Tag Archives: how to drive traffic

Announcing the Best of the North Holiday Display Photo Contest


You could win a Pizza Party for 10 of your employees or friends with the

Best of the North (Northern Michigan) Holiday Display!

We love our northern Michigan home, don’t you?  To showcase and encourage folks to shop locally and find out what’s new and fun in our winter wonderland, PhotoScramble is sponsoring this interactive contest.

Diversion Hats on Front St. decorated with this cool santa dude

We will be looking for the best business displays depicting the holiday spirit. So break out the lights, add some more tinsel and show us your holiday cheer!

What a Business gets: Business benefit from exposure as their photo, location, and business type will be on PhotoScramble . Best of all, they can create customer interaction by asking  their customers to vote for their business display. Customers can vote and share their Best of the North picture on Facebook, MySpace, email or it can be added into any blog post. Pictures are easily sharable so that each business that is in the contest will benefit from Social Media interaction and drive a bit of customer loyalty by allowing customers to have a voice in the contest. The most votes WINS!

This FREE contest is open for valid northern Michigan business only. Our staff photographers will be looking for the best holiday displays; or feel free to submit your business photograph to:

http://www.photoscramble.com/ContestDetail.aspx?ContestId=76

The new Simply Cupcakes on Front street looks so yummy!
The new Simply Cupcakes on Front street looks so yummy!

What a business WINS:

First Place Prize: A Pizza Party from Pangea’s Pizza for 10 of your employee’s or friends! Includes three (3) large pizzas of your choice, salad, dessert and soda.  Free delivery in Traverse City MI (Pangea’s reserve the right to limit delivery location) Valid 1.10.2011-1.10.2012. (Pangea’s Pizza on Front Street in Traverse City)

PLUS! The winner will be presented with a framed certificate naming their business the 2010 Winner of the Best of the North Holiday Display!

Winners will be announced January 10th, 2011.

Also, we would like to give a big Thank you to our friends at Pangea’s Pizza & Pub for donating a large portion of the Pizza Party to the winner!

Pangea’s Pizza 135 East Front Street  Traverse City, MI.

Need Holiday Promotions Ideas? Try a Holiday Photo Contest!

Coming up with unique business promotional strategies can be a challenge to say the least.  Add in the hustle & bustle of the holidays and you’re now faced with a time crunch as well.  Most business owners know this scenario well, and they also know these factors are no excuse to let up on marketing efforts; for some, it may be the most important time to market their product in a unique & engaging way. PhotoScramble has the answer for your holiday promotions conundrum!

As we look outside the window from our corporate headquarters in Traverse City, MI, the familiar reds, oranges and yellows of another fall season fill our pupils with delight.  When we step outside, the crisp air reminds us that this stage will pass quickly, leading into another Northern Michigan Winter – unique in so many ways.  Between now and then there are a few themes that can easily be incorporated into any business photo contest promotion.  Taking advantage of these opportunities is key.

A fall photo contest is one way to start, while adding a Halloween photo contest twist could be a great way to increase customer engagement.  As the season progresses, Christmas photo contests are the perfect way to bring in the joy & good tidings that come along with our most popular holiday.  The angles you could approach these contests with are almost unlimited.

Try offering a valuable online gift certificate to your web-store as a way to get people to participate.  This gives the customer a chance to feel involved in your company & have a chance at “winning” some of their Christmas shopping money at the same time.  If they don’t win, who knows, maybe they had their eyes on a great gift from your site and will purchase it anyway.  Find a way to relate the theme of the contest back to your organization.  For example, if you sell camping gear online, try hosting a “Holiday Gear Shots” photo contest.  Show us photos of you & your family using your gear throughout the camping season.  Photo submission with the most votes gets a $250 gift certificate to buy Dad some new gear for Christmas!  You can spin it any way you like; remember to keep it relevant and use the holidays to your advantage…good luck!

How to drive traffic to your website with Relevant Content


Just when we think we had a handle on all of the SEO/SEN and other content keywords need to get visitors to our site, we find out  that Google changed  the rules.

Instead of worrying about links and meta tags, now Google will rank websites that contain relevant content,  but just what is relevant content?

Relevant content is text.
Search Engines love quality relevant content. Readers “read” photos and graphics; search engine spiders crawl right past them. So under that photo or graphic include a caption explaining what’s in it. Adding a Contest, is a great way to  engage both your customer and the search engine spiders.

Relevant content is new  and frequent.
Search engine spiders are demanding creatures. They want original, relevant content to list for their readers–and lots of it. Provide original content with accuracy and frequency about topics readers search for, and your posts will be born relevant.  You can see what your customers are searching for by using the free service of Google Analytics.

Relevant content is formatted.
When your document follows a structured format, a search engine can follow how topics relate. Relationships between topics establish that keywords aren’t just mentioned–they are connected and relevant.

Relevant content is linked–Links in, links out, and links to yourself are relevant.
Spiders crawl the web by following links. Links draw spiders to related pages from blog to blog and within your blog. Connections in content are relevant.

Relevant content is error free and accessible.

Don’t make the mistake with open HTML tags, gross errors in spelling and unnecessary plug-in that trips the spiders. Promote your website in relevant places like social networking sites, forms and blogs:

Think of it this way:

Relevant Content  = More  Traffic
Traffic = Visitors
Visitors = Leads
Leads = Clicks
Click = Buyer
Buyer = Profits