Establish Expert Credibility with Blog Carnivals (Part 2)

In the previous article in this series, I reviewed what blog carnivals are and why all up and coming bloggers should be participating in them. In the event that you missed that post, let me review briefly the benefits to participating in blog carnivals:

• They improve your authority
• You immediately gain profitable, regular readers of your partner blogs
• You get a quick boost of traffic to blog entries
• You get a longer term gain in search result rankings

What I want to cover in this post is how you can derive the most benefit out of your carnival participation. Let's face it, carnivals require time and effort, so you might as well get as much good will and benefit from them as possible. Here's how you can accomplish that:

1) Add your posts early. There will be a submission deadline, but it's likely that the host already has a good idea about how the article 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 article titles that are catchy, and think of two or three strong, compelling headings that can be used for the anchor text in links. Good headings are difficult to create, so craft them on your own. You'll save the host the trouble and get more traffic from a stronger heading.

3) Follow the submission guidelines.

4) Get organized: Organize the information you enter. Include your e-mail address, name, blog name, post title, post summary, several sample headings, trackback URL, and permalink. Place this information in an e-mail above the full post itself, unless otherwise directed.

5) Advertise: Once submitted, make sure to advertise the event. What goes around comes around, and your collaborative efforts to generate traffic will payoff for everyone 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 subscribers.

6) Make sure you can handle your traffic: Ready your blog for any traffic spikes that might occur, and optimize the page that the carnival readers will be viewing. You'll want to aim the ads or offers to your audience, provide a very visible subscribe link, and follow-up with at least a week's worth of solid articles to capitalize on any repeat traffic you might have.

Blog carnivals are a superb way to attract relevant, qualified, profitable, long-term readers. Use them intelligently and you'll reap the rewards. But you must be ready 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!