All About Linky Parties

What is a Linky Party?

A linky party is simply a group of website links, most often with thumbnails, that have been submitted by a variety of people or one person. Here is an example of a "link only" linky party. The purpose of this ongoing party is to showcase what state you are blogging from. I encourage you to link up. Here is another example that uses images to showcase the product that is going to be discussed in the blog post.

Why Should I Join a Linky Party?

I am sure you have seen a linky party before, but you may not be sure why you would want to join one. For the people who are linking up, the parties can help with marketing in a number of ways. Other users may be interested in what you are linking, that could cause them to click the link and go to your blog or product. Basically, it is a way of getting more traffic to your website. 

I personally use these parties as motivation for coming up with blog post. Sometimes when I have not posted anything in a while, I will search the internet for current and relevant linky parties. I gain an idea of what to blog about for my normal readers and then hopefully I will gain some new readers from the hosting blog.

Why Should I Host a Linky Party?
The idea behind hosting a linky party is that it will bring more traffic to your blog. Other bloggers will want to link up with you to hopefully gain more traffic to their store as well. Seems like a win win situation. Unfortunately, hosting a linky party does not garuntee that people will link up and even if they do they may not decide to follow your blog.

Some linky party host will have rules that require the linker to add links or images into their blog post before linking up. Other host have rules that require you to follow them on social media before you can link up.

Once you decide to host a linky party you need to think about what kind of party you will have. There are tons of things you can do with a linky party. I have seen people link up giveaways that they are hosting, favorite products, blog post, facebooks, Weird Wednesday days, Throwback Thursdays, and many others. Get creative!

Tools for Hosting a Linky Party.

There are a few linky tools available and most of them offer some sort of FREE option. If you want to have linkys with thumbnails it will cost you. Most of the subscriptions are $2 a month. With the amount of traffic a linky party could bring, it may be well worth it. Each of these services have great how to's on getting your link set up. Be sure to check out their videos and forums for help. 
Here are the only Linky services I am aware of:

LlinkyTools

SimplyLinked

Mister Linky

InLinkz

I have not tried a paid subscription, so I do not have a favorite for the hosting side of things. On linker side of things I prefer simply linked or inlinkz. Both of these are much more user friendly than the others. 

Have you used a linky tool before? Do you have a paid subscription? I would love to hear what you think about them.