Drive Traffic by Taking Part in Blog Carnivals (Part 1)
Let me start by saying I’m a huge believer of blog carnivals. Of course, they’re not without their drawbacks, but the advantages entirely outweigh the amount of time and effort that you put into them.
That’s why it confounds me that blog carnivals aren’t more popular. Yes, the first few times that you participate in them, it will take you some extra time to get used to how they work. And new carnival networks can sometimes be less reliable than you would like. But get hooked up with a good group of bloggers in your field, and carnivals are superb ways to:
* Improve your authority
* Immediately gain regular, profitable readers of your partner blogs
* Get an immediate boost of traffic to blog entries
* Get a long term gain in search result rankings
What is a Blog Carnival?
A blog carnival is an online event consisting of a group of bloggers writing about a predefined topic. The posts created (or linked to) during a carnival usually end up looking like a magazine. The carnival has a theme, title, editors, writers, and consumers. Most carnivals are held regularly with rotating hosts.
A carnival usually has an owner, who is the organizer of the overall carnival, collaborating or deciding on converns like frequency, rules, editorial guidelines, how to blog in the carnival, and such. The owner also acts as the coordinator, determining the hosting schedule for the carnival.
Every carnival has a specific host, and the host’s blog is where all the blog articles for that particular carnival are held. In response to the submission call, each blogger participating in the carnival sends their post to the host, where it is reviewed, edited, and published in the wild as one giant linkbait post or a series of smaller posts. Obviously, you should know how to create blog posts that are effective and compelling to get the greatest benefit.
Carnivals usually draw a lot of relevant traffic, so bloggers participating in the carnival receive a valuable backlink from the host and the immediate traffic surge associated with the original readers. The carnival host gets links from each of the contributing bloggers who have partnered together to publicize the event, knowing that the better the carnival is, the better the links will be when it comes time for them to host.
Now that you know what a carnival is, we’ll discuss how you can maximize your carnival participation . . . in our next post!
Tags: blogging, computers and internet, internet business, online business, web design
