In the earlier article in this series, I discussed what blog carnivals are and why all new bloggers should be participating in them. In the event that you missed that post, let me review briefly the benefits of participating in blog carnivals:

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

What I want to cover in this post is how you can get the most benefit out of your carnival participation. Let’s be real, carnivals require effort and time, so you should get as much good will and benefit from them as you can. Here’s how you can do just that:

1) Contribute your articles early. There will be a call for entries deadline, but it’s likely that the host already has a good idea about how the post will be structured before the deadline, so you want your article submitted during this formative stage.

2) Make the host’s job easier: Learn how to create blog article titles that are compelling, and come up with two or three powerful, compelling headings that can be used for the anchor text in links. Good titles are difficult to craft, so create them on your own. You’ll save the host the effort and get more traffic from a more powerful headline.

3) Follow the submission guidelines.

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

5) Promote: Once submitted, make sure to advertise the event. What goes around comes around, and your aggregate efforts to generate traffic will payoff for everyone in the long run. That’s the point of these carnivals: all participants are sharing subscribers, giving each the opportunity to attract the others’ regular subscribers.

6) Make sure you can handle your visitors: Prepare 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 offers or ads to your audience, provide a very visible subscribe link, and follow-up with at least a week’s worth of strong articles to capitalize on any repeat traffic you might have.

Blog carnivals are an excellent way to bring qualified, relevant, profitable, long-term readers. Use them correctly 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 doubts on how you can prepare your blog for this kind of traffic.

Good luck!

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