Get Traffic by Taking Part in Blog Carnivals (Part 1)

I’ll start by saying that I’m a big fan of blog carnivals. They’re not without their disadvantages, of course, but the benefits entirely outweigh the investment of time and effort 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 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

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 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.

Each carnival has a specific host, and the host’s blog is where all the blog posts for that specific carnival are held. In response to the call for submissions, each blogger involved 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 posts. Obviously, you’ll need to know how to create blog posts that are effective and compelling to get the most benefit.

Carnivals usually draw a lot of qualified 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 member bloggers who have teamed together to advertise the carnival, knowing that the better the carnival is, the better 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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