prizes for you. Get in the top three, in fact, and I’ll load you up with some cash. How does that sound? Check out these prizes:
- $50.00
- $30.00
- $20.00
Not only will you win some great prizes, but you’ll also engage with some great people, you’ll make some friends, and you’ll learn about blogging and web design. In a sense, everyone is a winner.
Rules & Limitations – The Fine Print
- Contest Timeline: Leave a comment on any post at Site Sketch 101 between now and midnight February 13, 2010 and you’ll be entered to win this Valentine’s Day contest.
- Comment Limit: Multiple comments on the same post must be separated by other people’s feedback in order to count as multiple entries.
- Spam Rule: Non-spam simply means that it needs to be on topic and a minimum of 3 complete sentences. I’ll use my judgment to determine what I think is legitimate and what I think is spam.
- Site Wide Contest: You may comment on any article on the site and your comments will count as entries in this contest.
- Contest Control: The plugin that I’m using to count comments simply scans all published comments and returns the count for each person commenting. Since this is the case, the only plausible way to control these rules is to delete any comments that do not comply with these rules between now and Valentine’s day.
- Determining the Winner: The users with the most comments will be the winners.
- Winner Announced: The contest will end at midnight on February 13, 2010 and a winner will be announced on Valentine’s Day, February 14, 2010.
Hesham @ FamousBloggersTips said:
Hey Nickolas, nice giveaway and just on the right time
and here is my advise to you, if you want to take the level of conversation and interaction on your blog up to the next level, then you probably should interact with others first, they will interact back!
I have wrote something recently about how we create content depending on comment on our blog, I am not sure if you read it or not!
Are you using any plugin to help you count comment?!s
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Don Gilbert said:
FYI to all of you participating. If you don’t win here on Valentines Day, you’ll have another chance at the same prizes with the same rules over at Masters of SEO next month. We are having a St. Patty’s Day Comment Contest Giveaway!
Hope to see you there!
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Ron Leyba said:
Wow Don, contest after contest. This is really great. I guess I should check my schedules for this month and the next few months.
Hope I can hold my own contest like this one too in the near future. Schedule, timing and the budget won’t allow me to as of this time.
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Ron Leyba said:
Wow, Im first to comment here and this comment will be my first comment entry for the contest. I won the last commenting contest so I am really eager to win two times in a row. Hoping my timeline and schedule will allow me to participate more.
More power to your blog Nick! And I simply love your contests.
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Hesham @ FamousBloggersTips said:
Ron, I am so sorry, I hit the submit button first I guess!
mmm.. where the CommentLuv button is hided?!
I can not see it anywhere.. maybe it would be a better idea if we can choose another post rather than the last one for the link!
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Eric B. said:
I believe that’s an option, but only if your blog is a commentluv blog, too. I’m not sure, because I have not taken the time to set it up on my site.
That reminds me, I should probably give commentluv a try, and see what that’s like.
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Ron Leyba said:
You beat me in a fraction of a second. LOL. Anyway, I think that option on commentluv is not enabled by Nick. Am I right? If ever, that will be a nice addition too.
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Don Gilbert said:
Nick has commentluve enabled, that’s why you see the post links at the bottom of all the comments here.
From a design standpoint, he has it site to display:none; because he doesn’t want to clutter the design/layout of the form.
If you have FireBug installed on your browser, you can actually go in to the HTML and remove the display:none; and select the post you want to show at the bottom of your comment.
Hope that helps!
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Ron Leyba said:
Thanks Don for the knowledge. Didn’t know that it was possible. Regarding Firebug addon, it always makes my beloved Firefox to crush often times. I hope there is another option that do the same thing.
Hesham @ FamousBloggersTips said:
OK, I am going to try your tip now, I am opening Firebug and I removed the “display:none;”.. cool! I see my latest posts now! but can I pick up one?!
Let me try, I will pick up my Dofolloe post and let’s see how it will work! I am just not sure because I try to select but nothing tell me that I has been selected any post!… here we go!
