Jodi (my wife) asked me tonight if there were any new pictures from the breeder we’re purchasing our dog from. The dog was born on New Years Eve and we are picking him up in February, so we like to get photo updates.

So, to be funny, I googled “world’s ugliest dog“… and BAM!

The reaction was great.

There are just SO MANY ways to build links… I just may have to do a “World’s Ugliest [whatever]” contest…

What “worlds ugliest” ideas do you have that could generate links for your site?

Thousands of web sites give away free products and extend special online trial offers as a way to build buzz and drive traffic to their website.

Running a link building contest and awarding a prize to your most active link builder can build buzz, drive traffic, and also provide the most important piece to the SEO equation - links!

Many companies with web sites should still consider typical internet marketing services to improve their positioning in Google. However, hosting a contest to generate interest in your website with the extra benefit of building links can certainly work.

Besides, if you’re going to personally front money for a prize, why wouldn’t you want to receive a return on your investment?

A link building contest should probably have one of two outcomes for determining a winner:

• To acquire the greatest number of links
• To acquire the most relevant, highest powered link

A link that drives traffic to your website can also be used to determine a winner. However, if the end goal of the contest is true link building, traffic should be a secondary concern.

Acquiring the greatest number of links has its pros (quantity) but tends to yield lower value, less relevant links. You will also tend to get a lot of entrants with startup WordPress and Blogspot sites including one blog post having a link pointing to your site. When the goal of the contest is to receive links based on relevancy, you will get a substantial amount less, but they should be more valuable.

Below are some tried and true ideas prize ideas to consider when building links hosting a contest on your site. The more involved the contest is for the user, the better the prize should be.

1. T-Shirts (bloggers love these, especially when they’re funny)
2. Anything for a Nintendo Wii
3. Any Apple product
4. A complimentary product that makes a job easier
5. A permanent, do follow link to the winners site of choice (a great idea for Google authority sites)

Anyone have great contest ideas or prize ideas they want to share? Would love to see some in the comment space below.

So, I thought it was kind of fun and cool that Jon Fisher and Jon Volk are having a competition to see who’s blog can rank higher for the other person’s name. This kind of goes back to the good old miserable failure google bomb that happened a while back. Volk is a friend of ours, so we thought we’d support him in his quest.

Hello All! It’s been so crazy around here… we have a lot happening that we will be telling you about very soon!

In the meantime… be sure to tune your ears into Webmaster Radio tomorrow at 1pm. I will be making a guest appearance on the SEO 101 Show with David Brown, Brian Mark, & Carolyn Shelby where we will be talking about link building for beginners.

Dave Conklin was honored to be asked to be on this program in part because of the many internet marketing experts that have appeared including Todd Malicoat (stuntdubl), Jeremy Schoemaker (shoemoney), Joel Comm, Michael Gray (graywolf) and many others.

The show will re-air in re-run and be available on demand for a few months after the live broadcast tomorrow at 1pm.

See you then!

UPDATE: Here is the link to listen to the show!

I am so inspired by this video from Shoemoney… this is link bait at it’s best. By the way, his site is incredible if you’re interested in making money online with affiliate marketing… you should check it out!