The benefits of blog carnivals

Are you wondering why you should bother with blog carnivals? Well, the way I see it, a carnival is a win-win situation for all involved.

As a blogger.

When one of your posts gets featured in a blog carnival, you gain at least one link to your blog. This would be to the post page for that article. But many carnival hosts may also link to your blog's home page when they name your blog, and they might even link to your AboutMe page if you have one when they name you.

Your blog is now mentioned on someone else's blog (the carnival host for that month). That blog will hopefully have many regular readers, many of which will never have seen your blog before. If you have submitted a really good article, some of those new readers may become regulars at your blog. They might even be bloggers themselves and blog about you! More links! Or they might become customers, or whatever it is you want your blog readers to do for you.

Hopefully you will submit blog posts to the carnival on a regular basis. This will get you links, and visitors, from a new blog every time.

The Carnival of the Creators blog will also have it's regular readers, and will find new readers every week too. That's my plan anyway! So if the first time you have a blog post featured, you will gain exposure to all these people too.


As a host

As a host you stand to gain lots of links. You will get a link from here and from Blog Carnival.com for starters. The blog host from the previous edition should link to your blog's home page, and next month's host should link back to your carnival post page. Many of the blogs you feature will also link back to you, to point out that they have been featured in a carnival. Other bloggers may also read your carnival post and mention something they have seen there.

You see, blogging is, or should be, all about connectivity. If you link to other blogs, others will link to you. That is how it works in many blog sub-communities, and there is no reason it shouldn't in the arts and crafts arena.


As a reader
Watch for Carnival of the Creators every week and you will find lots of new blogs and new ideas. Possibly one of the best places to stay in touch with the arts and crafts community. Sunscribe to our RSS feed, http://creatorscarnival.blogspot.com/atom.xml


Carnival as community

Think of blog carnivals as a community. Every month you will probably meet new people, be exposed to new ideas and increase your network of friends, many of which may turn out to be great evangelists for you, your blog, your products or your services. The blogosphere is full of people waiting to spread the word about something or the other.



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