Aspiring Bloggers Should Participate in Blog Carnivals (Part 1)
December 4th, 2008
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:
* Increase your credibility
* Immediately gain regular, profitable readers of your partner blogs
* Get a quick surge of traffic to blog entries
* Get a long term gain in search result rankings
Carnivals: Just the Facts
A blog carnival is a virtual event consisting of a group of bloggers writing about a specific subject. The posts produced (or linked to) during a carnival frequently end up looking like a magazine. The carnival has a title, theme, 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 specific carnival are located. In response to the call for submissions, every 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’ll need to know how to create blog posts that are compelling and effective to get the most 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 surge associated with the initial readers. The carnival host receives links from each of the member bloggers who have teamed 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 review how you can maximize your carnival participation . . . in our next post!
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