Congratulations to absolutely everyone who participated in the 2007 BlogOlympics. You have all truly shown your mettle as community bloggers, striving to interact with the blogosphere, and you have my highest commendation—and, of course, my medal badges!

Some of you, upon reporting which events you completed, underestimated yourselves, so I went oahead and bumped you up a level . For those of you who completed more than one medal, congratulations! I’ve listed you here under the highest medal level you completed (besides, you didn’t want all three badges cluttering up your blog, did you?). So when reading these lists, remember that silver medalists also completed a bronze-level event, and gold medalists also completed silver- and bronze-level events.

Great job, all—and congratulations to our 19 20 medalists!

Bronze

• Papaya Mom
• Q&Q, Organized Homemaking Days
• Madame M
• Peppylady

Silver

• Dawn, Coming to a Nursery Near You
• Michelle, BearTwinsMom

Gold

• Summer, Summer’s Nook
• Corey, Living and Loving Every Minute of It
• Amanda Regan
• Toni, This Simple Life
• Deb, Mom of 3
• Micpro
• The Bitter Queen, The Bitter Ball
• Mommy Babble
• SingForHim, Real Life
• Jenny
• southerngirlmusings
• boogiemum
• Callista
• Chief Family Officer

The Medals
To insert the BlogOlympics medals in your blog, here’s the handy, dandy HTML code you can just cut and paste—you don’t even have to download & reupload the images!

Bronze
<a href="http://www.mamablogga.com/blogolympics/" title="Blog Olympics"><img src="http://s192.photobucket.com/albums/z41/MamaBlogga/th_bronzemedal.png"
alt="BlogOlympics Bronze Medalist" /></a>

Silver
<a href="http://www.mamablogga.com/blogolympics/" title="Blog Olympics"><img src="http://s192.photobucket.com/albums/z41/MamaBlogga/th_silvermedal.png"
alt="BlogOlympics Silver Medalist" /></a>

Gold
<a href="http://www.mamablogga.com/blogolympics/" title="Blog Olympics"><img src="http://s192.photobucket.com/albums/z41/MamaBlogga/th_goldmedal.png" alt="BlogOlympics Gold Medalist" /></a>

Participant
<a href="http://www.mamablogga.com/blogolympics/" title="Blog Olympics"><img src="http://s192.photobucket.com/albums/z41/MamaBlogga/th_participantbadge.png" alt="BlogOlympics Participant" /></a>

Again, congratulations to all the medalists and participants! What a wonderful effort you’ve made to improve the blogosphere—and the blogosphere is truly better for it. We’re lucky and glad to have such Olympians among the ranks of bloggers!

I did my best to hunt down all the winners; if I missed you, please contact me!

Please also tell what medal you’ve earned and which events you’ve completed!

Table of contents for Blogging Add-ons

• Quick Guide to Google Analytics for Bloggers
• Five Ways to Win Links—and Technorati’s Heart
• 5 Steps to Getting Started with FeedBurner
• Seven Ways to Master FeedBurner
• Blog Carnivals, Start to Finish
• Get even more out of FeedBurner

As one of the events in the BlogOlympics (at the silver medal level), you can choose to participate in a blog carnival. At the gold level, you can host a blog carnival. If you’re not sure how to do this, here’s your chance to learn!

Finding a Blog Carnival
To participate in a blog carnival, first you have to find one. BlogCarnival.com features a good list of blog carnivals. You can use their search functions to find carnivals on categories that you write on—parenting, family, homeschooling, etc.

One precaution you have to take as you screen potential carnivals—see if they’re current. A lot of the carnivals listed haven’t published in months. BlogCarnival.com lists lots of carnivals that have been marked as discontinued, but many others haven’t been officially discontinued but aren’t published anymore. Look at the date of the previous and next carnivals—if it’s coming up, you’re probably safe.

Of the carnivals listed on Blog Carnival, my favorite has definitely been the Carnival of Family Life. The brainchild of Kailani at An Island Life, it’s getting to be very popular!

Another way to find a blog carnival is word of mouth. That’s how I found out about Works-for-Me Wednesday, one of the most popular weekly carnivals out there! Every week, bloggers (mostly mothers) share tips on everything from shopping to cleaning to scrapbooking to blogging. Participate this week!

Participating in a Blog Carnival
It’s important when participating in a blog carnival to write an on-topic post. Find out the theme of the carnival, especially if there are special themed editions for holidays. Works-for-Me Wednesday has monthly themed editions on the first Wednesday. An off-topic post is unlikely to be included.

Finally, don’t forget to submit your post to the carnival! Use the method they ask: a Mr. Linky (WFMW Wed), the official BlogCarnival.com submission form (CoFL), or comments or forms on the site itself. When you’re dealing with dozens or even hundreds of entries, it’s difficult to track down all the entries submitted in “unorthodox” ways.

It’s generally best to submit recent posts to the carnival, if not new posts. Some carnivals have rules about the age of submitted posts; be sure to follow those guidelines.

If you’re targeting words people use in search engines (‘keywords’), be sure to include those in the title of your post. They’ll then be used in your link.

