Giveaways for increasing inbound traffic, brand relevance and organic results

[ciznerguy]

I wanted to know if giveaways are considered viable way to increase inbound traffic and organic results.

I am running giveaways with increased traffic but no effect on organic rewsults.

does anyone have something to share on this.

[EGOL]

Hi Guy,  I remember seeing you at SEOChat a while back.

If you have figured out how to fulfill the giveaway with no problem then it sounds like a great thing.

I don't see anything about giveaways that suggest that they are anything less than white hat.

Almost everybody loves freebies.. So, I would go for it.

[ciznerguy]

hello Egol

first amazing to e-meet you again, I see you all over for years.

I am running giveaways for few ecommerce site, I have no limit to the amount of giveaways I can run, and it is very easy to fulfill.

I see increased inbound traffic and many social signs are generated, I wonder if it is considered a good an "white" practice. It seems to generate much interest.

[EGOL]

I am running giveaways with increased traffic but no effect on organic rewsults.

Depends what your giveaway is.

If you are giving away free downloadable files or free access to a tool or anything that does not cost you continued time and expense then it might work.  For example the free tool access or free file downloads might result in people typing your domain into google as a querry, it might generate links and likes for your site... and if these digital giveaways are not causing people to call you on the phone for questions and assistance then I would keep offering them.  I have some giveaways of this type on my sites and I think that they might be helpful in the SERPs because people are asking for my site in google search by name and people link to the giveaway stuff.  I also earn ad and affiliate income from the giveaway pages.

But... if you are giving away physical product like baseball caps, t-shirts, etc that have to be mailed that is very different.  These are going to be a constant spend of money, a constant stream of emails and phone calls from people who are wah wah wah... I didn't get one, mine did't fit, can you mail one to my brother? his address is Crater 10 on Mars?  Can you send one for all of the kids in my class... there are 425 of us? 

These giveaways might bring people to your site but most of them don't give a damn about your site - they just want the giveaway.

[crackingmedia]

Hi Guy

Giveaways are definitely a good thing to encourage inbound traffic and help to raise the profile of your brand, but that does not necessarily correlate to a higher rank in organic SERPs.

Pages in search results are delivered on the basis that the page is relevant to the search query, but where a page ranks in SERPs - if relevant to a query - is also dependent upon the competition for that query and a lot of other metrics.

I hope that helps,
Peter