Tuesday, Tuesday, Tuesday!!! 
Blog etiquette
I was asked many times at Creative Estates if I thought Linky Parties were worth it. What I heard over and over was the frustration and thoughts of quitting their own linky parties because of people not “following the rules”. Or, that it is a hassle to add buttons or text links to the actual post they were linking to parties they were participating in.
I view Linky parties as a “Scratch my back, scratch your back” situation for both the blog author (me) and the linker (you). Some blog authors/owners are hoping to gain in traffic, or want their blog link/button placed as a thank you…….to improve their own exposure and SEO. Or both. In chatting with others, it confirmed my belief that people link to parties to increase visits to their blog. (Scratch my back, scratch yours)
When it becomes a one way street, blog authors are dropping their link parties like flies. They feel used. I would be lying if I said I hadn’t considered dropping Get Your Craft On. No it’s not a threat…..no no no.
The bottom line is Get Your Craft On needs to benefit MY blog as much as the linker. When it isn’t, I will drop it. My traffic is actually better when I have a feature, but dang……..it would be SO worth it for me if everyone added a simple text link back to TCB. Should we work together? Then everyone’s happy.
My Rules (that all the other blog linky party authors agreed with)
1. Link to your actual post
2. Link your OWN project. Something YOU made.
3. Link back- by doing so, it like saying Thank you for allowing me access to your readers. (party pages are not that successful for the blog author)
4. Don’t use linky parties to promote your giveaway, etsy shop or current promotion.
You can copy my button and link it back to TCB or you can just link a text link. Don’t know how? Let me know. I’ll help you.
Let’s get scratching!
About Kim
I try to be good when I link to anything…I get the you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours. I put the button and/or link in the post and always (almost) comment when I do link up (unless it is a giveaway related thing…I do not enter many of those…unless it is for a silhouette or a free ticket somewhere…ha, ha!). Some people just do not get it or realize how much work a linky is – or just did not realize the etiquette (and of course they should read this!). My linky is much smaller than yours and it is a ton of work.
Wow, what a great party! I just linked up for the first time! There’s so much great inspiration here!
I happily displayed your link on my post, I like to share! lol
Thanks for hosting!
Happy Easter!
Thanks for hosting, Kim, and for being a stickler about etiquette. I know how important it is to you, and it should be just as important to everyone else.
I join a few link parties every week. This is my first time on yours, but I think your requests are perfectly reasonable and a bit simpler! I always put a button in the post or in my sidebar, and when the button is in my sidebar, I put a text link in the post. This is nicer on my browser and it means that the button is on my blog all week, not just on the day I join a link party.
I started my first link party today and I only have two entries after half a day of it being up. I started mine to get people to start sharing crafts that are more kid oriented than product oriented. It seemed a lot of craft blogs for kids are more about the product not the process. I guess I was premature to start a link party. How do you get people to actually participate. I wouldn’t even complain if they didn’t follow the rules. It would just make me happy to feel some of the love out there.
Very well said! I’ll scratch yours, if you scratch mine.
Love it! I honestly stopped linking up to parties the past month. It did take a lot of time, and I didn’t see to much traffic from them. I also had one of those “link pages” but realize after reading this that I probably should of put all the buttons on each post. Oh well live and learn. That’s a good idea though of just copying and pasting html into each post. Once I start linking up again I’ll definitely still link up to yours and add your cute button! Thanks for always hosting a great party!
I’m glad you said. As a reader with out a blog, I like the opportunity to find another blog that I may be interested in so I do peak at the links to see if its going to be a new addition to my Google Reader. I feel mislead when I get teleported to an Etsy shop. It seems like a bait and switch. I’m expecting a toutorial, not a purchase opportunity. If at the end or your toutorial there is a link to your Etsy shop, that seems more than fair.
Hi, Kim! I was just on another blog that mentioned this post (positively) so I thought I’d pop over to read this. I remember another post you wrote about linking back, and I think this one is spot-on too! Linking back/joining blog parties are a quid pro quo thing for sure. It has taken me months and months and months to grow my own weekly blog party up to around 100 links or so…because only a very small percentage of participants bother to link back within their posts. That, in turn, makes it virtually impossible for other readers to find out about my party, stop by, link up, etc.
I feel like the people who link to my parties get a lot more out of it lately than I do. I comment on each post (b/c there are usually around 100, maybe less), do features, and they receive comments from others. I, on the other hand, might receive one new Follower for the weekend, and some comments from my regular readers who are kind enough to stop by and interact. :s
I’ve given it a lot of thought, and I sometimes wonder if bloggers just don’t want readers to know how many parties they are actually linking a post to. I’ve seen some posts linked to as many as 80 or 90 parties. So, of course (!) that would make your blog posts look cluttered if you were adding all of those links to your posts each day.
I think the key would be for everyone to calm down, reevaluate how they are treating others, and stop being so frantic to get their name out there. I think good growth can come to a blog when a blogger works at networking, good content, and basic etiquette. My blog is not huge, but those things have helped me.
Off my soapbox…just had to share. You’re not the only hostess who is frustrated.
Holy Moly thats alot of linkys! I am new to blogging, I will have to give this a try, thanks for the good info!