Hosting a Blog Carnival
If you volunteer to host a blog carnival (or start your own), there are a few guidelines that will make your hosting stand out.

If you’re using TypePad or WordPress, be sure to send trackbacks or pingbacks. This is often one of the first ways I know that my entry has been included in a carnival.

Try grouping entries in a new way. One of my favorite Carnivals of Family Life was hosted by Digital Rich Daily, where he took the time to categories entries by themes for each letter of the alphabet.

Make sure you use working HTML links. If you use a Mr Linky, it generates JavaScript links. Once you’ve completed your carnival, you can get the HTML code and paste it in the place of the JavaScript code to ensure that your participants get the links. If you’ve asked your participants to link to you, it’s only polite.

Conclusion
Participating in an on-topic blog carnival is a good way to drive traffic to your site and earn links—and hosting is even better! Find a good blog carnival to participate in and complete a silver medal event in the BlogOlympics!

As announced last week, today is the first day of the BlogOlympics! Who doesn’t want to be an Olympian? Over the course of the next two weeks, you can become one!

How to Participate

• To earn a medal, you must complete one event at that medal level:
  • To earn a bronze medal, complete one event from the bronze list below.
  • To earn a silver medal, complete one event each from the bronze and the silver lists below, for a total of two events.
  • To earn a gold medal, complete one event each from the bronze, silver and gold lists below, for a total of three events.
• There are several events that overlap between the levels (for example, the bronze level of commenting is commenting on 5 new blogs; the gold level is commenting on over 16 new blogs). Completing this event at a silver or gold level counts as only one event—to earn a silver or gold medal, you must also complete a different event at the lower levels.
• The events must be completed over the course of the next two weeks (on or before August 24).
• To be an official participant, you must also link to this post.

The Events
This list may grow over the course of the BlogOlympics.

Bronze

• Comment on up to 5 new blogs
• Subscribe to a new blog (instructions on subscribing)
• Submit or vote for a post you like on someone else’s blog on a social networking or bookmarking site
• Add a blog to your blogroll
• Overwrite old draft posts that you’re no longer going to use

Silver

• Comment on 6 to 15 new blogs
• Participate in a blog carnival
• Participate in a group writing project
• Subscribe to 3 new blogs (instructions on subscribing)
• Submit or vote for a post you like on someone else’s blog on a social networking or bookmarking site three times
• Contact a blogger about guest blogging on their blog
• Add three blogs to your blogroll

Gold

• Comment on 16 to 25 new blogs (and over)
• Sign up to host a blog carnival
• Host a group writing project (or plan one)
• Subscribe to 5 new blogs (instructions on subscribing)
• Submit or vote for a post you like on someone else’s blog on a social networking or bookmarking site five times
• Review someone else’s blog on your blog
• Interview another blogger
• Send a completed guest post to another blogger
• Write two “pillar articles” or pieces of “flagship content“
• Come up with a system to keep track of your blog drafts

Receiving Medals
Once you have completed your all events, please comment (or ping/trackback) on this post to let me know so you can be included in the Closing Ceremonies. Don’t forget to include what medal you’ve earned. Also, please take a badge at your participation level (and include the link back here or to the Closing Ceremonies) to show off your Olympian-ness.

You don’t have to go into great detail (ie telling me which new blogs you commented on or subscribed to), but feel free to share which events you completed! Since the Olympics are about individual excellence as well, this will be on the honor system—I’ll believe whatever you tell me.

The Medals & Badges

Started some events, but didn’t have time to finish? Take the participant badge!

Good luck!!

On Monday, I’ll have badges for Gold, Silver, and Bronze “medals.” To earn them, starting on Monday, participate in events at each level: for a Bronze, complete a Bronze event; for a Silver, complete a Bronze and a Silver event; for a Gold, compete a Bronze, Silver and Gold event. Like next year’s Olympics, the BlogOlympics will end on August 24.

And of course, one of the requirements to participate is to link to the official post that begins the BlogOlympics on Monday.

The Events
Here’s a list of some of the events that I came up with—please suggest more in the comments!

Bronze

• Comment on up to 5 new blogs
• Subscribe to a new blog
• Submit or vote for a post you like on someone else’s blog on a social networking or bookmarking site
• Add a blog to your blogroll

Silver

• Comment on 6 to 15 new blogs
• Participate in a blog carnival
• Participate in a group writing project
• Subscribe to 3 new blogs
• Submit or vote for a post you like on someone else’s blog on a social networking or bookmarking site three times
• Contact a blogger about guest blogging on their blog
• Add three blogs to your blogroll

Gold

• Comment on 16 to 25 new blogs (and over)
• Sign up to host a blog carnival
• Host a group writing project (or plan one)
• Subscribe to 5 new blogs
• Submit or vote for a post you like on someone else’s blog on a social networking or bookmarking site five times
• Review someone else’s blog on your blog
• Interview another blogger
• Send a completed guest post to another blogger
• Write two “pillar articles” or pieces of “flagship content“

Since the Olympics are about individual excellence as well, this will be on the honor system.

Leave your ideas for events in the comments and spread the word!