It All Began With A Halloween Wreath!

You are wondering why I am showcasing a Halloween wreath today.  I just returned from a trip to New York City to attend a Blogger Meetup with Hometalk.  If you don’t know what Hometalk is, you need to keep reading and then head over to Hometalk.com and see what it is all about!  You might think if you are not a blogger this is not applicable to you, but if you don’t know Hometalk, you are missing out!  It All Began With A Halloween Wreath

For Everyone:

Back in the Fall of 2015 I received an email from Hannah with Hometalk.  She had seen this wreath and wondered if I would share it on Hometalk.  Honestly, I had not heard of Hometalk before this time.  I headed over and filled out the simple project form and shared my wreath.  The next thing you know I am seeing traffic on my blog from HouseBeautiful.com and Huffington Post Home!  Before I knew it, that project on Hometalk had over 200K views!  Today that first project has nearly 365K views and that is not even the most viewed project of mine at Hometalk!  Beach-pail-bookends-Here are my Beach Pail Bookends I shared on Hometalk!  There is so much information for the DIY’er, the Crafter and the Homeowner on Hometalk.  Making-coastal-containers-for-succulent-vases-Did you see what I did with these containers?  I will be doing a Facebook LIVE DIY on this project on Friday, February 24th for Hometalk.  The point is, if you are looking for ideas for anything to do with your home, head on over to Hometalk and see what you can learn!  I love Pinterest, but so many of the links are dead ends, I love that all of Hometalk’s projects are all there, complete with instructions, AND there is a spot to easily ask questions!

For the Bloggers:

For my fellow bloggers, if you haven’t gotten involved with Hometalk, now is the time!  Hometalk can help direct traffic to your blog, a LOT of traffic.  They have a great Blogger Traffic Program that will feature a direct link to your blog of one of your Hometalk projects at least once every 90 days and could be as often as once in 30 days!  Do you know how much traffic that can send to your blog?!  I have had occasions when they have shared a project of mine with a link back to Celebrate & Decorate that has resulted in nearly 10 times my average daily visitors!  Hometalk!

At the Hometalk Blogger Meetup we learned about that “hook” for getting your readers to open your emails and to read all the way through your blog posts.  The bloggers there, me included, mentioned how some of this went agains everything we had been told, but Hometalk is famous for not sharing the “final” picture or project until the end of a post, which leads your reader on their own path to discovery, that way you are taking them on the journey to see what your final project is!  Take advantage of the time and money they have put into analytics to help guide you on your blogging path.

Facebook Live for Hometalk (and YOU)!

Hannah

Above you see Hannah wrapping up her talk about Facebook Live for Hometalk.  This is a program that Hometalk has where they pay bloggers to host a Facebook Live for a project they have shared on Hometalk.  Hometalk will pay you $150 for a Live!  Aren’t you doing those projects anyway?  I have hosted over a dozen Facebook Lives for Hometalk, and yes, I was nervous at first, but give it a go!  AND, Hometalk posts all of those LIVE videos on YouTube…so even MORE exposure!  Just for fun (or to scare me to death), just on Facebook, my LIVE videos have over 1,725,000 views!!  Wow, I need to work on my hair and makeup, not to mention diet and gym time! Grow with Hometalk

There are so many other advantages of connecting with Hometalk, reach out and see if it is a fit for you and your blog, or even if you would just like to check out what they have to offer in terms of craft, DIY and home improvement advice!  Grow With HometalkI am a big believer that Hometalk can help your blog grow!  Try it out!  Look at how they share and feature projects and consider using some of those techniques yourself!

Similar Posts

20 Comments

  1. Hi Chloe, so I took your advice and posted a project over on Hometalk. Easy enough submission process! Do you know what it is that gets your post actually in front of viewers? Do they have to search your hash tag or item description terms… does it automatically show up in “most recent” at some point (and if so when)… I posted this afternoon and went back this evening, and still it seems the only way for me to see my post is to look it up on my profile. I’ll poke around a bit more, but wondered if you could shed some light on these questions. Thank you so much for the great tip (I don’t know WHY I wasn’t on Hometalk before this!) and your beautiful blog! Best to you, Janet Green

    1. Congratulations! You took the plunge! I find that my projects usually appear right away, but I will forward your question on to someone at Hometalk, I don’t know why it isn’t showing up! Thank you for your kind words!

  2. So happy to hear you had such a wonderful time in NYC! Yes, I agree, I absolutely love Hometalk. My fave “go to” for projects. Thanks for yet another great post! Enjoy the holiday weekend. ☺

  3. This is an awesome post about Hometalk, Chloe! A must read! Like you, I can’t say enough about how posting on Hometalk has propelled my blog! #HometalkRocks!

  4. Ohmygosh, ohmygosh, ohmygosh… CHLOE!! Not only did I get my project successfully posted and viewed on Hometalk… it currently (Sunday night) has had 22,000 views, wonderful comments, and was the SECOND PROJECT on THE HOMEPAGE when I went to look this evening!! Of course I’m curious to see if it has resulted in much new blog traffic, but for the moment I am just SO excited! Thanks for this really fun tip – I don’t know why it took me so long to get to Hometalk, but I am hooked!

  5. Oh, my gosh! I am so happy you were chosen for this! You really are one of the most creative bloggers I know! Your tablescapes are always full of great ideas! Love HomeTalk! Congrats, dear friend! Toodles, Kathryn @TheDedicatedHouse

  6. You are such an inspiration Chloe and thank you for sharing this. I did some browsing on Hometalk yesterday and found lots of projects that are within my skill set. Now I have to get busy and come up with a few of my own. Thank you so much and congratulations on your success!

  7. Hi Chloe! Your Halloween wreath is where I first found your blog! (I love Halloween). Good for you for going out of your comfort zone and trying new things. I’m a Hometalk fan, and I’ve found my simple crafts have been extremely popular. Now if I could just get Hometalkers to look at my furniture ! LOL Thanks for sharing, Cynthia

  8. Hi Chloe,

    Nice site!

    When you post a project on Hometalk and it does well, I’ve noticed the Hometalk post may surpass your own current ranking for that same post from your site on Google. Have you noticed a negative effect from that?

    I realize initially it brings more traffic to your site than you would have gotten without Hometalk, but anyone searching on Google for a Halloween wreath, will likely click on the Hometalk link and not yours (assuming it does out rank your site post). Then when it takes them to Hometalk, they may not click on your site link from Hometalk.

    I’m just wondering because I recently posted my first Hometalk post, with similar results to yours and Hometalk is right below me in the Google search, but I expect will out rank me shortly.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *