The continuation of the Blog StartUp series for my new blog! Today I will be discussing the usage of Blog Carnivals for traffic and building link backs.

First, what is a Blog Carnival?

A blog carnival is where you get to show off the stuff you’ve been writing about in your blog. A carnival is a collection of blog posts around a theme. In most cases you submit your own posts to the carnival or carnivals. There are carnivals for everything topic you write about.

It offers a huge advantage for the Online Community, it allows you to submit your related articles and have them seen by a wider audience, perhaps attracting more users to your own blog. Carnivals are easy ways to get excellent one way inbound links and traffic, and best of all, they are free.

When you are just starting out or maybe still want more blog traffic you can take the full advantage of blog carnivals. All you have to do is to find the appropriate carnivals for your niche and submit your best blog posts.

FiveCentNickel.com has a great question and answer, well top 5 Q&A about Blog Carnivals. Below is one excerpt about how useful a blog carnival can be:

Why would I want to participate in a Blog Carnival?

This one wasn’t actually asked, but I’m going to answer it anyway. For newer sites, the biggest reason to participate is exposure. It’s frustrating to pour your heart out on the pages of you blog if nobody notices. No matter how good your stuff is, you won’t attract a readership until people know that you’re out there. One possibility is to network with other bloggers. Exchange links, leave (on topic) comments on their posts, link and use trackbacks, etc., etc.

Blog Carnivals add another dimension to this strategy. They let you reach out to the readers of other (often popular and highly trafficked) sites. They allow you to showcase your work. Another reason to participate is search engine optimization (SEO). After all, each and every Carnival that you participate in provides you with a direct link to one of your articles, usually from a topically-related site.

Of course, you don’t just have to participate… You can host. In this case, you can get a lot of exposure due to the fact that Carnivals often attract a reasonably large number of visitors. Sure, they’re there to see what others have submitted, but now they know you’re out there. And don’t be shy. Go ahead and say a few words up front about what your site is all about, how to subscribe, etc. Just to overly-pimp yourself, because the submissions are really the star of the show.

So far to me using Blog Carnivals has helped increase in my traffic and provides link backs to my site. Giving and growing my brand and growing specific anchor text. To read more in depth about what a blog carnival is all about you can read their FAQs. Each host as blog carnival defines, list their carnival every week; giving exposure to these sites that were submitted.

As you can see from my TalkBacks, there are quite some trackbacks to certain blogs that host these carnivals. They do this maybe once a month, every week; it all depends on the host. I tend to add all of my post to relative carnival and up to 3 carnivals I submit too. For example this post will be submitted to several carnivals to specific carnivals. Usually I want my information to be fresh so I will look for a carnival that will post within a week. If not and if my topic can be discuss outside of a week then I can submit to any carnival. Usually blog carnivals are conducted like a magazine or newsletter and published one a week or so.

Not a lot of bloggers know or use Blog Carnivals. They do not see a potential of traffic or the proper use of conducting or submitting their post to these carnivals. Blog Carnivals are one of the biggest secrets agreed by John Chow:

A Blog Carnival has huge advantages for bloggers.

1. It allows you to submit your related posts & have them seen by a wide audience. Who doesn’t want exposure!
2. They are an excellent source for one way links.
3. Most blogs that host Carnivals have decent rankings so this brings up your ranking

Steve Pavlina speaks this as well:

In my early traffic-building days, I’d do carnivals submissions once a week, and it helped a great deal in going from nothing to about 50,000 visitors per month. You still have to produce great content, but carnivals give you a free shot at marketing your unknown blog. Free marketing is precisely the kind of opportunity you don’t want to miss. Carnivals are like an open-mic night at a comedy club — they give amateurs a chance to show off their stuff.

I agree with Steve and this should be used by all newbies entering the blogosphere. This free marketing tool can help you gain exposure and grow your link back and Google page rank. Since I have just started blogging for a couple months I use Blog Carnival to gain exposure and targeted traffic. This ensures that my site will stay healthy and provide a positive flow of traffic.