Andy Beal refers to his SEM Scholarship contest as “SEM Idol” and I think that’s a good way to look at it. He does a great job breaking down the contest and reports visitors (unique views), page views and the top 3 referrers for each article.

Another overview of this scholarship contest is covered in my week by week blow but Andy’s “anatomy” is certainly all encompassing.  The  four weekly finalists will get a closer look by not only the distinguished panel of judges but also the sem seo community as a whole. Even those that didn’t make the finals “won” in a sense because they no doubt learned a lot and had the ability to express their views.

One clear lesson is the power of social media and in fact the last week’s winning article was “The Five Pillars of Social Media Marketing“.  Another lesson was that a link from Stuntdubl,  SEOmoz and TopRankBlog  turned out to be a great way to get page views since these blogs are all about seo sem, the target audience. This blog also provided a few referrers to other people’s articles. Not a smart move in a contest. I just thought that all the articles  should be read.

My article came in 12th place out of 48 entries with 273 visitors and 375 page views.  Many of those page views came from the same IP address at work so next time I’ll make sure my colleagues check it out on their home computers.  I’ll also start preaching the power of social media. 

All in all this was an excellent experience and I look forward to the next time around. Again, congratulations to the finalists and best wishes!

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