Blog From Cebu To The World » Entrecard

EC Love and Easy Link – Finale

ceblogger — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 11:36:57 +0000

This is probably the last of my EC love and easy link giveaways. This is not a contest. But it’s my way of rewarding my top droppers. However, times have changed and I have to come up with something new. Or shall we say: The entrecard credits are good, but we need cash. Like what I have done for these last few months, I will give away 300, 200 and 100 ec credits to my top 3 droppers. No cash yet. My Paypal account is almost empty.

So, here are my top 3 droppers for the last 31 days:
First: Turnip – Social Networking
Second: Technically Easy – Tips to Help You Understand Computers
Third: Banic Manic

And the winner for the 125×125 ad for a week is:
What About Brazil

(Mr. Prado, please reply to this entry if you want another ad to be advertised here instead of your blog. Otherwise, I’ll just use your entrecard ad.)

The entrecard dropping has become a chore to many, so their dropping habits have drastically changed. Some even left entrecard. But I will not follow them in their exodus. I’ll remain with the community unless I get banned or forced out.

EC love and easy link has ended. My next project is to reward my readers. So, if you haven’t subscribed to my feeds, do so now. Thank you and happy blogging everyone!

Entrecard Again

ceblogger — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 09:15:33 +0000

The past few weeks we’ve seen a barrage of changes in the entrecard community. As I posted here when I was still new in the community, Entrecard is fun.

Entrecard is Fun

Entrecard is fun since you get to be a part of a community and be able to advertise your site without paying a single penny. But some members ruined the fun so Entrecard has to guard itself by introducing changes. Among the recent changes and other rules, we are reminded of the following:

1. Blog’s must be updated within the last three (3) months
2. No full screen ads or popups
3. Blogs cannot consists of more than 50% advertisement posts, paid posts, or affiliate-linking posts
4. Entrecard widget must be present
5. No auto-playing audio

My three blogs with entrecard are safe with these rules as I easily complied with the five. I don’t want to visit splogs, so those changes I totally agree with. Those who failed to comply were either deleted or at the brink of deletion as there will be no notices served.

Previous changes include:

1. Buy credits for less: Entrecard is now selling 1,000 credits for $6.00. (I think it used to be $9)
2. More pricing increments: Instead of prices doubling every time, there are now a few more steps.
3. Members are not allowed to sell credits
4. Credit transfer limits: Members are allowed to make a maximum of 14 credit transfers a week, up to a maximum of 1,000 credits, whichever comes first. This means you can still run contests where you give credits away for free, and under 1k per week. Note: This does not affect linked blogs, you can transfer unlimited credits between linked blogs.
5. Transfer tax: From now on, all transfers, including transfers made with our new payments API, will be taxed at a rate of 12.5%. The taxed credits will be sold to members (see #1).
6. Blogs cannot be unlinked: Once you link a blog, it’s there for good unless you ask us to delete the blog from your account. This prevents linking/unlinking to get around the credit transfer limits, and it also stops you losing access to a blog if you unlink it in error, which happens a lot.
7. No more coupons: You are no longer allowed to send coupons.
8. Shop closed: Except for Entrecard upgrades (Featured Status, Fast Pass) the Entrecard Shop is now offline until further notice.

I only have one thing to comment on, and that is about selling. Why can’t members monetize the credits they earned? The people behind entrecard can act as middlemen. Members sell to entrecard, let’s say 1,000 for $3, and entrecard, in turn, sell it at $6. It would make everybody happy and add more fun to entrecard. Don’t you agree? But personally, the credits I earned are spent for ads and giveaways. Selling would just be one option.

Sale of Entrecard

As to the news that Graham would sell Entrecard, I wouldn’t be surprised. Perhaps, this could be just another of his business endeavors guised as a community. Buy why don’t we all members donate a dollar each for Graham? That would not be heavy on our paypal accounts and that would probably be a nice Christmas present and a thank you to the one who founded entrecard. I don’t have $50 to spend on adspace in entrecard so I’d just settle for the $1 donation.

If perhaps the new owner have much better plans and projects for the community, then why not. That would be great news!

Exit from Entrecard

I also read rants and some exit speeches of friends and superstars who left the community. They have their reasons, mostly about the slow loading time because of the widget, and the unwanted traffic from fellow entrecarders. In my past post: Lightning-quick Visits and Other Web Traffic, entrecarders averages 50 seconds in my blog. In the last 90 days, it did not improve. The reasons given are valid and well founded. Visitors from entrecard account for only 22-24% of my total visitors. That does not include those who drop from their bookmarks, or visit from their blogrolls. As of now, the bulk of my traffic comes from the search engines. I’m not really bothered by the seconds entrecarders spent on their visits here. I’m bothered about the loading time which would inconvenience the 75% of my visitors. If entrecard is the only script there is in a blog, then it could be the main culprit of the slow loading time. But if the blog has loads of ads and other scripts, then obviously, we know who’s to blame.

I’ll Stay On

I’ll stay on with Entrecard even if I don’t visit the forum and socialize with other fellow entrecarders. This community helped my in my traffic, made me discover other wonderful blogs, and let me advertise for free. I had fun with dropping and advertising. My hopping list is mostly composed of fellow entrecarders (with a few exceptions). I will purge my bookmark to make a new list; prioritizing those with EC and great content. (My apologies to those who have left, but I have another bookmark for great blogs without EC).

