Have you heard or read the words “link back” before? It’s commonly used to describe a way of giving credit to another blogger for something that you posted. It’s especially important when you are a guest of a blog’s link party.
Several weeks ago, I posted information on “Link Party Etiquette”. To prepare for the post, I asked bloggers that hosted a link party on their blog what their biggest concern was in hosting their party. The majority of them answered, “party guests linking the party host’s blog back in their submitted post.”
Why is this so important? Think about it. A party host allows a guest to use their blog to show off their latest project, blog post, etc. The benefit for the guest is increased traffic and possible new followers to their blog when people click on their link to view said project or post. It’s a great way to increase exposure of the blogger and his/her blog.
But what’s in it for the party host? They will also benefit from increased traffic to their blog….but only if people know about the party and come to visit. That’s where the party guest comes in.
The least a party guest can do is put a link back in the blog post that was submitted to the host’s link party.
Before LinkyHere.com came along, this was exactly how I found link parties to share my craft and DIY projects with. I would see a list of link parties on someone’s blog post and click on them to take me to the party so I could link up too.
So how do you do it? It’s easy and I’m going to show you how. There are two main types of “link backs” in link parties: text only and blog/party button (image).
Text only links are super easy to do. At the bottom of your blog post containing the project that you submitted to the link party, type the name of the blog and/or link party that you have linked your post to. Next, highlight the text, then click on the “link” word/symbol at the top of the post page. This is what it looks like in Blogger and WordPress.
When you click on the link word/symbol, a window will pop up allowing you to insert the URL of the host’s blog/party post into the appropriate box. It’s easy, just copy the host blog’s URL and paste it into the “URL section” of the pop up box. Again, this is what it looks like on Blogger and WordPress.
Now, when a reader see’s the word(s) on the blog post, they will be highlighted in a different color. The link backed words on our blog are light blue. The color doesn’t matter….as long as it’s different from the color of the text and stands out. When you click on the linked back words, you will be taken directly to the site that you linked to (the URL in the link pop up box).
Or, you can link back to the host’s blog using images….namely blog or party buttons. Have you tried doing this before? I did and I couldn’t get it to look right. My linked back buttons were randomly placed all over the place at the bottom of my post page. I couldn’t get them neatly lined up and organized like some other bloggers do. I was secretly jealous and a little mad at myself for not being able to do this.
I gave up trying until I found a “new to me” blog called Becoming Martha. The blog owner/author, Sarah gives a detailed, easy to understand tutorial on how to organize blog buttons and link them back to the host in this post. When you read about how to organize them, don’t be turned off or intimidated by the HTML code that is shown. It’s just another language….computer language. The more you see it, the better you understand it. Thank you, Sarah, for doing all of the work in explaining this. Fantastic job!
Again, you can use either of these techniques, text or image, to link back to the party host’s blog at the bottom of the blog post that you link up or you can use them in the making of a “party page” on your blog. A party page on a blog is a place where a reader can go to see a list of all of the link parties/blog hops that the blogger attends on a regular basis. There is some controversy over the use of a party page on a blog. Some link party hosts don’t like it….they don’t feel that it gives adequate exposure/information about where the party guest has linked up their page to. Other party hosts don’t mind.
Who is right? I don’t know. I do think, however, that having a clear statement at the bottom of the blog post that was linked up to the party is the best solution. Whether that statement is in the form of a text, image or party page link is up to the individual blogger.
Knowing how to link back to a party host’s blog can be very helpful in other aspects of blogging. For example, you should link back to any blog or website that you quote or borrow from in your blog post. It’s courteous and easy to do. Follow the instructions stated above for a text link back. Linking back an image in your blog post works the same way. Highlight the image (just like you do text) and insert the image source in the pop up box. Now someone can click on the image and go the the image source’s blog or website.
Any questions? Do you want to know something about another link party topic? If so, please leave a comment for me. I’m constantly looking for link party topics to write about. I will be doing a “how to add your link to a party” post soon. I’m waiting for inLinkz to complete their latest update on the link tool that they designed. Until then, party on and don’t forget to link back 