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Tom | Build That List said:
What a great incentive to help build your community. I try to comment here as often as possible already because you get some great discussion happening, but I think this will give me an added kick up to the bum to come over here and leave a comment.
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Ron Leyba said:
Definitely! The contest alone will give you a kick start. So jump now into some of the conversations. Its fun, entertaining as well as educational I can say.
Eric B. said:
I can’t wait to see the people that leave thousands of comments like the last time you did this contest!
Also, the comment leaderboard hasn’t been reset, yet. Probably just a cache-related thing
It would be nice to start off with 32 comments!
When it is reset to zero, will this comment count? Not that I’m trying too hard for just one extra point
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Ron Leyba said:
Hope Nick (or the plugin) will count the comments listed in here haha.
I think you participated on the last comment contest by Nick right? And yeah, you are right, it hit up thousand of comments. Its a history for a SS101.
Vikas Gupta said:
I wish there was an archive/sitemap page here listing all your posts in one page. And I guess my previous comment will not be eligible because it is less than 3 lines LOL!
Ron Leyba said:
One of your 3 comments will count. I guess. Nevertheless, you are quite right regarding this contest; a fun and great way in terms of participation and learning.
Vikas Gupta said:
Ron,
You are right! The 2nd comment will count. Thanks. I see you are already giving me competition in winning this contest LOL! And this comment will count as well, hurrah!
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Ron Leyba said:
I am just trying to take the ride hehe. Im not that busy as of now so I took the chance to take some time on Nick’s blog.
I am a regular commenter here by the way, long time ago haha. But then, my time schedule changed big time so thats the reason why I momentarily slowed down participating on the group discussion here.
By the way, I checked your blog and its cool ha. Nice header photo with you holding a camera.
Eric B. said:
Merge them all into one and they will fit into the rules
Nick, where did you come up with the three sentences rule? I’m sure that there can be very helpful comments with only one or two sentences.
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Derek Jensen said:
I would imagine that Nick decided to go with three sentences because a majority of the quality comments that should be produced are in that length.
I will be looking forward to this contest because I love offering my comments and have a conversation amongst people within the comments.
Just need to find a sweetheart.
Ron Leyba said:
About the 3 sentences comments, sometimes, a 2 sentences comments also do contain valuable stuff or insights in it.
And oh, a sweetheart? Finding a sweetheart tru comments seems like a good motivation too ha? hehe. Just joking.
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Derek Jensen said:
Very true! Just saying that questioning the specifics should really matter.
If you’re not worried about your comment not being counted because it is not of good quality then write just two sentences.
Sorry I just had to rant about that.
Do you think I could get a sweetheart through the Site Sketch 101 Dating service?
Ron Leyba said:
I have no problem with your rants Derek. We all have our own opinions though.
About the sweetheart thing, I hope you can have one here. And the SS101 Dating Service is a pretty lucrative cool niche too haha.
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Nicholas Cardot said:
Ron Leyba » I don’t disagree with the fact that you can provide value in 2 sentences but since I’m giving away cash I didn’t have a problem taking the level of the conversation up a notch.
Sarge | BeginnerBlogger.com said:
This is an awesome contest Nicholas. I’m going to take the opportunity to go through some or your archives, maybe even from start to finish. Treat it like a book. Not saying that I’m going to comment on every single post but the contest has given me the idea to treat it like a book and learn from someone that has such great content like you
I feel like I have a lot to learn in blogging still, I’m sure we’ll all admit to that regardless of our position/ranking in the blogging world. So this is a great opportunity to learn a few more things with this approach. Looking forward to it!
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Derek Jensen said:
Sarge,
I haven’t talked to you in awhile. But, you brought up an interesting point on how you can treat your archives like a book that represents your blog.
So, we all have to make sure we are continuously publishing great content to further our ‘book’.
Sarge | BeginnerBlogger.com said:
Yeah I haven’t been well the last week or so, not that that’s any excuse why you haven’t seen me really. I just haven’t been online as much I guess!
I love the book analogy and going to go through this site from start to end!
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Don Gilbert @ SEO said:
That is actually what some bloggers do. They take their posts archives to write a book.
