I haven't been able to blog for a week, or even make any crafts for two weeks, because I've been trying to gather links for my home page. I'll start browsing the McLinky posts, and the next thing you know, I realilze I've burned an hour!!! I just don't have that much free time!
Do you link to participate in the McLinky parties? So do I. But I've found a couple of problems with them.
- they're all over the place and I can't keep track of them all, with new ones popping up all the time, so I'm bound to miss something great.
- if I saw something I liked 2 months ago, I could never possibly find it again.
- too many parties, too many party buttons cluttering up my post and site.
- some of the link parties have over 200 links, which is very impressive but also very time consuming, plus I feel like mine gets lost.
- there is no way to filter through the things that I'm not interested in because the descriptions just aren't adequate.
- I end up linking to many posts that I'm not personally interested, undoubtedly missing some that I would be but simply don't have time to go through them all.
- when I have a project to link, I can't keep track of what day on which blog, so I end up missing a party as well any associated traffic.
So I developed an alternative, and I would love, love, LOVE for you to give it a try.
Check out my home page, childmade.com (don't get distracted by all the wonderful projects already loaded!) and submit a link for one of your crafty projects.
It's very simple, just like a McLinky, except that you get to include an image with your link. How great is that?! (Don't worry if you make a mistake -- I'll fix it for you.) Link to your specific post (not your site), then select your best photo to showcase -- first impressions are everything!With your submission, you'll get instantly listed under the "View by Site" link, which will show all of your submissions for your site. Take a look -- you might find a few of yours there already.
Also, I will pull various crafts that meet the criteria of what I'm trying to feature on the site, and move them to the main page. This will make your site link available to the search functionality, which means that people will still be able to find your links even a year from now.
And finally, once a month, I will feature 25 different crafts in the gallery at the top of the page. One click on the gallery image directs them to your post. Hurry and get your links in now because I'm just getting ready to make the change for February.
If you don't have any of your own crafts to link, take a minute to check out what others have submitted. I think you'll find that having the image displayed -- along with the search capability -- is much more effective than what you might have experienced with the McLinky parties. McLinky parties have their place for sure, but for craft links and tutorials, this is definitely the way to go.
Give it try! I can't wait to see all your crafty projects!
I'd love to hear your feedback about the site, too -- even the bad stuff. Afterall, I can't improve it if I don't know what would make it better.
