In response to my dear Rambling Heather, today's post is all about virtual organization part one:
The link up fiasco
I came late to the blogging game, for sure. In college I had a random blog but lost it years ago to the way life gets busy... who am I kidding is busy. But two years ago there was a huge change in my life, my husband and I quit our jobs to buy a business.... alas it didn't work out but all the same in launched a completely new BOOK (not just a new chapter) in our lives.
With a blog the point/reason will vary but any which way it is nice to know you are being heard, being looked at. When I started blogging I looked around to see what would be great way to do this and in laid a system already in place: link ups.
One of the ways Google places your site higher on the search list is by the size (amount of content) and the number of sites your linked with. I looked around and decided to map out the options of link ups. I wanted to come up with a better/more effencient way to link up. I started marking down the link up options on Monday I found, I did searches, followed buttons, gathered information for each day of the week and started with this horrible looking piece of paper:
I have four blogs but only three do I link up with other sites so I did this chart with the intent of three sites across the five day "work week". I slowly weeded out the link ups that asked too much, that were too specific in their desires making it impossible to link up with more than one blog in a day. Till I whittled it down to this spread sheet:
Sorry it is hard to see but it is the same list idea as above but now instead of having to type in each link up site I can click and jump right over. Most days there are only a handful of sites that have a close enough theme that one post can touch on it all but Wednesdays are completely different. Everyone and their mother's brother does a Wordless Wednesday: it is like a global blogging hug where we can all come together with one project and beneficially for any that are participating you can link up with all of them. I know of over 100 sites that do link ups for Wordless Wednesdays.
The number one thing to remember about linking up is courtesy! Make sure if you are linking up with a blog you have their button, if they don't have a button just do a straight link back. You are getting the benefit of their readers make sure you give back. If a blogger doesn't like you linking up, don't whine accept it, say sorry (whether you think you did something wrong or not) and move on.
If you are nice to others, comment, praise, mention others the blogging world is a reciprocatory place!
You are awesome and inspiring!
ReplyDeleteYou two are both inspiring bloggers:). That is really true to remember about the link ups, Rachel! I have tried to get the buttons on my site but for some reason have some trouble getting their actual buttons to post. Hmm. I try to always share a link at least. Thanks for this! Especially your piece of paper which makes me like you even more because that is my life in a nut shell.
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