Search Engine Journal

The results of the $10,000 Search Engine Journal Guest Blogging competition are finally in after the great SEJ Blog Off between John Carcutt and Richard Burckhardt, two excellent SEO’s who have contributed incredible content to Search Engine Journal for this competition and also on various occasions.

The Guest Blogging Competition

The first $10,000 SEJ Guest Blogging was a huge success, with numerous entries from Search Engine Journal readers and some participants from outside of the SEO or search marketing spectrum.

The results were some awesome posts which attracted interesting discussion, voting, links, new readers and introduced some new faces to our loyal daily readers.

Sponsors and the Prizes Valued at Over $10,000 in Search Marketing Services

The $10,000 in prizes is split between various sponsors for the competition, reflecting a vast array of search engine marketing services which combined, will kickstart any business or website’s search marketing plans:

• $1,000 in Blog Reviews &; Links from SponsoredReviews.com
• 6 month free subscription for SingleFeed’s Data Feed Management and Optimization service : $1,074 value
• $500 in free advertising from Text Link Ads
• 6 Month Free Subscription for Adapt Paid Search Management Software (a $1,194 value)
• One Year Subscription to Keyword Discovery (a $599 value)
• $500 from Pepperjam Search
• 3 months free at SEOBook (a $300 value)
• SEO Audit & Site Makeover from TrafficBlend & Search Engine Journal Services (a $5000+ value)
• Submittals of up to 4 sites to Aviva Directory Network (a $400+ value)

The Great SEJ Blog Off

After reviewing all of the entrants, we had a virtual tie between John Carcutt’s entry and Richard Burckhardt’s entry. Both parties agreed to take this competition to the next level, in the form of an old fashioned Blog Off. John and Richard contributed new blog posts for the readers to decide the winner and SEJ incorporated a new Reddit style blogpost voting tool at the bottom of the posts, to give our readers an extra voting opportunity.

• John’s post : Are SEO Forums Still Needed?
• Richard’s post : 25 Blog Optimization Tips Even Dear Old Dad Could Ace (Plus 10 More Tips for Mom!)

And the Winner Is…

John Carcutt’s Are SEO Forums Still Needed? post was the overall winner, topping the scales in Sphinns (80), SEJ Votes (29), Incoming Links (1144) and Comments (15).

This was a close one again as Richard’s post had more Stumbles (14), Delicious Bookmarks (38) and Buzzes (9).

Here are the stats on each piece :

• John : Sphinn : 80, Stumble : 12, Delicious : 3, SEJ Votes : 29, Incoming Links : 1144, Comments : 15, Buzz : 3
• Richard : Sphinn : 55, Stumble : 14, Delicious : 38, SEJ Votes : 20, Incoming Links : 416, Comments : 12, Buzz : 9

We and our sponsors will be issuing some second place prizes to Richard, who gave John a run for his money! What an incredible competition.

John Carcutt’s Plans

What will John Carcutt be doing with his prize of over $10,000 in search marketing services? Well, Mr. Carcutt plans on donating a large chunk of the purse to a charity.

Here’s a message from John :

“Thank you so much Loren and big thanks to Richard Burckhardt for making the whole thing even funner. One of my best friends growing up recently moved to a remote area of Mexico to build and operate an orphanage. I plan on donating a majority of the prizes to him and his orphanage. He has a simple site at www.faceofmyfather.org and with these prizes I think we can get him a very nice donation generating machine online. Thank you again Loren from me, Face of My Father and all the Mexican orphans your contest is going to help.”

Search Engine Journal will be tracking the progress of John’s charity and will be issuing updates on a regular basis. Our sponsor’s are also very happy to hear that their prize offerings will be going to such a great cause. This is a win-win situation for all parties involved.

Furthermore, if you’d like to contribute to the FaceofMyFather.org SEO project, please leave a comment below or contact Search Engine Journal, and we’ll help set everything up.

John’s plans to donate to the orphanage have encouraged me to hold future competitions on Search Engine Journal where the winners can donate to the charities of their choice. If you’d like to help with these promotions, please contact Search Engine Journal with any ideas.

Mr. Carcutt lives in Florida (as do I) and I’ll be flying over to see him tomorrow and discuss the charity project while doing some fishing and attending a Boca Raton SEO Meetup, where I’ll be speaking on link building basics.

We’ll take some photos and post them on SEJ next week (this isn’t one of them), along with some press releases on the donation.

Thanks to Search Engine Journal readers and to our sponsors for making this all happen, and a special thanks to all participants who entered the SEJ Blogging Competition.