My journey with Thumbtack began as an encounter with an email from an unknown sender. Usually, those emails are the first I delete, but there was something about the email that seemed to stimulate my curiosity. I decided to go ahead and click on the link provided in the email. The next thing I knew, I was registering to become a member of Thumbtack.com.

What led me to become a member? The opportunity for free publicity and backlinks. I’d figure it would work as well as any business-services listing, but I soon discovered there was much more to Thumbtack.

To start, registration is intuitive. Finally, someone got the memo! Secondly, listings are built around a points system–the higher the points, the higher a service provider’s trust level. You receive points for everything from verification of your account via phone, email and linking to social networking sites, to simply adding pictures to your profile and answering questions about your business. The most points can be received for building backlinks with Thumbtack–genius. Backlinks and reciprocal links can be built by posting pre-made Thumbtack widgets to your website or by writing a blog review about your experience with Thumbtack. To sum it all up, consumers can directly contact service providers using Thumbtack. Talk about convenience.

So far, my relationship with Thumbtack is off to a great start. I’m hoping it lives up to its initial excitement. Who would have thought something so promising and useful came out of what I thought was ‘just another spam email’?