I recently encouraged a young blogger to join an SEO contest and believe that such will even help her become a better blogger and be more strategic in approach.
Joining an SEO contest has its own benefits that includes:
- Learn by trial and observation
You will be able to put your skill to the test and observe how the top performers do it. Through it, you'll be able to try what they have done in your site and see how it improves your rank. - Launch your SEO career
It is a way to introduce yourself as an SEO practitioner and use it as part of your portfolio. This is especially true if you end up in page 1 versus those who have joined the contest. - Build connection
Get to know other players in the field and establish relationship. Most SEO practitioners don't do things on their own especially for big projects and often require help from their peers which may result to projects.
Whe i first joined a local SEO contest, I was alone using this blog to build my entry and inter-link it with my other blogs. Got a few linking help from 2-3 other sites and that was it. The experience was most rewarding in terms of content building and recognized my weakness in terms of link building outside of my own set of sites. There were only 3 ituloy angsulong girls who made the final count and it was fun.
The next one I joined was more spontaneous decision on my part. I decided on the spot last year to help Gary Viray compete in the Busby SEO Test global SEO competition. The contest was fierce, furious, stressful, passionate, and ruthless. I learned a lot more about error pages, effective indexing, content pillar development, and link building. It has become my favorite case study whenever I get to talk about search engine marketing & optimization.
To ensure that what was started doesn't go to waste, continuous maintenance are being made as no one really knows when I'll get the urge to join or help someone again.
So if you really think that you are good in SEO, joining a contest is a must investment for professional development. Of course, choose those that are worth your while.
