Posted 7/18/08 - Kellex
Over the past couple of weeks I took to dropping cards via Entrecard again to try to gain a top 3 position in the Sports category, help bump up some traffic, and to see if anything has changed since we quit the service a month or so ago. Entrecard seems to continue to grow even though multiple people have documented their disgust with it as a “waste of time” by thinking they could probably spend their time working on legitimate traffic building techniques. The numbers don’t lie people…for whatever reason people continue to blow this site up and according to Compete.com’s stats on them, they almost eclipsed 1 million visitors last month.
I was one of those people that figured I could use my time more wisely (which was true) and also thought I had grown above and beyond what Entrecard had to offer. What I’ve come to realize now is that Entrecard is not a waste of time and you can’t grow above something that has grown in the ridiculous proportions that it has. I do think it has its place in the blog world and I may even continue to use it for a few more weeks but eventually I think I’ll be back to where I was a month ago.
The nice thing is, if you really spend some time with it and encompass yourself in its community, you can meet some great people and also drive some decent traffic to your blog. Over the last couple of weeks I dropped my 300 cards per day and within a few days had my blog in the top 5 for Sports, but still have been unable to grab that top 3 spot over a few of the long standing suckers (James…Stan, hate you!) won’t seem to give in to my wrath.
I will say that dropping those 300, buying a ton of cheap ads and showing a little bit of love can easily get you 500 visitors in a day. Who can complain about that? It may be as many have said, the “wrong kind of traffic” but I’ve gained 7-8 subscribers in the last week or so since using the service again and I’ve also had a ton of comments from new people that I only know through Entrecard.
Like I said, I’m sure I’ll be over the service in a matter of a weeks, but I know that I can always gain some decent traffic, a few more subscribers, and pump up my Yardbarker earnings just by taking 30 minutes out of a day. What’s 30 minutes anyway?
Here are some other things you should know about Entrecard…
Sez Who Partnership
Entrecard has announced a new partnership with Sez Who, a comment ranking program/company (whatever the hell you want to call it) to try and rid the world of fast droppers. The partnership is geared towards having people take the time to actually comment on blogs again and build up a rank through Sez Who rather than just drop and close with those amazing CTRL+W’s and CTRL+Tab’s!
Other Changes
Here is another list of changes you’ll see at Entrecard that seems to have continued to draw people in:
-Selling 125x125 site-wide ad spots for a pretty reasonable price
-Opportunity to purchase more Entrecard Credits (personally I thought this would fail)
-Much easier navigation to sites through your “Drops Inbox” or through “Campaign”
-A ton of contests via the Entrecard Blog
James, I know you are all about Entrecard. Any feedback or tips you can give people that are still into using the service on a daily basis?
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Yeah, I've been using Entrecard to my advantage for about a month and I get around 300ish visitors a day, and 50 of them are worthwhile. I've picked up a few subscribers, some free ads, boosted my Technorati ranking by at least 20, and found some great blogs to read and learn from.
I drop around 250-300 cards a day (takes me about 45 minutes, but with firefox 3 I just do those in the background tabs). What you want to do to get over the hump originally is to save up credits and buy 2 or 3 quality (512 or more) ads for 5 days straight -- dropping 300 each of those days. That will put you at around 1500 popularity, and you should be able to maintain that with smart ad purchases and consistent reciprocal dropping.
If you want to get over the 2000 rating, get a 2nd blog and drop 600 a day (way too much time for me) and use all the credits to advertise for one site.
During the football season, when I will tons more traffic, I plan on letting EntreCard go a bit, just dropping on the sites I go too anyway, and not advertising until next summer. I'll quit commenting now.
Damn, really, stop commenting already! Heh
I looked at this post and saw "4 comments" and was like, wow, I didn't think it was that great of a post!
I am of the ilk that think the quality of visitor does not justify the time put into the program.
The other thing to think about is the fact that bloggers help out their favorite blogs. Blogging is a link fest. I guess entrecard gets your blog in the face of other bloggers. Blogers also understand RSS etc...
@Ethan
I really am only paying 25% attention to it while I am writing, researching, or surfing. It's really not that much work with firefox. With full attention, you could 300 drops in 20-25 minutes probably.
I spend probably 30-40 min per day dropping 300 cards which is not that bad for the 300-400 visitors I see in return if I've also purchased a few decent ads.
I enjoy Entrecard because that's how I've met Kellex, James, Cuzzy, and others. Plus I like reading random sites when I'm dropping cards and something catches my eye.
Great information in this post. I was beginning to wonder if entrecard clicks were worthwhile. I will have to check out the forum on entrepay and start some networking. Plus, getting more subscribers because of aservice that allows you to network at the same time is nice.
I still have an entrecard widget on my site but I have not been dropping cards on other people's sites. Just earning credit when people place ads on my site or click in and drop their card.
I think Entrecard is effective for sites like yours in that the majority of people using EC are blogger looking for a leg up. Sites like yours or John Chow or Shoemoney that give advice and their target audience is the bloggers do well. My site deals with tailgating and promoting the tailgate party lifestyle. Not too many people using entrecard are tailgaters. So even though you may build more RSS subscribers via entrecard is because those are the types of people that are looking for blogging advice. I have met a few bloggers via Entrecard that i value their opinions and advice but asa means of building traffic, I would rather write a good blog post in that 30 minutes it takes to drop cards.
Completely understand Dave...and you are right, the service isn't for everyone.
The sad thing is that there are 342 sports blogs on Entrecard but about 10 of those are actually active. If even half of those were active and dropping it could actually become beneficial to sports bloggers as a whole.
Geez, this is discouraging for someone who just joined entrecard today. I have a unique sports blog - greyhound handicapping system sales, but I also write quality posts with good info in them. I guess I'm not likely to get many people who are interested in what I'm selling/writing about through entrecard. I'll give it a try for awhile though. I've already found this blog, so maybe it's not a total loss.
All the best,
Eb
Entrecard has some perks, but basically turns out to be a waste of time for most people. I think we've all found a few blogs that we really enjoy, but otherwise it takes a lot of work to get anywhere.
Oh, and last night someone's Entrecard blog slapped me with the "XP Antivirus 2008" spyware which jacked my work computer for a solid 2 hours. So now there are shady assholes putting blogs on there.
Fun!