Top 8 Techniques to Unlock Entrecard’s Full Potential

Entrecard has been proven many times over that it produces more traffic compared to other free traffic and free link exchange services and widgets in the internet. But, sad to say, some of its users find the traffic it produces as lacking quality; solely because they believe many of entrecard users are just after dropping their cards for credits, most of which resort to chain dropping and employing techniques to increase the frequency of their drops in a short period of time. Although there is some truth to it, I believe the majority of entrecard users don’t necessarily employ chain dropping without the attempt to take a moment and scan through what the blog in front of them is all about. The problem perhaps lies not in the intention of entrecard users but, with such a short attention span to jump from one blog to another, in the capacity of one’s blog to capture the interest of its visitor.

How then do you convert this constantly bouncing traffic from entrecard to the benefit of your blog? Here are the techniques I found through some hours of searches to help in taming entrecard and unlocking its full potential.


1. Lessen entrecard traffic’s high bounce rate – This is the primary problem why some discontented entrecard users leave entrecard. Entrecard traffic are just bouncing like balls without the slightest sign that people are reading anything you wrote at all. There are reasons why entrecard users are doing that, which might also be true for the search engine traffic you’re getting. Your site design and layout must be giving them a hard time to focus on your content or it’s taking an eternity to load including your most valuable post. Your topics must be either too boring, or too old news that they don’t want to read at all. Or, your headings or post title is so plain that nobody takes the time to read even how interesting its content might be.

Address the problem by taking the time to look at your site’s design. Don’t make your sidebar look more important than your post section. Also, arrange your blog’s template so that your posts load first than your sidebar’s “too interactive” features. Find your widgets or design elements that aren’t responsive or are too large taking a long time to load-up in browsers and remove it. Write about what’s the buzz in your niche; or if you can’t avoid recycling old topics, learn how to make catchy titles and headings and easy to read posts; you can head to copyblogger and learn just that.

Another trick I see working most of the time is to contradict what most entrecard users are expecting of your blog. Put your entrecard widget somewhere in the middle or the last part of your blog’s sidebar instead of the top fold so that it will take some time to load after all your blog’s nice features load up. That way, they will have some time to look around while waiting and looking for your entrecard. Even if they didn’t take interest in your blog’s content, at least they stayed for something like a minute or so. Additionally, Felex Tan dot com has a write-up on How to Reduce Entrecard’s High Bounce rate.


2. Learn how to advertise on entrecard efficiently – I believe there are three types of entrecard advertisers. There is the cheap one who goes after the cheapest and the newest blogs around. Then, there’s the opportunist who looks for high priced and well trafficked blogs to advertise in while supporting his efforts with massive chain drops. And, then there’s the smart one who knows how to efficiently spend his credits on blogs by researching on the blogs they advertise in and doing some cost / benefit assessments. Although it has little to do with fixing your blog’s internal problems about reining the wild traffic it’s getting, this will influence greatly in managing your credits without wasting too much in exchange of poor traffic.

Are you advertising in the right blog; is the price too much for the actual benefit you’ll be getting; is the blog strict about the advertisements it runs; these are just some of the questions that a smart advertiser should think about before spending their credit for an advertisement slot. In theory, an advertisement in blogs within the same or relevant niche will yield visitors who’ll be interested in what your blog’s about. So if you have a cat blog, you’ll have to advertise in pet, animal, or nature oriented blogs right? If the blog has a price range of 500 to 1000+ credits, are you willing to spend that much for that blog to advertise, or maybe you’ll come back later to see if its price goes down? Or maybe you can assess if the price is just right or is over inflated by the false demand for its ad slot which really has nothing for you in it.

Turnip of Power has an article about the proper strategies on Entrecard Advertising.


