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This guide is aimed more for people just starting out at a website competition. It is written for
Fantasy Fights, but a lot of the information will apply for other competitions as well. At the bottom of this guide, you will find a few links to free guestbook hosts and such to help get you started, if you do not already have one. There are also some links to vote exchange resources as well.
Before you join a web competition, be sure that you read over their rules and guidelines beforehand! Make sure your site follows all of their rules and you meet any requirements before filling out a signup form. This will save the people who take care of the signup information from having to contact people and remind them to read over the rules and make sure their site is ready to compete first. Most competitions will require you to have their membership banner placed on your site and linked back to their homepage before you signup. Fantasy Fights also requires that you have a guestbook that accepts html, and your email address located somewhere on your site as well as at least 3 pages of content.
So your website meets all of the rules and guidelines of the competition now? Hopefully you have also looked over some of the other pages to make sure you really want to join. Some people will join and discover they don't like the prizes given out or how the competition is setup to run and they leave within the first week. Make sure you do want to join before filling out a signup form!
After you hear back from the competition and if your site was approved, get to know the competition/team pages so you can find your way around. If you have questions about anything, contact your team leader or support.
This section assumes you have joined a competition that allows vote exchanges. If you joined one that does not allow vote exchanging, skip to the next section.
So you are all setup and ready to go, and you find you are not getting many, if any votes each day. This is where all of the hard work will come in! The best way to start getting more votes is to vote exchange with people. A good place to start will be on your own team or competition. Visit some of the other websites competing at your competition (you always want to visit their websites first to see what you will be voting for... never blind vote!). If you wish to exchange votes with them, send them a short and polite email letting them know you have visited their site and wish to exchange votes. Include your website name and link in the email. You hopefully will get a reply and find out if they wish to vote exchange or not. If they do, you will need to send them reminders (daily or weekly... ask which they would prefer), and also state which you would prefer to receive from them. Vote reminders should include your website title, link and the vote booth were to vote for you. Make sure that you vote for them each day in return for their vote for you!
Normally you are able to contact people outside of your competition who also compete and request vote exchanges as well (if your competition allows this to be done, some may not allow it). Just remember that each person you agree to vote exchange with expects you to vote for them each day in return!
If you are sending your reminders out through email and not using a newsletter hosted elsewhere (such as through Yahoo), ALWAYS use the BCC field, NOT the To field when sending to multiple people! This is to protect your vote exchangers email addresses. Sending out emails to a big list of people in the To field is one of the top few ways for spammers to get ahold of emails and start spamming you. Always use the BCC field when sending stuff to mutliple people (this includes sending emails outside of vote exchanges).
Now you have some people voting for you, and you voting for them in return. Another good place to build up some votes is a vote exchange board or club. There are many of these online, and some web competitions even have their own vote exchange boards/clubs setup as well. A short list of boards will be posted below to help get you started. These boards have their own rules usually, so make sure you read through everything before signing up!
Never join a competition and not intend to participate! You should try and vote for your own site daily if it is allowed. It is understandable that you cannot vote every single day for as long as you remain with the competition, but it is good to vote a couple times a week at the very least if possible.
A lot of competitions have a lot more to do than just competing. Some of games and contests to do, and others have various other types of activities. Some of the activities, depending on the competition, can even have an affect on your site competing. For example, at Fantasy Fights, posting cheers for your team can earn you an extra vote point each day, and some teams give out monthly awards based around how active members are. Don't let it be all about competing! Join in on the fun and participate in your competition's other activites. This is how you can make new friends and even pick up a couple new vote exchangers!
Some competitions have little jobs for people to signup and help out with. Fantasy Fights has a few areas such as these (Sprites, Knights and Gryphons). If you have the free time, check and see if there are any little jobs you can help out with around the competition such as the ones listed for Fantasy Fights. Some competitions are in need of people to help in these areas to improve upon the competition. For example, here at Fantasy Fights, the Knights go out and look for new sites that might be interested in joining and send them in invitation, while the Sprites check over a couple of assigned members sites each week and make sure they are still following the rules. Jobs such as these help out the team leaders and other staff of the competition so they are able to concentrate on other improvements and keeping things running smoothly.
Web competitions are a lot of fun, but they can take a lot of work if you are serious about trying to win. Just because you are having trouble getting votes to begin with doesn't mean you should give up! Work a little harder and find some more people to vote exchange with. There is a whole internet full of other people who compete at the many web competitions that are out there and a lot of them are looking for extra votes as well! Don't forget as well that web competitions are about more than just competing to win! They are a great place to meet new people and have fun! I hope this guide has given you a few ideas and will get you started in the world of web competitions! Below are a few resources that will hopefully help you on your way.
HTML Guestbooks:
Bravenet
HTML Gear
Dreambook
Vote Exchange Boards/Clubs:
Fantasy Fights Vote Exchange Wall
New LightForce Vote Exchange Wall
HeyYouSir's Vote Exchange Board
Vampire Kitty's VE Board
~*~ Where would you like to go now? ~*~
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