Redirect Traffic by Participating in Blog Carnivals (Part 1)

« « Affiliate Marketing What Is It | Web Content Management Means Everyone Can Make Great Websites » »

Sunday, November 16th, 2008 Subscribe To Our Feed

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 investment of time and effort that you put into them.

That’s why it shocks me that blog carnivals aren’t more popular. Granted, the first couple times that you participate in them, it might take you a little extra time to learn the ropes. And new carnival networks can sometimes be less reliable than one might like. But get hooked up with a solid group of bloggers in your niche, and carnivals are effective ways to:

Increase your credibility
Quickly get regular, profitable readers of your partner blogs
Get a quick boost of traffic to blog posts
Get a long term gain in search engine rankings

What is a Blog Carnival?

A blog carnival is a web event consisting of a group of bloggers writing about a specific topic. The articles 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, deciding or collaborating on things 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 submission call, every blogger participating in the carnival sends their post to the host, where it is reviewed, edited, and published in the wild as one giant linkbait post 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 a lot of relevant traffic, so bloggers participating in the carnival get a powerful one-way link from the host and the immediate traffic surge associated with the original readers. The carnival host receives links from each of the member bloggers who have partnered together to publicize the carnival, 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 talk about how you can maximize your carnival participation . . . in our next post!

Share and Enjoy: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.