Let me start by saying I’m a huge believer of blog carnivals. They’re not without their drawbacks, of course, but the advantages completely outweigh the amount of effort and time that you give them.
That’s why it shocks me that blog carnivals aren’t as popular as they should be. Granted, the first several 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 might like. But get hooked up with a good group of bloggers in your market, and carnivals are superb ways to:
- Improve your credibility
- Immediately gain regular, profitable readers of your partner blogs
- Get an immediate boost of traffic to blog posts
- Get a longer term gain in search engine rankings
Carnivals: What are They?
A blog carnival is a web event consisting of a group of bloggers writing about a predefined topic. The posts created (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, collaborating or deciding on things like rules, frequency, 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 articles for that particular carnival are located. In reply 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 large post (link bait) 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 qualified traffic, so bloggers participating in the carnival get a powerful backlink from the host and the immediate traffic surge associated with the initial readers. The carnival host gets links from each of the participating bloggers who have teamed together to publicize the event, knowing that the better the carnival is, the more powerful the links will be when it comes time for their turn to host.
Now that you know what a carnival is, we’ll discuss how you can maximize your carnival participation . . . in our next post!
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