Win a Free Website or Blog Re-Design
Try as you might, it’s unlikely that you will ever become an expert in everything. For example, I’ve decided to specialize in freelance writing and John knows how to make money online, but neither one of us is particularly proficient in the visual arts.
It can get expensive to hire a web designer to completely create your website from the ground up, but thanks to a contest from lifeBLUE Media — the company that ordered this ReviewMe review — you may have an opportunity to get your blog or website completely redesigned by professionals and it won’t cost you a penny. With the right look, concept, and a little perseverance, maybe you can be a dot com mogul too!
Ugly Duckling Syndrome
The I Need a New Design Contest is actually quite simple. You have what you consider to be one of the ugliest and worst designed websites on the net, and lifeBLUE wants to help you turn that mangled mess around into a work of web 2.0 art. They want to transform your beast into a beauty.
After submitting your website, you must then tell as many people as you can to vote for you. Place a badge on your website, spread the word through email and IM, and spam post in forums that you frequent. The crew at lifeBLUE will keep track of all the votes and a winner — that is, the person with the absolute ugliest and worst designed website based on number of votes — will be announced some time after August 8th, 2007 when voting will end.
It’s terribly ironic, really, because you’re trying to convince your readers that you have a website with a ridiculously poor design. It’s butt ugly and you’re not at all proud of it. With this web design contest, “it’s good to be bad!”
Click here for full contest rules.
Slim Competition Increases Your Chances
At the time that I wrote this review, there were very few contestants vying for the very lucrative prize. In fact, when I checked the current standings, the top vote getter only had five votes. I’m sure that with very little promotion and the help of a few of your friends, you can easily topple the five vote mark. Submitting your website only takes a few seconds, and the actual voting process is even shorter.
When a random visitor clicks on the badge on your site or navigates to your entry page on lifeBLUE, they need not enter any sort of personal information whatsoever. What’s more, anyone can vote once a day for their favorite (or least favorite, depending on how you want to frame it) site. Not that I’m encouraging you to do this, but if you were to vote for yourself every day between now and August 8th, you’d rack up a solid 30 votes. And that’s just you.
Brilliant Linkbait (For You Too)
Ultimately, this contest is designed to be one big linkbait for lifeBLUE, a Dallas web design company. By placing the voting widget on your site and promoting the contest through your blog, they are receiving some valuable linkbacks and plenty of exposure. Ordering this ReviewMe was naturally also a very good idea.
But they’re not the only ones to gain from this. Even if you don’t win — there will only be one winner who will receive the grand prize — you also get to reap the benefits of some free linkbacks. If you manage to stay near the top of the standings, everyone visiting that page will see a screenshot of your site, as well as the URI. From your specific entry page, there’s also a direct linkback to your website. Hence, there’s a little bit of link love for everyone.
Beyond the Contest
This web design contest is unique because it’s puts a positive spin on having an ugly website or blog. That’s why it’s “good to be bad”. If you’re the winner, this is great, because you get a whole new professionally designed site or blog, as well as lots of linkbacks and exposure. That said, if you lose, it means that you are openly saying that your blog is ugly or your site is poorly designed. And then it’s going to stay that way.
On a side note, if you’re interested in what else lifeBLUE has to offer, here’s what their website says:
Good luck to all the ugly ducklings in the audience. Hopefully you’ll win and emerge as a beautiful swan.
- Posted in Reviews
- 74 comments what's your take?
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Free website, nice..
Reply to this commentvote for me please, i’d love a blog redesign
Reply to this commentouchs, you won’t get a free website, all you will get is a free redesign of your website or your blog
Reply to this commentThat’s not a bad prize though! And I imagine you don’t have to accept their design if you don’t like it. I would like a new design myself!
Reply to this commentMaybe if you win the design based on self or friend votes you could run your own contest and give the prize away.
Reply to this commentYou just wrote that…
Reply to this commentit’s been a while everyone!
nice, can’t we have both?
i want a redesign of my blog
pleas vote for me
Reply to this commentPlease vote for me! I obviously need it
Reply to this commentThis is the same (almost) contest I’ve been running on my blog since March: http://www.thethinkingblog.com/2007/03/what-do-you-think-review-contest.html
The only difference is that you don’t need to ask for votes. All you need to do is write a review!!
Reply to this commentgirl i had made a comment about it without reading yours..im so glad you put it in the air because i think somebody is not reading other peoples post. shame on you john.
Reply to this commentI have no problem with an ugly website making me good cash
Reply to this commentNor do I
.
Reply to this commentThat’s true too.
Reply to this commentBut nicer could make you even more.
Reply to this commentexactly
Reply to this commentyeah, but a better looking one can’t hurt!
Reply to this commentAs with many other things in life, “Contest open to US residents only.”
Reply to this commentTo participate, all i need to do is to delete a ” or a ; somewhere in the template and then my page will be royally screwed!
But we’re talking about getting linkbacks here. Just because you can’t win the prize doesn’t mean you can get in the running…
Reply to this comment” But they’re not the only ones to gain from this. Even if you don’t win — there will only be one winner who will receive the grand prize — you also get to reap the benefits of some free linkbacks. If you manage to stay near the top of the standings, everyone visiting that page will see a screenshot of your site, as well as the URI. From your specific entry page, there’s also a direct linkback to your website. Hence, there’s a little bit of link love for everyone.”
But what about the loss of reputation? If you don’t win,then you don’t get a chance to get your site redsigned and one participates claiming that he/she has a bad looking site? so how the hell will one get new subscribers?
One can rather follow John chow and try to self promote his/her personal success whether it be making money online or any other niche area they focus on…
and i will continue to celebrate and promote my celebrities with this design of mine.
cheers,indy - http://indycelebrities.blogspot.com/
Reply to this commentIf you read the full review, you’d notice that I also said this:
“That said, if you lose, it means that you are openly saying that your blog is ugly or your site is poorly designed. And then it’s going to stay that way.”
