A million and one link parties: How to organize and track them.

If you have participated in some of the weekly link parties held at various blogs hopefully you have seen some good traffic to your blog as a result. During the past week I had considered writing up a little post about how to organize the many parties out there, and when I received an email from a fellow blogger asking me how I handled it, I decided to write this post.

I'm sure to some of you this may seem overly thorough but I am a little bit OCD when it comes to organizing so this works for me. Consider the following post a tutorial of sorts of how to set up and organize your link party list, track previous parties, and minimize the time you have to spend each day actually submitting your posts. If you have any feedback or tips of your own, please leave a comment.

• Picking your parties - What I did in the beginning was to basically copy another bloggers party list as my starting point. I emailed her and asked her if this was okay. After all, she had spent the time to write up a nice page for her parties, it seemed only fair that I ask if it was all right if I swiped it. This was just the first step for me. I knew I wanted to edit out parties that didn't relate to my blog, as well as add many more that she didn't list.

• Creating the master list page - Quite a few bloggers provide a link on their sites to their regular link parties, so I bookmarked about half a dozen, visited said parties, and added the ones that applied to my master list. You can do this easily by creating a page on your blog and listing each day of the week and the parties underneath each heading. I did this and it worked well enough, but I needed more information.

• Tracking the parties - I realized half way through my first week that I was going back to a few blogs again and again to verify if I had participated in their party. This lead to a lot of wasted time. I pulled up Gmail and opened up a Google doc and created a spreadsheet. Look for it in the top navigation bar, sometimes listed under the "more" tab if you don't use it much.  I simply copied my master party list by highlighting the text, copying and pasting into the spreadsheet. See the screen shot below for more details.

Organized by day of the week. Also shown is a column to mark if you've added their button to your blog (I haven't compiled this info yet so my column is blank), then following that I give each week a column and specify what post I am submitting. An "x" means I have submitted successfully to that party. Two marks is two posts submitted, etc.

• Keeping your parties current - After several weeks of tracking parties, you should be able to see which parties have closed down or gone on hiatus. I will usually mark a party by bolding their name in black text to signify that they are no longer current, and if by a few weeks time they aren't back, I put the name in red to signify that their info needs to be removed from the spreadsheet as well as the link page on my site.

Red crayons used to block the lapsed parties info. Poor little parties! Come back to us!

• Prioritizing parties - Using the extremely basic traffic counter provided by blogger on the "Stats" page, I assign a few select blogs a bold color to let me know that they have provided large numbers of hits to my site. That isn't to say they are any better than other parties, but if I don't have much time to spend submitting to parties, I know to hit up these blogs first. Speaking of saving time...

Create a second sheet within your spread sheet to remind you of what the colors mean. I haven't tracked the referrals of the week, but I added it incase I wanted that option later.

Time Saving Tips -

1. If you are able to, submit earlier in the day. The earlier the better. The reason being that the linking tools used by parties often get quite bogged down during the day and evening. What takes you 15 seconds to do in the morning can take 3 minutes in the afternoon.
2. Take the time to make sure your party page list of links is identical to your spreadsheet. This means you wont be searching through your lists trying to match things up. I pull up my link party page in one tab, the spreadsheet in the next, and just go boom-boom-boom down the list. No searching necessary as it all matches up sequentially.
3. Make sure the picture you are going to use in the party doesn't need intensive cropping. One less step in the process saves you time over the long haul.
4. If you only have a few minutes to commit to submitting your posts to parties, keep the priority parties marked by bold text and coloring their names on your spread sheet.

And finally, one thing that makes me go “huh??” every week. Link parties that are set for a certain day of the week, as in the day of the week in is their party name, yet they post the day before. That always bugs me. I think I am gonna be on time to link up for “Tuesday blah de dah” or “Friday doop de doo” and I visit the website the morning of the party and 300 people have already linked up the day before. Doh! :)

I hope this tutorial helped you to achieve your party goals. If you have any questions, thoughts or tips, please share them in a comment.

Party buttons can be found here. I'm linking up to:  

{M) Melt in Your Mouth Mon, Motivate Me Mon, Making the World Cuter, Made By You Mon, Made By You Mon, Made by Me Mon, Made With Love Mon, Share Mon, Market Yourself Mon,  Craft-O-Manic Mon, Amaze Me Mon, Metamorphosis Mon, Get Your Craft On, This Week's Cravings, Unwasted Homemaking, Making Mon Marvelous, Mad Skills, Craftastic Mon, DIY Project Parade, Inspire Me Mon, Make Something Mon, Link Party Mon, Mangia Mon, Marvelous Mess Mon, Mad Skills Mon, Homemaker Mon, Mouthwatering Mon, Food'e' Friend Mon, Momspiration Mon, Hunk of Meat Mon, {T} Show Me What You Got,  Tempt My Tummy Tues, Take A Look Tues, Handmade Tues, Make It Yours Day, Show and Tell, All Thingz Related, Anti Procrastination Tues, Tutorial Tues, Tell All Tues, Ten Buck Tues, Too Cute Tues, It's Sew Fun Tues, Tues Time Out, Delectable Tues, Ten on Tues, Toot Your Horn, Tip Me Tues, A Little Birdie Told Me, {W} Whatever Goes Wed, Creative Share Wed, Sugar And Spice, Show Off Your Stuff, Wed Link Party, Hoo's Got Talent, We Did It Wed, Linkin' with Luna, Link Party, Inspired by You Wed, What I Whipped Up Wed, Whassup Wed, Getting Crafty, Anything Goes, Made It On Mon, Look What I Made, Whisking Wed, What I Made Wed,  {Thur} Strut Your Stuff Thur, I'm So Crafty, Crazy Cute Thur, Hookin' Up, Thrifty Thur, A Crafty Soiree, Frogs & Snails, Transformation Thur, Making It with Allie, Catch A Glimpse Thur, It's a Keeper Thur, Things I Love Thur, Get Your Craft On , Full Plate Thur, Sweet Treat Thur, Almost Fri Flaunts, Creative Juice Thur, Recipe Swap Thur, {F} Sweet Tooth Fri, Sweets This Week, Frugal Fri, Feature Yourself Fri, Foodie Fri, Home and Family Fri, I'm Lovin' It Fri, Show and Tell, Fri Favorites, Favorite Things Fri, Fantastic Fri, Show and Share Day, Fun with Food Fri, Weekend Wrap-Up, Pity Party, Simply Link Party, Lovely Crafty Weekend, Tickled Pink, What's Cooking In the Kitchen, Everything But the Kitchen Sink, Hodgepodge Fri, Favorite Things Fri, Fri Link Party, Inspiration Fri, For the Kids Fri, Whatcha Got Weekend, Make and Share, Fri Free for All, Flaunt it Friday, Who Made What Weekends, Weekend Wander, Foodie Fri, Simply Creations Fri Link Party, Finer Things Fri, Frugalicious Fri , Fancy Fri, {Sat} Check Me Out Sat, Sundae Scoop, Show and Tell Sat, Sat Spotlight, Sat Nite Special, Sat is Crafty Day, Shindig Sat, Sat Swagger, Sweets for Sat, Summer Lovin' Sat Soiree, Sat Swap, {Sun} Sun Showcase, Sun Favorites, Sister Sister Sun, Recipe Link Party, Just Something I Whipped Up, Sew Darn Crafty, Think Pink Sun, Not Baaad Sun, Sun Blog Hop, Sun Linky Party, Nifty Thrifty Sun, Sun at One Food Club, Your Kitchen, My Recipe, Potluck Sun, Sweet Indulgences Sun, So Sweet Sun, Savory Sun