Blog Carnival Basics - Why Not Using This Strategy is a Competitive Weakness
July 8, 2008 by Kenton Newby
I recently posted an article about getting the most from your blog carnival submissions and I was surprised to find out through many of the comments that quite a few folks hadn't heard of blog carnivals. That being the case, here's a little primer on what blog carnivals are and how you can use them to get traffic and backlinks to your blog.
What Are Blog Carnivals
Blog carnivals are essentially lists of the "best of" blog posts in particular categories. There are as many categories as you can possibly think of…not just "make money online" stuff, but hobbies, politics, parenting, educational, business professional topics and so on. Bloggers host these carnivals as a way to provide additional content for their sites, to give their readers a quick hit list of some of the best blog posts related to their topic and to get traffic to their sites. By submitting to blog carnivals (if your posts are accepted) you can benefit from them just as much as the site that's hosting the carnival. How? Read on…
Traffic From Blog Carnivals
First of all, you'll probably see a spike in traffic. Are we talking about a flood of traffic in a matter of days? Nope. No silver bullets here. But, over time, you'll see an increase in the visits to your site as people find you via the carnivals and continue to come back, or even better, as more people subscribe to your feed/newsletter.
The thing to keep in mind is that this is targeted traffic. You're submitting your posts to carnivals that are directly related to your topic, so you know that the visitors to those sites are probably also interested in what you have to offer too. They're also more likely to actually READ what you've posted, unlike some of the social networking traffic sources, which brings up the next point…
Your site will probably get submitted to some of the social networking sites too. I've had this site submitted to StumbleUpon quite a few times and that led to a significant jump in traffic over a few days or so (it comes and goes in spurts). The important thing to consider though is whether or not this type of traffic is really of value (I'll probably post another article on that later this week, but my take on this is "no"). But aside from that, there's still something to be said for getting a large number of people to your site, where hopefully at least some of them will become repeat visitors, subscribers, and/or customers.
Backlinks From Blog Carnivals
Blog carnivals are also great for getting backlinks. When webmasters use one of your blog posts in a blog carnival, you'll see that show up in your blog's admin panel as a trackback. If you go to the site that's referencing you, you'll see that they usually link to you with the title of your blog post, the name of your site, the author's name or something similar. So you can think strategically about this as you create your blog post title (can't do much about your site name or your name, right?). That way, you can get keyword-rich backlinks from a number of sites that are linking to pages other than your homepage.
Ummm…Okay, Now What?
- Write a blog post (don't forget about the blog carnival tips I mentioned here)
- Give it a good title, including some of your keywords (but don't be spammy about it)
- Go to blogcarnival.com and submit the blog post to as many carnivals as you can find (setup a secondary email address for these submissions)
- Check your traffic, backlinks and related stats in a few weeks and see if the 30 seconds and $0.00 it cost you was worth the boost in traffic
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Thanks for the tips. I have been testing Blog Carnival for several weeks. Nothing to write home about, but good for backlinks and a few visitors and perhaps subscribers.
Traffic from blog carnival can be very responsive, depends on the carnival you participate in. It is certainly more engaged than social media traffic.
It is nothing compare to social media (in numbers) but every single traffic counts, especially when you are just starting out.
Hendry,
That's true. Social media sites can bring quite a bit of traffic if people pick up one of your blog posts. But I haven't found the traffic to be all that great when you really look at the numbers. But that's somewhat due to how some of those sites work, encouraging users to quickly move on to the next site in the list.
I'm testing a few other things that I think will provide even better bang for the buck, but I don't have enough info to write about it yet. Stay tuned.
Kenton
Kenton,
I just posted your blog carnival article in my Saturday Blog Carnival.
One thing you didn't mention is that you should go to each host site and use your social media of choice on their site. StumbleUpon does not get good traffic, but some niche markets do better with it than others. At least stumble the site where you are posted.
Each time I post a Blog Carnival I visit each site and leave a note like this and then stumble the post - like I'll do here. This helps you and hopefully you will do the same back for me.
Check out the latest blog post from Cindy King's site: International Marketer Review Saturday Blog Carnival #8
Hi!
Nice write-up. Of course, I found your post via a carnival, Cindy King's carnival to be exact. Since you seem to like carnivals, may I ask you, if you are interested in hosting an edition of my carnival on this Blog?
It's easy to get people to submit to your carnival, but a bit harder to find someone, who is willing to host one. Prove me wrong and show that you walk your talk. (what kind of sales pitch is that?) It's less work than most people think.
Yours
John
Check out the latest blog post from John W. Furst's site: Email Marketing Tips - Edition 4
Cindy,
Thanks for posting this. I forgot to mention that aspect of social networking but you're spot on. And it never hurts to Stumble the sites your post get listed. Win-win for everyone.
Oh, and I Stumbled your latest carnival post too.
Kenton
John,
Let me know what I'd need to do. I think that's something I'd be interested in. Just reply here or use the contact form at the top of the site…whichever is easiest.
Regards,
Kenton
Fabulous post! Thanks so much for the info. I am among one of those that did not know about blog carnivals. Thanks for the great tips!