How to promote a competition?

I am planning to start a competition on my site(url in my signature). Since the site deals with website promotion through articles, the competition will also be on the same lines. Though I have not worked out all the rules, it should something be on the lines of either submitting original articles.

The reward would be in the form of either
a) Web traffic
b) Domain names
c) cash
d) any of the above

What would be the best ways to advertise the competition? What have you tried out before and how has the response been?

Any advice is welcome.. even suggestions on the rules of the competition.

Competitions usually are intended to motivate the people that are allready using your site.

But I think you are asking how to use a competition to make new visitors right?

If yes, then you should search for sites that list competitions (there are some of them) to submit your competitions.

In some cases you can also digg the competition(digg.com) but have in mind that digg's traffic is not converting, and you may considered spammer.

Also you can try CPC campaigns from a cheap network like SearchFeed for promoting your contest.

Hope my thoughts helped :)

I will suggest to post in freebie sites. There are thousands of them, and they can send you lots of visitors.

That's a good advice. I will follow it too.Thanks :)

Here I found a site where you can post a contest :

http://www.uniquecontests.com/

When I find more I will update the post. Please do the same :)

wow that was a good advice why don't it came early on my brain full of s**t..

I've edit your post.

Please don't use bad language in the forum. Thanks :)

okay....

wella anyway, ive seen that sig links are a good way to promote anything, especially if you have a real high post count, or you are staff on that forum

You can also give your exsisting members/users some free chances of winning by referring more people to your competition. That way you will get some more people to help you with the advertising for free.

I always try to get other people to work for me  ;D so I don't have to work that much myself.

Just found another site : http://www.contesthound.com

Here is the description from the site :

Seems that I am the only one that updates this thread :(

Here is another one I found, it looks like a very proffesional site :

http://www.online-sweepstakes.com/

This one can also work :

http://www.ezclassifieds.org/