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.