Do you want to see your pageviews quadruple in just a few weeks? If you’re a “baby blogger” – as I like to call the newbies – then these tips will be a gold mine. Or even if you’re a “big girl blogger” – or a guy, not trying to discriminate! – these may just be the extra push you need!

 

I want to share with you today about what I experienced when I started a linking up to link parties and just watched my blog grow in leaps and bounds. And it hasn’t stopped since!

A little background: I started this blog back in February of 2012 and really just wanted to document how I DIY’d and decorated my new house. It opened up the whole world of DIY blogging to me. And let me tell ya! It’s a fun world, and I spend hours every day  working on it and interacting with some of the most wonderful people on the planet. It is truly my creative outlet and a joy!

I didn’t really get serious about blogging and building my reader base until April or May of this year. Before that I’d been blogging for my mom and close friends and family, I guess. And my mom doesn’t even read this blog, so pretty much, I was just blogging for myself. 🙂 Until … I began linking up to link up parties.

I had been linking up to a couple of  blog link up (or linky) parties here and there, but not really committed to them.

{Does anybody else hate the word “linky?” It’s like the words “moist” and “panties” … we could just do without those words altogether. So, I choose to call them link up parties. Whew, I feel better now that I shared that with someone. You have no idea… it’s been bottled up for months!}

Funny aha moment … I remember one time Centsational Girl announced she was having a themed link up party and announced the time it would go live. I had never tried to link up to a party as soon as it went live, but I thought I’d give it a twirly whirl. I set a calendar alert on my phone for about 5 minutes before the party started. I remember sitting at my computer hitting refresh, waiting for the party to pop up. And when it did, I realized that … holy smokes! There were other people sitting at their computer waiting too!

It was my first realization that the first spot at a link up party is a coveted spot. Because, let’s face it, you get the MOST traffic if you’re first. Lightbulb.

It was then that I realized how valuable link up parties are to building my blog. So, here’s my secret sauce formula …

1. Find a friend who has a similar niche to your blog and has a link party page and start visiting those parties. Look for parties that are similar to your style and content. For example, if your a big recipe/food blogger, then you’ll want to find a link party that features a lot of recipes. If you mostly focus on DIY wood projects, then you may not be wanting to link up to a recipe link party. Just a suggestion. You can find my link party page HERE.

2. Once you have visited and selected several link parties, figure out when these parties go live each week. If the party post doesn’t have a time stamp, I check out the comments and see when the first commenter left their comment. This will give you a fairly good idea when the party started. Some bloggers start theirs at the same time every time, and some don’t. You’ll get the hang of it over time. {I LOVE the link parties that start at the same time every week. Seriously, smoochity smoochity. Bonus points if you can name that movie. And if so, you probably have a preschool daughter.}

3. Create a calendar of your favorite link parties and when they go live. I type in all of my link parties into my iCal program on my Mac. I program it to send me a pop-up message on my computer and phone whenever it’s time to link up to a new party. That way if I’m sitting at my computer, or hanging out at home and I get a message to link up, I can get on the computer and link up right then. Because the closer you get to the top of the links, the more traffic you will get. Yay!

4. All link up parties use a square image, so you’ll want to create a square image in your post to linking up. Or you can create it and keep it on your computer and just upload the file when linking. If I don’t create a square image, I at least make sure my image will look good cropped as a square. Here’s how I do that in PicMonkey …

5. Create your own Link Party page. I started out by putting every link up party at the bottom of my posts. But now, I just redirect my readers at the end of every post to my link party page. This is less cumbersome on my blog. AND it doesn’t send a bunch of my Google Juice to a lot of other sites. I want to repay my link friends with a link, but I don’t want to send my every reader off to a bunch of sites right after they finished reading my post.

6. Once you’ve been linking up consistently over a few months, look through your analytics and see who is sending you the most traffic. Eliminate the ones who aren’t sending traffic. Your time is money and you don’t want to waste it. Also, I love a consistent party. if a blogger isn’t posting their link party consistently. I tend to make them off the list. I don’t have time to keep checking back all day long to see when they will post. And, like I said before, my favorite link parties are the ones who state their start time and are consistent.

7. And lastly, edit your link party list whenever it changes. You don’t want to recommend link parties to your readers that aren’t there anymore or don’t post their parties in a regular or timely manner. Don’t waste your readers’ time.

{You know, I’m now co-hosting an awesome link party called Work It Wednesday and would LOVE for you to link up your awesomeness each week!! It starts at 8 am CST every Wednesday. Go ahead … I’ll wait right here while you put it into your calendar.}

After I implemented these tips and tricks, my pageviews increased, literally four times. And since then, my pageviews have more than doubled.

And in addition to gaining new readers, I’ve met so many real friends in the process. Seriously. Before I tried systematic linking up, I was blogging in a little turquoise bubble. But once I got out there, started putting my projects out there for others to see … well by gosh, people liked them and turns out they liked me too. Some of my best blogging friends, I met through link parties. So, it’s not all about the numbers. 🙂

And if these tips were helpful, I’d love it if you pinned this post! Thanksomuch!!

Do you link up? A bunch of parties or just a few?

How has your experience been visiting and participating in link parties?

I hope you have a wonderful Friday … and a fabulous weekend!! {Bring on the football!}

Don’t miss out on the behind-the-scenes fun!

Facebook // Twitter // Pinterest // Instagram

 

 

Click HERE to see where I party every week.