Do you want to create your own website to launch a contest for a local market, or even a worldwide audience?
If you’re serious about promoting your business, you must have considered holding some fun contests or giveaways. Contests can help get customers involved, and provide them with incentive to support your business. If you are starting a contest, you can choose a prize within your current budget to give away.
But in order to look reliable, professional, and to gain the trust of your potential customers, you need to have a website on your own domain for the contest!
It is easier and cheaper to get a website running than you think.
What Web Designers Do Not Want You to Know about Building Websites
Creating a wonderful looking website does not have to cost thousands. There are many templates and free tools you can use to save time and money these days. You do not need to pay web designers anymore!
Follow the simple step-by-step instruction below on how you too can make your own professional-looking contest website in the shortest time possible and by spending as low as RM40.
You can own a professional-looking website for a contest in just a few hours, and at a price you can afford. The steps below is the same for contest website or any other types websites. If you want to build a website for your clothing business, electronic or hardware shop or even personal blog, the instruction below can save you thousands.
Just follow the four easy steps below.
STEP 1: Get a Domain Name
If you want to look professional and trustworthy, you need to have your own domain name for the contest or campaign. Get a unique domain name that reflects your campaign or your brand. A domain name is like the signboard outside of a restaurant. It should be a name people can easily remember. It may include your brand and the name of the contest.
A contest or giveaway that is hosted on a unique domain will look more legitimate than the ones hosted on a free hosting or blog. It costs only about US$10 to get a .COM domain name.
If you already registered your name or do not want to be on your own domain name, you can skip to Step 2.
Why Pay Hundreds When You Can Pay Only $10
Local domain names such as .COM.MY and .MY can cost a lot. Just go to one of the International domain registrars such as Namecheap or Godaddy. They are even cheaper than registering at local companies in Malaysia. They also have better DNS management panels (where you login to configure and to connect with your web hosting).
You can search for a desired domain name. If it’s available, buy it ASAP before somebody else grabs it.
Click here to search for a domain name.
Cost: RM40 – RM100
STEP 2: Get a Website Hosting
You also need a website hosting for hosting the pages for your contest. This is like the space or shop unit that you rent to open a restaurant.
There are many kinds of web hosting space that you can rent. It really depends on your needs, the complexity of your contest or website, and the traffic to your website. Webhostingcomparison.org is a good place to learn about the various kinds of web host service available.
If you are building your first website, we will assume you either want to use a simple site builder or to get a multi domain shared hosting to create a more robust website.
To decide on which web hosting to use, you will need to ask yourself, “what are my requirements?”.
| Choose a Site Builder if… | Choose a Multi Domain Shared Hosting if… |
|---|---|
|
|
| Site Builder Hosting Suggestions | Multi-Domain Hosting Suggestions |
| Try site builders such as Weebly or Wix | We recommend you get a cPanel web hosting at Hostgator because we have been using them for over 8 years with no problem. They also have a very helpful support team. |
If you already have a hosting for your main or product website, then there is not cost for this step.
Cost: RM0 – RM300
STEP 3: Build and Customize Your Website
The next step is to build your website.
If you go with the multi domain hosting path above, the best platform to use to create your website is WordPress. With WordPress, you can easily install it using one-click installer like Fantastico and QuickInstall that can be found in your cPanel. WordPress also have huge selection of themes and plugins that you can choose from to minimize coding your site manually.
If you choose the multi domain hosting method instead of using Weebly or Wix, you have the flexibillity to customize your website. If you want stunning themes, you can go to Themeforest. Here are some of the gorgeous themes suitable for contest websites:
- Avada – so clean, super flexible and has a fully responsive design!
- Circles – very professional yet super-easy to use theme.
- Aqua – a Premium, Responsive, HTML5/CSS3 WordPress theme that features a clean and slick design that is suitable for a wide variety of websites.
Create the Pages for Your Contest Site
Next, you want to create the pages for your contest or giveaway website. Some of the common pages you may want to add are:
- About the contest or giveaway
- About the prizes
- Terms and conditions
- How to enter and winners are selected
- Contest page (see next section how to create online contest)
Cost: RM0 – RM150
STEP 4: Quickly Build Your Giveaway or Contest
There are many things to consider when creating a contest, lucky draw or giveaway for your brand. There are any factors such as:
- How to verify entries and frauds
- How to restrict by country
- How to integrate with social media such as Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram etc.
- Analytics
- Notifications
- Picking of winners
- Building email lists
- How to engage the userbase
When it comes to creating contest, the best solution is to use a contest app such as Gleam.io, Woobox or Rafflecopter. We prefer Gleam instead of the others because it has the most features and highly customizable.
Good news! Gleam.io provides an easy way to create contests at no cost. The free plan actions include Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus, Pinterest, Youtube, Instagram, Soundcloud, Vimeo, visiting a specific URL, questions and multiple choice polls, and bonus entries. They also allow a seamless experience across devices & platforms that not only looks great, but allows you to syndicate your contest in a way that fits the image of your brand perfectly.
Click here to sign up with Gleam.io for free
To create a contest you will first need to add a site at Gleam. Each site has access to individual instances of their apps, you can also use the left menu to switch between sites.
Multiple sites have the following advantages: You can keep your data separated, ensure your campaigns are branded from that site & also allows you to have site specific integrations.
How to create a new contest:
- Navigate to the site you want to use
- Click on the contests tab in the left navigation
- Click on the New Contest button on the top right
Inserting the Contest into Your Website
You can embed your contest inside any page that allows Javascript. This means you can install it on your own site or perhaps give to a web designer to include the code for you.
You can view more detailed instructions in the add to a page installation guide.
Cost: 0
Promote Your Brand Today
The prize for your contest should be enticing enough to lure in new customers, but not so expensive that your expenses outweigh your gain. A good and commonly used idea is to offer the winner credit towards an item or service you offer.
Contests and giveaways are tried and true ways of building brand exposure and gaining precious eyeballs in today’s attention-scarce world. Commit to promoting your business or brand – start by registering a domain for your contest because domain names are very limited these days.
Once you are done with your website, we at Peraduan.com can help you promote your contest to many contest enthusiasts on this site, and our contest FB page.
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