How to Get Your Blog to 100,000 Visitors and Beyond, Step 17; Host Carnivals

Step 17 to getting to 100,000 visitors and beyond: Host carnivals.

Earlier in this series we talked about the advantages of participating in blog carnivals. But after awhile, that isn't enough -- you want to host one. And if you're up for a lot of work in a short amount of time, blog carnivals can be traffic goldmines.

Each blog carnival "founder" has his or her standard way of awarding hosting privileges, but I'd say that most will give you a slot as long as you've participated in the carnival at least a few times, have a decent number of posts under your belt (30 or so), you post regularly, and you/your site is a positive reflection on the blogosphere -- all basics you should have covered easily by this point in this series.

However, be warned: hosting a carnival can be a LOT of work and the payout can be dubious. For a carnival like the Carnival of the Vanities, you could get 40-50 submissions, all with varying levels of partial information in place/missing (and you have to track down), and you need to get the post up soon after the deadline (usually a day at the most). Plus, gone are the good old days when Instapundit would link to every carnival a send a ton of traffic (1,000 visitors at LEAST) your way. (I guess we killed the golden goose with too many carnivals.) So now you're relying on the sites submitting articles to link to you and send lots of readers your way. Many will link to you (which is good as links help you out with the search engines) but traffic is questionable. Many of the submitters will have far less traffic than you will.

So how do you make the best of this situation? Here are my suggestions:

• Don't wait until the deadline to start putting the carnival together. If you do, you may have to weed through a ton of submissions all at once. I start putting together a carnival a few days before it's due. I take the submissions already in, put them in a post, and save it as a draft. I then add other submitted posts each day as they come in. This way, it's a little bit of work for three or four days rather than a huge amount of work all at once.
• Develop an easy posting formula that will help you quickly complete the carnival. I do two things: 1) I post according to date -- the first submitted are the first included. I don't spend time on an elaborate story-related post, a theme post, or any other sort of creative effort. 2) I use a summary of the post itself to describe what each post is about. I simply copy and paste the key parts from the post -- just enough to let readers know what it's about. This way, I don't have to write something new and unique for each post (which takes a lot of time and effort), yet the readers know exactly what each post covers. It's a win for us both.
• Record the email and trackback URL of every site included in your post. You'll want to use these later as you market the carnival. See below for details.
• Unless they are a psycho or the post makes no sense at all, use everyone's submission. I believe in a "the more the merrier" philosophy. Not only is this in the spirit of the blogosphere and carnivals, but it also makes sense for you -- the more people included, the more who can link to (and drive traffic to) you.
• When you post the carnival, be sure to send trackbacks to all the sites you collected trackbacks for. This will leave a small comment on their site that will send some traffic your way.
• Once the post is up, be sure to check that it looks good and that the links work. The carnival is a direct reflection on you and a lot of people are watching. You want to be sure you make a good impression (you may want to host again) and ensure that the carnival is a good experience for all participants and readers.
• Send an email to all the sites involved and ask them to notify their readers. It's common courtesy for sites involved in a carnival to post about it and most of them will. This is the single-biggest source of traffic for you (unless you get lucky with the next step).
• Publicize the carnival with interested, non-participating blogs. Send emails to larger blogs you think might have an interest in telling their readers about the carnival. The best way of knowing what blogs publicize the different carnivals is to read the blogs regularly. When you see them consistently talking about a certain carnival, make a mental note to email them about that carnival the next time you host it. The right blog posting about your carnival may send a great amount of traffic your way.
• Be sure to thank the carnival founder and make a note to volunteer again. Be thankful and gracious to the person letting you host their carnival. Even if you don't want to host again, it's simply common courtesy. If you do want to host the carnival again, make a note to ask for a slot at a later date.
• Look at your stats. Note how much traffic you got from the carnival and determine whether or not it was worth the effort. For me, as long as I get a fair amount of traffic and several links, it's a good deal. If you use the tips above and minimize the amount of time hosting the carnival takes, it's likely that being the host will be a worthwhile endeavor for you.

Click here to read part 18 of this series.

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