I Won a SEO Contest!
Back in April, I decided to join the retsambew dash klat for charity SEO contest graciously put on by Webmaster-Talk. I had never entered a SEO contest and had not planned on doing something like this. Webmasters are supposed to be busy, right? I think it is an appealing idea for SEO’s to seek validation of their skills through something other than their own site rankings. What made joining the contest so irresistable was the ingenious rule set developed by Webmaster-Talk’s Tim Shroeder. I talked about why I like this SEO contest rule set earlier, but to sum it up, I’ll say that the rules were designed to make the contest truly fair for everyone. Of course, the prizes offered were appealing as well.
Another neat aspect was that webmasters had a chance to support their favorite charity. I chose Voice of the Martyrs. I was glad to see them on the list of eligible charities because I read the Voice of the Martyrs free magazine and greatly admire their work in support of persecuted Christians around the world (when I say persecuted, I mean persecuted in the violent sense). Many of the magazine’s accounts of Christian sufferings are horrifying to read and at times graphic. Never-the-less, it is important that these accounts be publicized because they are not often picked up by the mainstream media.
After five months of competing, I am both thrilled and humbled to find out that I have won first place in the contest! My site was RetsambChar.com. It’s still up at the moment if you care to take a peak. Don’t expect a fancy Web 2.0 design. Boy am I glad that Google doesn’t rank sites according to graphic abilities. The competition was tough and my white SEO hat is off to these very capable SEO’s who were duking it out with me.
I’d like to say thanks one more time to Webmaster-Talk for making this contest a success and a lot of fun. Thanks also to my wife for helping toward the end and taking a sincere interest when I showed her the prizes we could win :). I am quite sure that this will be my first and last entry into a SEO contest. One of the benefits of competing in a SEO contest like this was that I learned a lot. You can bet that I will be sharing what I have learned here. –Emory Rowland
September 18th, 2006 at 4:01 am
hey this is really a nice news , Do u know i am also an SEO expert and Certified by various institutes included MICROSOFT.
it will be a great combination , if you and i discuss our experiance here. you can also see my site and let me know what kind of changes i have to made .
evision.com.pk
September 19th, 2006 at 11:51 pm
Evision has a nice clean look. Reminds me of the dire need to redesign Clickfire :)
September 27th, 2006 at 12:25 am
sir/madam
i want to do SEO effectively plz help
September 30th, 2006 at 4:13 pm
Salman, it looks like you have put a lot of work into your site and it looks good. I learned a lot about SEO from reading forums and then testing what I read on my own pages. Best of luck.
October 5th, 2006 at 9:25 pm
Thanks for the nice words Emory and again congrats on winning the SEO Contest!
I am glad a genuinely good guy won first place. :)
January 28th, 2007 at 10:29 pm
Thats freaking awesome. Thats a crazy keyword term.
So do you have some seo ninja secret tools? ;-)
Again, good job!!!
January 29th, 2007 at 1:05 am
Thanks Joe!
No secret ninja tricks, but now that you mention it, the contest did feel a lot like a kung fu match :)
March 18th, 2007 at 1:57 am
I had some thoughts on a similar SEO / Search Engine Optimization related topic, maybe i’ll start a new thread
February 1st, 2008 at 12:30 pm
Great achievement, makes you feel real proud when something like this happens. You up for another seo contest? check out the ukww.
February 2nd, 2008 at 3:25 am
Thanks, seocontest2008, it sure does. Competing also takes a lot of time and energy and for that reason, I probably wouldn’t enter another SEO contest any time soon. Best of luck with the ukww contest.
February 19th, 2008 at 7:53 am
Congrats! Mind sharing any tips for me to win SEOcontest2008?
February 20th, 2008 at 12:35 pm
Here are some things I listed on the Webmaster-Talk Forums. Some of this is looking a little outdated now.
Built a static site for the most part
Got some links from directories early in the contest
Tried to come up with content that someone would want to link to
Wrote/submitted SEO articles
Got links from blogs, bookmark sites and maybe one friend or two’s site
Made an RSS feed and submitted it to some feed sites.
Did not use a blog software for the site
No Digital Point coop network
No reciprocal links
February 21st, 2008 at 7:00 am
Reading you comments above !Just wanted to ask you why is a static site important and not a blog? i thought a blog would be given more weight than a static website! i am new to this - therefore any advice will be appreciated!
Thanks in advance!
February 21st, 2008 at 9:17 am
Actually, I wished I had used a blog because early on in the contest, many of my competitors were using WordPress and blowing me away. It all worked out in the end like the tortoise and the hare. But, if it were today, I would definitely use a blog.
February 27th, 2008 at 2:52 am
Hi Emory i like to congratulate you on your success which was a way back but then also winning is more important in any contest. And thanks for sharing the tips on how you succeeded and won.
April 18th, 2008 at 9:59 pm
Thanks for the kind words, Amit. Glad to share.
April 22nd, 2008 at 8:29 am
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