Why Up and Coming Bloggers Must Participate in Blog Carnivals (Part 1)
Let me just say that I’m a big believer of blog carnivals. Of course, they’re not without their disadvantages, but the advantages entirely outweigh the amount of effort and time that you give 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 a little extra time to get used to how they work. And new carnival networks can sometimes be less reliable than one might like. But get hooked up with a good group of bloggers in your market, and carnivals are effective ways to:
- Improve your authority
- Immediately gain profitable, regular readers of your partner blogs
- Get a quick surge of traffic to blog entries
- Get a long term gain in search engine rankings
What is a Blog Carnival?
A blog carnival is a web event consisting of a loose partnership of bloggers writing about a predefined subject. The articles produced (or linked to) during a carnival usually resulting in a magazine-like format. The carnival has a theme, title, editors, writers, and consumers. Most carnivals are held on a regular basis with rotating hosts.
A carnival usually has an owner, who is the organizer of the overall carnival, deciding or collaborating on things like rules, frequency, how to blog in the carnival, editorial guidelines, and such. The owner also acts as the coordinator, determining the hosting schedule for the carnival.
Every carnival has one host, and the host’s blog is where all the blog articles for that particular carnival are located. In response to the call for submissions, every blogger participating in the carnival submits their post to the host, where it is reviewed, edited, and published in the host blog as one giant linkbait post or a series of posts. Obviously, you should know how to create blog posts that are effective and compelling to get the most benefit.
Carnivals usually draw loads of qualified traffic, so bloggers participating in the carnival receive a valuable one-way link from the host and the immediate traffic boost associated with the initial readers. The carnival host gets links from each of the member bloggers who have partnered together to advertise 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 review how you can get the most out of your carnival participation . . . in our next post!
