The idea of an EntreCard (EC) economy is definitely a clever one, but it’s a distraction. I’ve been thinking too much on how to maximize my EC credits and increasing my ad value. I’m not willing to go on a chain-dropping spree. Usually, I drop on those who dropped on me, but it seemed like a chore now. I felt like I needed to “drop a card and get my credit”, and then quickly move on. I didn’t like that feeling.

I’ve used EC to find useful blogs. I kept track of the expensive blogs in EC, and lately, I did not find them to be the same quality as the ones I’ve seen outside of EC. Even with the changes in the ad system (which I was excited about), I’m still seeing questionable quality of the top ads. I’m not sure why. Maybe they knew how to “maximize” the system? Maybe they’re still chain dropping? Maybe they are participating more in forums, or place more ads? I’ve done all that work, and my return hasn’t been that significant.

I also have Twitter to blame for my recent departure from EC. Twitter is the place to find A-list bloggers, marketers, designers, and celebrities. I have to tap into this resource. Most of my new blog reading recommendations are from Twitter. Most of my fellow EC users are on Twitter. The medium with high readership and participation is unbeatable. Twitter is certainly that, and more.

I’m still searching for new ways to bring in new readers who are willing to join my little community. I need to concentrate on creating good content, finding more relevant readers, and making connections with other bloggers. I can’t be distracted. The golden rule to avoid placing ads in my blog is becoming more relevant. No more gimmicks. Less sidebar; more body, by far.

This article was posted on Rudy Amid's Blog:

EntreCard: The End of Once a Good Thing.

Related posts:

1. EntreCard: Managing Expectations
2. Is It Time to Drop EntreCard?
3. EntreCard: link love

How has the EC system worked for me?

• It’s a way to connect with other potential readers, at all levels.
• It’s a way for me to find other blogs: the good, the bad, or the ugly. “Beauty is on the eye of the beholder“.
• It brings traffic to my site, just like all of the search engines, StumbleUpon, or SiteHopping sites.
• It offers a community of bloggers that actively discuss the system and each other’s blogs.
• It’s a free service.
• Some of blogs in the system are actually quite good and up-to-date.

What makes EC that bad, anyway?  I’ll use James’ points:

1. High bounce-rate.
2. Irrelevant ad request with ugly design.
3. Not a significant traffic increase.
4. Deceptive quality of blogs in EC system.

My observation and opinion on the dislikes:

• High Bounce Rate.
  The system is not forcing me to go around like a mad man and drop cards everywhere (aka. “chain drop”). But the system encourages it by giving an EC credit for a drop. It has been suggested before, it should be repeated: there should be NO credit for a card drop. This will discourage the chain dropping activity.  Another way to discourage chain dropping is to force blog owners to put the EC widget at the bottom.  It makes it painful for chain droppers to keep scrolling down.  They will not come back to my site.  I don’t need them anyway.
• Effort is required to screen irrelevant and ugly ads, on a regular basis.
  This is actually not that big of a deal.  It’s similar to moderating the comments on my WordPress environment to weed out spam and junk comments. It’s part of my daily maintenance, anyway.   In fact, I monitor my EC ad queue weekly, not daily.  It’s certainly not a total time waster.
• No increase in traffic.
  My traffic has definitely increased.   In fact, most of my traffic is from EC sites and EC users.  I can’t dislike it, except maybe the high bounce rate, which I have no problem with.
• Ad price does not reflect quality.
  EC seems to have a new pricing adjustment to reflect the fair value of my EC ad.  I always thought the value of my EC ad should be based on the # of ads I have in the queue.  They seem to agree in this case.

In his summary, James doesn’t want to waste time using EC if he doesn’t get quality traffic back. That’s a fair expectation. But then again, which social media site, or any web site for that matter, can deliver that? If there is one, let me know so I can take advantage of it.  In the past, Graham and his admins, have been good at detecting those who are trying to game the EC system.  They’re still tweaking the system.  Once they fix the issue with chain droppers, the system will be fair to use again.

All in all, EC is just another tool to use promote my blog.  The EC widget has no magical power to increase conversion rate on my site.   Good content brings quality visitors.  Contributing in close-knit communities bring quality visitors.  Hard (and smart) work will bring quality visitors.   My expectations have to be proportional to the amount of work I put into building my blog and my community.   James has done that exceptionally well with Men With Pens, without the help of EC.  He expects the same return on investment from EC.  He shouldn’t have that expectation in the first place.

This article was posted on Rudy Amid's Blog:

EntreCard: Managing Expectations

Related posts:

1. EntreCard: The End of Once a Good Thing.
2. Is It Time to Drop EntreCard?
3. Being Reciprocal

When I first started using the system in late November 2007, the traffic to my site has increased by at least four fold. It wasn’t a phenomenal number like 10,000 visitors per day. But coming from 20 unique hits per day, it was a huge improvement. Now, my blog has been exposed to a community that would not have known if I never joined EntreCard system. It has a pretty good community support. Most of the people I interact with on a regular basis, reciprocate by visiting each other’s site. They may not comment all the time, but at least I’ve been given the chance with a visit. What matters are the few who takes the time to read my blog, and say “hello” (sometimes the occasional “thanks”).

EntreCard has many ways to show me new sites to visit. Their campaign categories include recent, popular, recommended, and unseen blogs. I think they have more than 3000 registered sites in there, so there’s quite a few to choose from. It’s actually fun to go in there and discover unique sites, such as The Dambusters (a blog about dam busting only!), My Blog Rules (eclectic 80′s guy), Chexed (the random idea generator), or Saphrym (weight loss blog by the nicest guy you can find on the net).

There is the question of valuable ads real estate on my blog site. In my case, I have the luxury of not running any ads. Ad space is not an issue for me, so a little 125×125 pixels EntreCard widget is not intrusive at all. There’s also the question of an ugly or inappropriate ad that may clutter my site. In this case, I have total control over what ad to approve, so I don’t have to display them if I don’t want to.

As I pointed out earlier, a system is useless without the community support behind it. So far, the EntreCard community has been supportive and has a close-knit feel to it. Maybe they can relate to the small blog experience and know what it’s like to start a blog for the first time. I can certainly relate to them, and help wherever I can. The system makes it easier for me to connect to them.

Thus, EntreCard still works for me. I will not drop it any time soon. Do you have plans to drop EntreCard?

This article was posted on Rudy Amid's Blog:

Is It Time to Drop EntreCard?

Related posts:

1. EntreCard: Managing Expectations
2. EntreCard: The End of Once a Good Thing.
3. EntreCard: link love

• Rob’s review in his Truebluetitan blog.
• Lis’ review in her About Every Little Thing blog.
• Cameron’s review in his Tetsujin’s blog.
• Beth’s review (well, more like rant) in her Ramblings of an Undisturbed Mind blog.
• Gary’s review in his impNerd.com blog.

For the brave, I dare you to check out GorillaSushi and jDonuts for some Unsolicited-But-Much-Appreciated-Abuse of EntreCard link love.

This article was posted on Rudy Amid's Blog:

EntreCard: link love

Related posts:

1. Is It Time to Drop EntreCard?
2. EntreCard: The End of Once a Good Thing.
3. EntreCard: Managing Expectations