Why New Bloggers Must Participate in Blog Carnivals (Part 2)
In the earlier post in this series, I mentioned what blog carnivals are and why all new bloggers should be participating in them. In case you missed that post, let me review briefly the benefits of participating in blog carnivals:
- They increase your authority
- You quickly gain regular, profitable subscribers of your partner blogs
- You get a quick boost of traffic to blog entries
- You get a long term increase in search engine rankings
What I want to cover in this post is how you can get the most benefit out of your carnival participation. Let’s face it, carnivals take time and effort, so you might as well get the most good will and benefit from them as possible. Here’s how you can accomplish that:
1) Contribute your articles early. There will be a call for entries deadline, but in all likelihood the host already has a good idea on how the post will be structured before the deadline, so you want your post available during this planning stage.
2) Make the host’s job painless: Learn how to create blog post titles that are catchy, and think of two or three strong, compelling titles that can be used for the anchor text in links. Good headlines are difficult to craft, so craft them yourself. You’ll save the host the effort and get more visitors from a more powerful headline.
3) Follow the submission guidelines.
4) Get organized: Organize the information you submit. Include your e-mail address, name, blog name, article title, post summary, several sample headings, trackback URL, and permalink. Place this information in an e-mail above the full article itself, unless otherwise directed.
5) Advertise: Once submitted, make sure to promote the carnival. What goes around comes around, and your collaborative efforts to drive traffic will payoff for everybody in the long run. That’s the concept behind these carnivals: all participants are sharing subscribers, giving each the opportunity to attract the others’ regular readers.
6) Make sure your blog can handle your visitors: Ready your blog for any traffic surges that might occur, and optimize the page that the carnival readers will be viewing. You’ll want to target the ads or offers to your audience, provide a very conspicuous subscription link, and follow-up with at least a week’s worth of powerful articles to capitalize on any lingering traffic you might have.
Blog carnivals are a terrific way to bring profitable, relevant, qualified, long-term readers. Use them correctly and you’ll reap the rewards. But you must be prepared to put your best foot forward. Pick up a good blogs how to if you have any questions on how you can prepare your blog for this kind of traffic.
Good luck!
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