Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Blog Carnivals

I'm so pleased with the response to my Start A Blog challenge. So far 12 people have voted in the poll to say they have started a new blog.

Mrs Green writes Little Green Blog, Sophie writes She Went That Way, Donna's husband Andy writes birds, brushes and other stuff, Pete writes Allotment 5½, Hamster writes Eating the Seasons, Karen writes furzecat (this used to be huswyf, a blog I enjoyed reading but was not permitted to leave comments on - if you blog, make sure your readers can leave comments. That's half the fun!). Karen has recently taken over the Wiggly Wigglers blog from Heather. N and J together write Bad Human! Don’t take chemicals from strangers!.

Anonymous wrote:
I have had a blog for some time, but nothing much to put in it. Maybe I will think again whether there is something interesting that I can write about - though privacy concerns would mean always worrying about how much identifying information I was revealing. N.

I've never worried about identifying information. My name, address and telephone number are in the phone book. How many chickens I have, or the make of my fridge, is not classified information. My kids' birth dates are revealed in this blog if you care to find them, but I have more sense than to use those as a password for my banking details so I don't mind. If you have reason to conceal your identity, e.g. if you have had a stalker in the past and you don't want them to find you again, then I can understand being cautious. But there's not a lot of point having a secret blog and not telling anyone.

Spreading it all about is the point of blogging. Some bloggers play it cool and pretend they don't care how many readers they have. But they lie. We all love people to read our blogs, to leave comments, and especially to link to us. So get the word out there; exchange links with other like-minded bloggers (I've just linked to all of you, so you know what to do now, don't you?).

Another great way to get more readers to your blog and to find other great blogs to link with, is to submit your best posts to blog carnivals. If the carnival host likes your post it will be mentioned in the weekly carnival, which will bring readers to your site, and improves your influence on Technorati (this is like Google for blogs - be sure to submit your blog there ASAP), your Google Page Rank and so on. You will also see lots of other bloggers who write about the same topics as you at the carnivals, you'll get ideas for posts and make friends and all the other good stuff that blogging brings.

In the last week I submitted posts to the Carnival of the Green, the Festival of Frugality, Make it from Scratch, and the Carnival of the Recipes. But if you write about economics, parenting, football, marketing, or any one of hundreds of other topics, there is a carnival for you. Find your relevant carnivals at blogcarnival.com, and submit your best posts there. When you've more confidence, maybe you'll want to host a carnival (they often rotate to a different host every week). Or even start your own.

If you feel inspired to join in this month's challenge and start your own blog, then go to Blogger.com and do it right now! It's free, and it's what all the cool kids are doing. Don't forget to tell us where to find your blog. And vote in the poll in the right-hand sidebar.

10 comments:

donna said...

thanks mel, i was wondering where to find out about the carnivals, i'll check them out.

Nev Sutter said...

Hi Mel,

Just noticed your Carnival of the Green link is broken. Here's a working link. Its the first time we've hosted a carnival on Mad Eejits, so we want to make sure people can read it!

thanks,
Nev.

Melanie Rimmer said...

Thanks, Nev. I've fixed it now.

If anyone finds a broken link on Bean Sprouts, I'm very happy to know about it so I can fix it as soon as possible.

Anonymous said...

Hi Mel,
Thank you for the tips on the carnivals - first I've heard of them!
As usual, you're generous with your help for those of us who are still blundering around with our eyes closed!
Thank you!
Clare

Lisa said...

I have started a blog today after being inspired by your pole. It is here: http://lisa-makingdaisychains.blogspot.com/
Looking forward to seeing where it takes me!

karen said...

Hey, thanks for the tips - I recently started a green blog and wanted to know where to go from here.

thanks!

Mrs. Gray's Class said...

Thank you for the information on the Carnival of Green - I am going to check it out now. Take care.

Allie said...

This is such a great post! Thank you!

Anonymous said...

Hi gorgeous woman,

Thank you for mentioning LittleGreenBlog in your post today.

I'm in the process of fumbling my way around adding links and yours will be there in all its technicolour glory.

Sorry you missed the eclipse :(

I made an amazing apple recipe the other day with sad old apples; are you interested in it?

I knew it was good because dd went silent for the entire duration of the pudding course.
Result!

Mrs G x

Rebecca said...

Thanks so much for all of this great information! I will have to check out everything you have to say about the Carnivals. Here's the link to my new blog and thanks for helping all the newbies out there!
http://www.greenervegas.blogspot.com/