Just look at Leo Babauta of Zen Habits. He made a killing by turning his archived posts into a book and selling it for a big profit.
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Ron Leyba said:
Which is a pretty effective and great idea. Its like compressing your notes into one book. But on this situation, for a reason to profit from it.
Lee Ka Hoong said:
That’s definitely a great method to push up conversation rate in your blog Nick, but be ready to get more spam comment as well. I predict you would get about 100+ comments each post. But nothing is wrong if all the comments are eligible and constructive.
In this post, I guess the top commentator has at least 10 number of comments already, it’s a tough game.
No matter how, I’ll still be a part of the community because you have a great blog here.
All the best Nick!
Cheers,
Lee
Kok Siong Chen said:
Hi Lee! This is the first time i decided to take part in the online contest. I love to leave comment in a great blog. Hope that i can really learn something from this contest!
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Sonali Agrawal said:
Wow…this sounds awesome. I love giveaways. And this is one really competitive.
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jan geronimo said:
Great concept for a blog contest. Even if we fail to make the cut,I’m sure making new friends will more than make up for the “sorry loss.” Now, where’s the archives, eh?
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Don Gilbert @ SEO said:
That’s exactly what it is about – building relationships.
If you read many posts here on SS101, you will see that Nick’s big concern in blogging is to connect with the visitor and keep the coming back by building a great relationship with them.
There are 21 pages of archives, so you should be busy for quite a while.
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Ben Lang said:
What a great idea! This really is a great way to build up a community
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Will Fowler said:
Great contest Nick you really inspired us over at SEO masters to hold a similiar contest. It really is a win-win for all involved. -will
My Latest Blog Post: Crazy for Comments Valentine’s Day Giveaway!
Blake @ Online Marketing Review said:
This contest will give me a great excuse for me to give to my wife for why I’m on SS101 so much.
I remember back when I started reading SS101 you ran a comment contest and the winner had some insanely huge three digit comment count after a month. I’m looking forward to the competition, although I don’t know if I’ll be able to keep up
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Dennis Edell said:
I can’t believe I haven’t been here before, I see you on every post round up in creation!
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Nicholas Cardot said:
Dennis Edell » Well I’m glad that you finally made it over. Welcome!
Dennis Edell said:
Thanks! Did you spot my next comment, I’d like to be here more often.
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Dennis Edell said:
Please add the email subscribe option to your feedburner account so I can subscribe to blog updates.
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Carrie said:
Ooohh, I love contests. I didn’t even see this until this morning and I think I’ve already left several. Great idea!
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Olusegun Adedokun said:
I’m just seeing this too. I actually found out on Don Gilbert’s MastersofSEO site.
Now, is that awesome or what? I miss something in Nick’s community and find it on another member of the tribe’s blog.
I love social networking.
Latief@AnotherBlogger said:
Contest is always interesting, not only the prizes but you can feel the energy. When I started my blogging journey, all I know is promoted my blog by left comments on various blog niche.
Commenting gave so many friends and loyal readers. The key is I left comment first, one, two or three time and then you’ll get your comments back. I still enjoying my leaving comments activities.
Thanks.
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Olusegun Adedokun said:
Awesome. I love this innovative way of generating more comments.
Will you sustain this after Val’s Day?
Ana Goncalves said:
Nicholas,
Sounds like a great way to engage with yourself, and other people.
I trust everyone will have a wonderful time.
Unfortunately I shan’t be in the country from 12th February onwards, and no access to a computer neither. So I send you my love for now and wish you have an insightful journey until then.
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Nicholas Cardot said:
Ana Goncalves » Thanks so much, Ana. I really appreciate that and I hope that you have an absolutely wonderful time on your trip.
Kok Siong Chen said:
I want to join this contest. Thanks for offering such good contest! I will try to look through all the articles here.
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Davor Gasparevic @ Internet marketing ebooks said:
Do you pay to PayPal?!
I never asked you, but I am sure you get a lot of spam comments. What plugin do you use? Or someone does it for you?
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