Further Money Talk
Why All Bloggers Should Participate 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 amount of effort and time that you put into them.
That’s why it amazes me that blog carnivals aren’t more widely used. Granted, 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 one would like. But get connected with a reliable group of bloggers in your market, and carnivals are effective ways to:
- Increase your authority
- Immediately gain profitable, regular subscribers of your partner blogs
- Get an immediate boost of traffic to blog posts
- Get a long term increase in search result rankings
Carnivals: What are They?
A blog carnival is an online event consisting of a loose partnership of bloggers writing about a specific topic. The articles created (or linked to) during a carnival frequently resulting in a magazine-like format. The carnival has a title, theme, writers, editors, 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 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.
Each carnival has one host, and the host’s blog is where all the blog articles for that particular carnival are held. In reply to the submission call, each blogger participating in the carnival submits their post to the host, where it is reviewed, edited, and published in the wild as one giant post (link bait) or a series of posts. Obviously, you had better know how to create blog posts that are compelling and effective to get the most benefit.
Carnivals usually draw loads of qualified traffic, so bloggers participating in the carnival get a valuable backlink from the host and the immediate traffic boost associated with the original readers. The carnival host gets links from each of the contributing 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 review how you can maximize your carnival participation . . . in our next post!
Jared is co-author of Blogging in Action, a popular package that helps people learn how to blog the right way. He is also the programmer of the Six-Figure Plugin Suite, used by hundreds of people to drive traffic to blog posts and sites.
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