Blog contests are fun. They’re interactive, they build community, and they have that certain little edge of hope that maybe you’ll be the winner.

Blog contests take all shapes and forms. They can be as simple as giving away a gift certificate for McDonald’s for every 100th commenter. They can be very involved, where you have to write a 1000-word essay and then submit it to a number of sites. Blog contests are held to increase overall popularity of a blog, and specifically to get links pointing to it.

Blog contests are so popular that there are a number of web sites that specialize in announcing them (talk about niche marketing!) – like Contest Blogger.

The most “radical” blog contest I’ve seen lately is David Airey’s $4,000 Graphic Designer Prize Giveaway.

What do you have to do to win? Not very much, it turns out. All that’s needed is to write a blog post talking about the prize giveaway. Chances to win can be increased by linking to prize sponsors like Search Engine Optimizer Andy Beard; The Blog Experiment (a forum for bloggers); Brad VanAuken, who has written Brand Aid, a how-to-guide on building winning brands; business growth consultant Rebecca Caroe or Wordpress expert Lakshmi Mareddy.

See how easy that was?