Reply to this commentThat is a good linkbait idea I agree. Nice idea
Reply to this commentHaha, that’s what I immediately thought of when I read this post.
Reply to this commentYeah me too!
Reply to this commentI was surprised that the quality of those “bad” sites really wasn’t that bad. At least not crime-against-humanity bad like 90% of MySpace pages.
Great marketing idea, though! Sounds like they have some creative minds working there.
Reply to this commentthey took this idea from another blogger…this post is 3 months old…
you be the judge
http://www.thethinkingblog.com/2007/03/what-do-you-think-review-contest.html
Reply to this commentHope I win
Reply to this commentI’ve got loads of ugly sites, the problem is I stay awake at night crying when I think about having to shift the content to a new design
(Just read above, only for US, that’s that problem solved then.)
Reply to this commentBut the reward will be well worth it! Instead of crying, get on the computer and type away!
Reply to this commentI’d love a free design of my blog!
Reply to this commentGreat link bait. And boy do I need a redesign. Vote for me!!
Reply to this commentYour current design isn’t too bad.
Reply to this commentI’d love a professional design. It’s so time consuming learning CSS
Reply to this commentTell me about it. I’ve been teaching myself for years and I still suck at CSS!
Reply to this commentAhh yes, gotta have the wall of shame!
Reply to this commentvote for me please:
vote for a video a day
thank you
Reply to this commentEven if I’ve seen 1,000,000 uglier sites than yours?
Reply to this commentI think your site looks very nice, you dont need redisign so it will be hard for you to win.
Reply to this commentHey, this is Brandon from lifeBLUE. I understand what you mean about wanting a new site rather than a redesign. Here’s what we decided–set up a free blog as a placeholder then go out and promote it (on your own blog or personal sites) to get votes just the same as any of the other sites. Little more effort but I’d say it’s well worth it for the chance at a new site.
I’m looking forward to see how you guys promote your sites to get the most votes. Good luck and let me know if there’s any more questions about it.
-Brandon
Reply to this commentNot a bad idea! I’m sure they will get some traffic out of it
Reply to this commentProbably a lot of traffic. If this type of thing catches on there could be a lot of exposure.
Reply to this commentI guess that is the chance you take, traffic vs. having a reputation for an ugly site.
Reply to this commentNo, no no.
People You’ll See In Hell is the site you should vote for. We’re TERRIBLE.
Seriously, We’re in dire need of some kind of expert work. Court was nice enough to SEO the layout, but it’s still pretty rough.
Reply to this commentFREE? Who gives away free things these days?
Reply to this commentcant join, i only have blogger.
Reply to this commentwho won the latest contest?
Great Idea
Reply to this commentHey people! Vote for me
: VOTE
thanks
Reply to this commentHow much redesign can be done on a blog? If your blog is ugly then just pick a different template and get rid of a bunch of flashing banner ads!
Reply to this commentVote for my site! Ok I’ll ask nicely: Please vote for my site!
Reply to this commentHello Micheal, nice contest. I suggest you submitting it to my new website http://blogmycontest.com .
Reply to this commentNice link bait. It time for another contest.
Reply to this commentI need my site to redesign… my design is like 4 years old and that is not good.
Reply to this commentI have joined because I think I need some fresh look.
VOTE PLEASE
Reply to this commentBut dont vote if there is more ugy site than mine.
crap, your site is ugly…nothing reallly meets the eye
Reply to this commentI dont like to say that but you are right. But it is my baby and I want for it the best so some new coat would be good.
Reply to this commentThe links are all rel=nofollow. For example, you can see my submission here:
http://www.lifeblue.com/web_design_contest/contestant/1656.html
or simply click here to vote for me.
Reply to this commenteveryone is asking for a vote already…wow
Reply to this commentIt will be overloaded and crash the server soon
Reply to this commentplease vote for me guys
i need some encouragement to continue to write
thanks
Reply to this commentDidn’t you know that I’m an expert in everything? j/k. Nice piece of linkbait.
Reply to this commentIt’s interesting that over half of the comments on this post are “vote for me”
Reply to this commentThis is a damn weird contest. I will consider submitting my blog there (the blog is OK, just another WP blog, it has some errors in IE but i can easily fix that, what i care is…umh the juicy promotion i sniff from this).
Love this kind of weird things…human brain has no limits.
Reply to this commentThanks for bringing this up! I could use a redesign on a couple of my sites, and taking a shot at winning a contest never hurts…
Reply to this commentThanks for putting a great offer together. I would love to get some redesign done on few of my site so it can start pulling in nice income like this one!
Reply to this commentIt’d be nice if they made the vote total public.
Reply to this commentThe thinking blog is doing the same thing..
http://www.thethinkingblog.com/2007/03/what-do-you-think-review-contest.html
she has some stuning designs.. she even made one for you john but you never replied..im i wrong?
Reply to this commentThanks for the great contest! Somehow I’ve jumped to number 1. My site must really suck.
Reply to this commentI submitted my money blog(the one you go to when u click on my name) because it’s pretty crappy. I have lots of ideas but don’t know very much html, etc. I redesigned my A Cowboy’s Wife myself to fit my lifestyle but definately need help on the other one. Any of you please feel free to vote for my ugly blog!! Thanks
Reply to this commentMore free things! Yippee! Installing a WordPress
Reply to this commentcan be a pain in the — ! Thanks!
Wow, thanks for sharing this freebie!
Reply to this commentThis really is a great contest and I am ashamed to be a part of it and happy to be a part of it at the same time
Vote for me please!!
Reply to this commentIs this contest still on ?? If so im in.
Reply to this comment