3. Create Attention Grabbing 125 x 125 banners – Are your cards too flat and boring. It might not directly affect how long people will stay in your blog, but it will play an essential part in people’s expectations of your blog and the number of drops you’ll receive. When your ad says little about what people will see in your blog or presents little punch to grab their attention, don’t expect them to click to it either. It should be an eye catcher. What’s great about it is when it’s really an attention getter, not only will entrecard users want to click it but other non-entrecard users as well.

Take these banners as an example. I believe they best explain what an attention grabber should look like.

I find a banner interesting if its one of the following: it calls you to action, it has a thought provoking concept be it image or words, it’s funny, or it offers something you really want. Also, like it or not, even how moralists condone it, sex sells. Beautiful girls in bikinis like it or not, will always get more clicks than other conventional images.

If you want a real guide on how to build banners with higher click-through rates, please read this article from BANNERDESIGNBLOG.COM about
10 Effective Ways to Boost Banner Click-through.


4. Run EC Contests – People always like the idea of winning. Running contests and placing it in your card or somewhere in your blog where your visitors will immediately see it will hold them back from changing page. Give them something where they can greatly benefit even if they don’t win the contest at all such as a link by mentioning their entries for example. A successful contest will give you more than entrecard attention. Tons of back links, increased traffic, increased readership, and definitely increased search engine, alexa, and technorati rankings; who wouldn’t want it. Always make sure though that your prize isn’t so insignificant that nobody would want to participate either.

Problogger has a must read guide about running blog contests, and don’t forget WaywardGirls.org’s Your Secret Weapon – Contests.


5. Feature Your Droppers – Droppers will be consistent with their drops to your widget, stop for a while to look for something, and perhaps leave comments as well - that is if they see something favorable for them in your blog. Take Entrecard Favorites for example. Although I wasn’t able to see any Google pagerank yet, look at its Alexa (299,276) and Technorati (186,136) stats. And it’s all because the blog is devoted to entrecard and those that frequently drops to the site. Although you can do just that, there are also simple ways to reward your droppers. You can install a recent droppers widget in your blog (see how in entrecard’s help section). Or install a Top Dropper Widget which you can learn via Turnip of Power.

Additionally, maybe you can spare a piece of your time to write about your frequent droppers or perhaps your favorite entrecard blogs. Don’t forget to tell them about it and watch your comment section for a thank you note, which I consider reward enough, or maybe, if they’re kind enough, a link back to your post of them.


6. Participate in EC contests – It’s not only in making contests that a blogger benefits. Joining them will also give you something. Besides the prize, more often than not, simply participating in contests will give you a link back to your blog. It’s that simple. What, don’t you want an extra inbound link? What more if you win, you’ll get tons of credits to use for advertising and getting other bloggers to do something for you (which I’ll tackle next) or maybe real bucks plus links coming from the blog holding the contest and several other partner or sponsor blogs. The possibilities are endless and it’s just joining contests.


7. Offer credits in exchange for something – I believe most of you are aware of the power of credits today as compared to when entrecard first started. People are offering services and goods in exchange for credits now. You can do the same. Offer credits for a stumble, dig, review, subscribers or anything possible that would help your blog grow and get traffic in exchange for credits. Yes these things are simply against some TOAs and Google’s guidelines, but I believe that it depends on how often and how strongly you rely on this form of popularity building. If your goal is to get a bit of an exposure that’s fine but if it’s the rule of your game to game the system then that’s certainly contemptible.


8. Network with Your Fellow Entrecarders – It’s possible with forums and social networking medias, I don’t see a reason why not in entrecard. Form interesting partnerships with your fellow entrecard users especially when conducting contests, gimmicks, advertising, or you need help on certain things about your blog. Send them messages if you’re launching something new for their participation or assistance, or whatever it is that you have to network with them for. You can also join the entrecard forums and bond with other entrecard users to learn something new from them.


Do you think my article can be of any help to improving your entrecard experience? Please leave your comments or suggestions below. Thanks.



technorati tags: entrecard, boost traffic, quality traffic

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