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What Are Blog Carnivals and Why You Should Participate

What Are Blog Carnivals and Why You Should Participate 8 Comments

Nishadha Silva is a Software Engineer turned Tech evangelist. He works with small businesses and start-ups to promote their products and services. At the moment he's working with Creately, makers of flowchart software, which is quickly emerging as an alternative to Visio


Blog CarnivalsA blog carnival is a collection of links to blog posts from various blogs focused on a certain topic. A blog owner will write a blog post linking to posts that cover the topic of that carnival, usually accompanied with a small description so visitors can get an idea about the article before going to read it. Other bloggers can submit their blog post if they think it’s a good fit for the blog carnival. Blog carnivals are so popular there are specific websites dedicated to simplify the process.

Some bloggers do something similar to blog carnivals in their blogs. “Friday Links”, “Best reads of the week”, “Blog posts I loved this month” etc. are some examples of this. However the difference between them and blog carnivals is that they don’t focus on a certain topic and others are not allowed to submit their posts to be included like in blog carnivals.


Advantage for Other Bloggers

  • Traffic – If your blog post gets selected to be published in the blog carnival you will definitely get some traffic from that blog. The amount of traffic depends on the number of readers of that blog so it is always a good idea to submit your posts to an active blog. Also you can increase your traffic levels by helping to promote the blog carnival post via social media and social bookmarking sites.
  • New Audience – You will be getting a set of visitors highly targeted towards your blog post. So it will be much easier to convert them into email subscribers or RSS readers. Make sure to have few more excellent posts to entice them more.
  • SEO Benefits – You are getting a link from another blog and if the anchor text has the right keywords it is even better. Additionally blog carnival posts are linked by other participating blogger so that page acquires lot of authority giving you a quality link.
  • Connecting with the blogger – If you are to succeed in any business venture you need to have the right connections. Blog carnivals give you the opportunity to connect with a like-minded blogger. Even if your blog post doesn’t get selected you can still make an effort to build a powerful connection.

Advantage for Blog Hosts

  • Increased Traffic – When you host a blog carnival you get traffic in multiple ways. First you get an initial wave of traffic from people who are coming to check out the carnival requirements. If you have a good website layout then you can get more traffic to popular posts etc. Also after you publish your carnival blog post the people who submitted will check it out and likely to share your post on their social networks which will bring you even more traffic.
  • SEO Advantages – Search engines appreciate quality content and linking to quality content is a sign that you are producing quality content. This will give you a boost in authority. Also once you link to others via your carnival post they are likely to return the favor by linking to it from their blogs. This will give you additional links and help you rank better in search engines.
  • Happy Readers – Your readers will appreciate the fresh posts and consider you an authority on that topic.

As you can see blog carnivals are beneficial for blog owners, article submitters and readers. Finding them is not that hard, just set up a Google alert and Google will do the finding for you. So the next time you hear about a blog carnival make sure to check out if you can submit your blog posts. If you own a blog consider the benefits of hosting a carnival and give it try.

Nishadha Silva is a Software Engineer turned Tech evangelist. He works with small businesses and start-ups to promote their products and services. At the moment he's working with Creately, makers of flowchart software, which is quickly emerging as an alternative to Visio

8 comments

  1. I have seen many blog posts that are similar to blog carnivals on lots of blogs. Blog carnival a nice way to get SEO benefits and traffic.

  2. Yes Saha, it is definitely a great way to get some back links and traffic. And the best part is you don’t have to put much effort to participate in these things.

  3. Hmm, for me, it’s first time I heard about `blog carnivals`. I saw some blog post like this, but I never knew that is called `carnivals`. And seem to be very good for SEO. Maybe I’ll try some of this blog post style 😀

  4. Blog Carnivals, who knew?
    Thanks for the post, I will be going to Google and set up an alert, thanks.
    Jim

    1. You’re welcome Jim, combined with Google alerts, you don’t have to do much to get links, traffic and exposure this way.

  5. When I first started, I used a blog carnival to help build up traffic and awareness. It definitely worked back then as my Page Rank definitely increased. I don’t know how they work now with all of the Google Panda and Google Penguin updates, but I don’t see why not trying it out if it doesn’t really upset the natural order of things on the net currently.

  6. Nice summary on effectiveness of Blog Carnivals. I participated in Blog Carnivals in the past. They do not seem to be in use as much anymore. I keep coming across “Blog Hops”. I am glad that you gave such a detailed list of how Blog Carnivals can help bloggers Today. I will definitely take your suggestion and look for a Blog Carnival that will work for my blog topics. Thanks again for providing such useful content in a well laid out format.

  7. Blog carnivals really bring in good results if you would want your website to get more traffic, get new readers/customers as well as getting your blog to connect with other blogs that are either related or relevant to your niche. Thanks for sharing!

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