This post is for those among my readers who are also bloggers.  If you’re not a blogger, you might want to skip this one.  (Or maybe you just want to keep reading because you’re curious?)   If you are a blogger, you may have wondered what linky parties/link-ups are all about.  Or maybe you’ve been linking up, but you wonder if it’s worth the time investment.  Either way, I hope you are able to glean a little something from this post.

Why Link Up?

First let’s talk about why you would want to link up.  Hopefully the advantages of reading at linky parties are obvious, but consider the benefits of adding your post to a linky list.

• You get your post in front of more readers.  This is the most obvious and probably – at the heart of things – the most important.  Different readers will visit that blog that’s hosting the link-up than those who regularly visit your blog, and some will take an interest in your post and come by.  Some may even be converted to regular readers/subscribers.
• You get a link back.  This is good for making Google and the other search engines like your blog.
• There is potential for being spread through social media.  Often, those who find your post through a linky list will share your post to Facebook or Twitter, or (probably more likely) Pin it it Pinterest.  This is additional incoming links for your site and added exposure.  (Many bloggers are finding that Pinterest is a huge traffic source for them.  The more times your posts are Pinned to Pinterest, the better for this!)
• It may help your Alexa ranking.  Many of those who interact with linky parties are other bloggers.  Other bloggers are more likely to have the Alexa toolbar installed, because it’s good for their Alexa ranking, so when they come visit via your link, it boosts you, too.

How Do You Link Up?

Of course, you derive the most benefit if you link up to multiple linky parties.  But you don’t want to spend your whole life just adding yourself to the link-ups, and you want to use good linky etiquette and be a good party participant.  So how do you do this efficiently?

I’ve created a system that works pretty well for me.  That’s what I’m going to share here, so you can use it or tweak it as you see fit.  (And if you come up with a great way to tweak it so it’s even better, I’d love to hear about it.  Please leave a comment and share!)  It looks like a lot of steps, but really I’ve just broken it down to nitpicky details so you can see exactly how I do it.  (I’m using Firefox.  I don’t know if all the same options are available in other browsers; if they are, the wording may be a little different.)

STEP 1: Create a list of linky parties.

These first couple of steps are pretty time-consuming, but they’re the “one-time setup,”  so they’ll save you time later.  The first thing you want to do is create a list of the linky parties that are likely to be a good fit for you.  These will be niche-specific parties and/or topics you blog about regularly.  You may not end up linking up to every party every week, but you’ll want to cull anything from the list that you’re never or almost never going to find a good fit.

STEP 2: Create bookmark lists, by day.

This is the other time-consuming step.  Create a bookmark folder in your browser for each day of the week.  Then visit the linky host pages one by one, and bookmark them to the appropriate folders.  I like to bookmark either the category/tag page for the link-up, or the description page if there is one, so that each week when I look I can be reminded of that party’s guidelines.

When you’re done, you should have a bookmark folder for each day of the week containing a series of link-ups that happen on that day.

STEP 3: If you have WordPress, install the Editorial Calendar plugin.

This is not completely essential, but I find it helpful for seeing at a glance what I’ve posted over the course of the week.  (I don’t know whether there’s a similar plugin for other platforms.  Anyone know?)

STEP 4: When you’re ready to link up, open a new window.  (Again, not essential, but this helps keep things tidy.)  Open up the Editorial Calendar (or your list of posts) in one tab, then right-click on the appropriate day’s bookmark folder and select “open all in tabs.”

You should now have a window that has tabs open for your post calendar/list and every linky party for the day.

STEP 5: Go to the tab for the first linky party.  Determine whether you have a post or posts from the week to fit it.  (If not, just close that tab.) If so, highlight the appropriate URL – you may have to go to a new post in some instances – and copy it.  (Ctrl-C is the keyboard shortcut.)

STEP 6: When you have a post to fit it, right-click “edit” on that post in the calendar, and open the post (in editing format) in a new tab.  Wherever you want it to be, insert the text about linking to the linky party.  Highlight the party name, go to the insert URL button, and paste in (Ctrl-V) the URL you copied.

STEP 7: Right-click the “view post” button and copy the post URL.  Then click the “update” button.  While that’s updating, switch to the linky party tab, and go through the process of adding your post, pasting in the post URL you just copied.  (Keep in mind that where most link-up forms ask for your “name,”  they actually want the post name/description.)

STEP 8: Drag that tab to the left of your calendar (to come back to later) and move on to the next one.  Complete steps 5-8 for all of the day’s link-ups.

STEP 9: Now you can close any blog posts you had open, along with the calendar page.  Go back through the tabs you still have open (the ones you set aside) and view/comment on/Pin/share anything that catches your attention.

Congratulations!  You have just added your posts to all of the appropriate link-ups, including your links back to the parties you’re participating in, and interacted with other blogs on the linkies, without it having to take over your life.

A Few Final Tips

1. Make thumbnail linkies easier on yourself with advance preparation.  Definitely make sure that there’s an image in all of your posts.  You may want to add a square image to each post, as well, specifically for adding to link parties.  (A quirk I have noticed:  if the square image is my post’s featured image, but doesn’t show up anywhere else, it is not available for me to add to most linkies.  I have to have the image actually in the post.)
2. When you come back to add another link party link to a blog post that already has one (for instance, you’ve already linked up to Works for Me Wednesday and now you’re linking up to Thankful Thursday and need to add that), WordPress can be a little ornery about removing a period to add a comma – it tries to make everything following part of the link.  It’s easier for me to add the comma (after the period) first, then delete the period.  Then it doesn’t do weird things.  A petty detail, I know, but fiddling with those things can eat up time when you add them up!

This post is being shared at Works for Me Wednesday, Tackle it Tuesday.