The great-grandfather of BiblioBlogging Jim West posted the 188th Biblical Studies Carnival, gathering together the best posts from the worlds of biblical and theological studies last month. Jim says the theme of the month is “scary,” probably a reference to Halloween. On the other hand, some bloggers are really quite scary. I guess Jim decided against a Reformation theme, since we know he loves Reformation Day so much.
Jim’s Reformation Day posts got me thinking…Reformation Day has become a little like St. Patrick’s Day, when everyone is Irish for a day. The end of October everyone is suddenly Lutheran, posting their Reformation thoughts and prayers to social media. By the first week of November all that goes back in the box and the Advent decorations start hitting social media.
In other blogging news, Brian Small posted Hebrews Highlights this month. If you are working in Hebrews, Brian’s blog is a goldmine of resources.
Bob MacDonald is our host on December 1 for Carnival 189 and I will host #190 right here on Reading Acts. I am taking reservations for 2022 carnivals, so if you would like to talk about hosting a carnival, contact me via email, plong42@gmail.com or DM on twitter (plong42). Right now I have no one lined up for the new year, but other than that, the year is wide open. The Biblical Studies Carnival is a great way to drive traffic through your blog and get some wider internet fame. Feel free to contact me if you have any questions about hosting. As Jim West himself says, “You should host a carnival.”
In Reading Acts News, October was my best month ever in terms of daily average visitors and total monthly hits. I spent some time in that whole COVID thing doing under-the-hood things to increase traffic, and some of those are starting to payoff. I think this calls for a few book giveaways….some of you really like those!
Check out the Biblical Studies Carnival Master List at the top of this page to visit past carnivals.
You master list is aging – last live link is 180 – Good to hear that you have lots of traffic – I never know what’s happening.
I think I have successfully updated it.
As for traffic, I invested time into some basic search engine optimization. Almost all my traffic comes through search engines (primary google), social media drives very little although it is easy to post links to the usual places. Between that and some changes in the way google ranks pages that were in my favor, I saw a considerable jump in the middle of 2020, that has continued through 2021 for the most part.