Doesn’t that sound like fun? Every week you can have fun and go to a carnival. I am talking about blog carnivals. You hear about them, but maybe you aren’t sure what exactly it is.  Participating in  blog carnivals is a great way to learn from others and their experiences and also to get your link out.
My wonderful sister, Jocelyn, wrote up a wonderful article about what a blog carnival is and everything about it! She gives 6 points on what a blog carnival is:

1. Carnivals To Join
2. What “Carnival”?
3. What’s The Purpose?
3. Participating
4. Why?
5. Promoting
6. Hosting

Make sure to head over to The Homesteading Carnival to find out What IS A Carnival Exactly?

Some of the carnivals I participate in weekly are:

The Homesteading Carnival (THC)
Carnival of Homeschooling (COH)
Carnival of Education
Carnival of the Recipes
Make it from Scratch!

I really enjoy entering these carnivals and then going and seeing all the other entries too!

A couple of things that Jocelyn didn’t mention were: Most of the carnivals have deadlines. COH is Mondays before 9pm EST. THC is Sundays before 9pm EST. You can submit an article anytime before then, but if you submit one after then, it will be entered for the next week’s carnival.
Also, when you submit an article through BlogCarnival, you will receive a receipt email that let’s you know your submission went through and all the information you filled out about it.

This week I am hosting The Homesteading Carnival this week at It’s A Learning Experience, so be sure to get your entries in!

Better Blogging to you!

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Recently a new blogger and friend asked me how he could get more hits to his site. Being the blogger who loves blogging so much and wants to share that love with others, I quickly compiled a list for him to go off.

Here is that list of ways I found that are great to get more hits to your blog.

#1: Get your name and url out there. Go to people’s blogs. Leave comments even if you don’t know them. Comment on their post, then kinda introduce yourself.

#2: Get things like mybloglog. When I see a new face on mybloglog on my sidebar I click it, and then go to their blog. If they are savory!

#3: Get on blogrolls. There are a couple blogrolls on the bottom of my right sidebar, you could consider joining.

#4: Get on stat counters. Counters like Homeschool Gold and Blog Statter.

#5: Send out blog alerts. When you send them out, people will see it and click it and read.

#6: Blog often. I try to blog on Saturdays and Wednesday, but usually end up posting more. I think that a blog receives more attention when it posts often. I would try to post more than once a week. If your friends know that you blog alot they will come and visit to see if you updated.

#7: Blog about many topics. The more things you blog about, the more searches your url will come up on.

#8: Blog about what you know. You don’t want to sound high and mighty, but you want people to know what you believe or what you have learned. I try hard not to talk about things that I don’t know about. I would go and post about how you can be an astronaut, because I don’t know much about it. Talking about things you don’t know about turns people off.

#9: Exchange ads and links. Talk to your friends about exchanging links and ads. I have an ad that people can put on their sidebar that links to me. If you don’t have an ad, you can email my awesome sister and she can come up with something that is totally you!

#10: Contribute to carnivals. Carnivals are a GREAT way to get your link out. I mostly participate in The Carnival of Homeschooling and The Homesteading Carnival. You can go through a list of carnivals at Blog Carnival.

#11: Enter contests. When you enter a contest, not only do you have a chance to win something, but you also get your link out.

#12: Hold giveaways. This goes hand in hand with entering contests. You can give away something that you won in a contest, if you don’t want it.

Comments:
When I first started, I commented all my friends. I got to know them. I made sure they knew me and would come and comment me back. Now I just comment people who comment and every once in awhile I comment people who I don’t normally comment.

Now if you want some things that will show you where people are coming from and things like that, I would get a Sitemeter for sure and probably a Feedjit.
I would get a Stumbleupon. My Mama has one and she blogged last nite and put it on her stumbleupon and had almost 200 people within less than 2 hours! After I saw that, I got a stumbleupon. lol!
Here is another article you should read about Feeds and Readers. That gives great advice on how to get them and what they do.

Pretty much the biggest thing is to get your link out! And also to get to know bloggers you want to be friends with. Make a relationship with bloggers. Another thing is you don’t just become a superblogger over nite. It does take time!
One thing to remember, blogging isn’t about getting people to your blog and getting a bunch a hits. It’s about relationships and about what you want from your blog. Mrs. C did a wonderful article about Better Blogging: The Purpose-Driven Blog. If you didn’t have a purpose for your blog when you started, maybe its time to think if you have one yet.

Better Blogging To You!

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