Build Traffic to Blog

Let me just say that I’m a huge believer of blog carnivals. Of course, they’re not without their disadvantages, but the benefits completely outweigh the investment of time and effort that you give them.

That’s why it amazes me that blog carnivals aren’t more widely used. Granted, the first couple times that you participate in them, it might take you some extra time to learn how things work. And new carnival networks can sometimes be more unreliable than you would like. But get hooked up with a solid group of bloggers in your niche, and carnivals are excellent ways to:

• Improve your credibility
• Quickly get regular, profitable subscribers of your partner blogs
• Get an immediate boost of traffic to blog entries
• Get a longer term improvement in search engine rankings

Carnivals: Just the Facts

A blog carnival is an online event consisting of a loose partnership of bloggers writing about a predefined topic. The posts created (or linked to) during a carnival frequently 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 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 one host, and the host’s blog is where all the blog posts for that specific carnival are held. In reply to the call for submissions, each blogger participating in the carnival sends their post to the host, where it is reviewed, edited, and published in the host blog as one giant post (link bait) or a series of posts. Obviously, you should know how to create blog posts that are effective and compelling to get the maximum benefit.

Carnivals usually draw loads of relevant traffic, so bloggers participating in the carnival receive a powerful 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 teamed together to publicize the carnival, knowing that the better the carnival is, the more powerful 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 get the most out of your carnival participation . . . in our next post!

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