Over at an online forum I hang about on, someone asked the question “what’s a blog carnival?”. It struck me that blog carnivals are bit of a blogging secret and it’s definitely worth finding out what the fuss is all about and whether it’s worth joining in…
If you’re blogging for your business, then it’s important that people are reading what you write and that you’re connecting on some level with your target audience. The more website visitors you have, then the happier you’re going to be.
You may be happy because you have more readers for your blog or maybe you’re happy because more web traffic means more sales (especially if you have an ecommerce site selling products or services). Either way, what if you could generate some blog content that increased your traffic, but also helped you make great connections and reach out to new audiences? Well, you can. And the technique you can use is called a blog carnival.
Firstly, a blog carnival is an online event. A blogger agrees to be the carnival host and then requests blog posts (usually around a particular theme) to be forwarded to them by a particular deadline. The carnival host then posts up links to, or excerpts from, a chosen number of entries. For example, a food blogger might host a “vegetarian carnival” and invite other bloggers to forward blog posts on vegetarian issues.
Taking part in a blog carnival can be a good way to generate some new content for your blog (if you are the carnival host) or to generate some traffic to your blog, new readers and a backlink, if you are selected to take part.
An excellent resource for further information is over at Blog Carnival with good advice regarding hosting and taking part in one.
Alison Rothwell
Alison is the Director and Founder of WP Fiddly Bits, the WordPress Website Maintenance experts, and contributes to the WP Fiddly Bits WordPress blog. She also uses her background in marketing to help clients get found everywhere online.