I’m happy with 50-100 total drops a day, from the bookmark and from the inbox. Anything in excess is a burden. I don’t race to become the most popular blog in my category. When no one else visit my blog, like my Busby SEO Test site, I’d be happy for every single entrecarder who drops by.

All in all, the benefits of entrecard outweigh the negatives. And I have not yet fully experienced all these benefits. It is true that entrecard is not the only source or traffic, but 30-50 visits from entrecarders is still worth it. So, why leave now?

p.s. If you clicked on the wrong entrecard widget and was lead to my other site, then you must be here only for the drop. Got you, buddy!

EC Love and Easy Link – Part 4

ceblogger — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 04:02:24 +0000

Like what I have done for these last few months, I am giving away 300, 200 and 100 ec credits to my top 3 droppers. Since EC will now tax these transfers, the winners will get their ECs while I will be burdened by the additional 12.5% tax. But it will not diminish the recognition, despite the annoying taxes. And from my top ten, I will randomly choose a winner for a week of 125×125 ad space in my blog. The last time, the one week became three weeks because I forgot to take the ads down. That was a bonus.

Here are my top 3 droppers (actually 4, since two are tied at second place):

First: Technically Easy
Second: Turnip of Power
What About Brazil
Third: The Couch Potato

And the winner for the 125×125 ad is:

Happy Steps

Carey, you may email me if you want another ad to be advertised instead of your blog.

Happy blogging and ec dropping everyone!

EC Love and Easy Link – Part 3

ceblogger — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 03:29:48 +0000

Like I have done last month, I am giving away 300, 200 and 100 ec credits to my top 3 droppers. And from my top ten, I will randomly choose a winner for a week of 125×125 ad space in my blog. I should add “easy ad space” on my title.

Here the top three droppers here (two were tied at third):

1st : What About Brazil
2nd: Templates Teasure
3rd: Make Money Online
Turnip of Power

And the winner for the ad space is:

Technically Easy

Last month’s winner’s ad (entrecard image) will also be posted here starting today. There will be a part 4 next month. Happy EC dropping everyone!

EC Love and Easy Link – Part 2

ceblogger — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 06:41:37 +0000

It’s now time to publish and reward my top droppers. I am not sure if others are doing the same thing that I do: give links and ec credits. But I do hope that plenty will follow suit in the future. It’s a give and take community, and we are not really to make money out of those credits.

As per my instructions last month, I’ll recognize only the top 3. But from among the top 10, I will randomly choose a winner for a week of 125 x 125 ad space. I initially wrote 150 x 150, but since I changed my template, the space is reduced. So here goes my top 3:

1. Templates Treasure – 300 credits
2. Turnip of Power – 200 credits
3. A Second Cup – 100 credits

And the winner for the adspace is : What About Everything. Please comment on this post so that I can give you instructions.

It seems that my monthly top 10 is changing every month. Most of my previous top droppers are still around yet busy building their blogs, and may have slowed down in dropping. It’s totally understandable since I too slowed down in my drops, and had not been faithfully using my bookmarks.

So for next month, the same rules still apply: link and credits for the top 3, and a week of adspace for a randomly selected winner from my top 10. Happy dropping, everyone!

EC Love and Easy Link

ceblogger — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 07:16:45 +0000

EC love and easy link I give to my top 10 Entrecard droppers. I’ve done this a month ago, and I am doing it again this month. I’m giving 50 entrecard credits to my top 5 and 20 for the next 5 top droppers for the last 30 days.

But to make things more exciting next month, I’ll reward my top 3 droppers with 300, 200 and 100 entrecard credits. Of course, there’s the usual link in the post. If there’s a tie, the won credits will be divided equally. I will not be anymore giving a link or credit to the rest of the top 10, but I’ll give them a chance to win a week of 150×150 ad space. Among the top 10, I’d randomly select a winner. That would really be of help for your blog promotions.

Here’s my top 5 for the last 30 days:

Sonnie’s Porch
Sasha Says
Humane Blogging Tips
What About Brazil?
A Girl for All Status

To round up the top 10:

Happy Family Matter
Nice2All
Golden Dagger: Cebu Imaginations
Wow Factor
Squeaky’s – Madmouse Blog

To my droppers, thank you very much!

I don’t know about your EC dropping strategy, but mine is so varied that it is not a strategy at all. I haven’t dropped beyond 150 a day. Normally, I’d only drop around 70. I kept a bookmark of around 50 blogs for my blogging rounds, then do drops from my inbox. If there is time, I also chain- drop. Dropping is not an obligation. It’s just rewarding one’s self with an entrecard credit while browsing blogs and the visited blog with credit, traffic and the chance to be read. Dropping is also letting other bloggers know that you dropped by. Of course, dropping cards should not be the reason and the end of the visit.

Lightning-Quick Visits and Other Web Traffic

ceblogger — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 09:41:05 +0000

Have you ever tried analyzing your site’s web traffic? If you don’t know how, why don’t you install google analytics in your blog. It’s easy! You may also use other tracking sites like that of Sitemeter. WordPress has its own pre-installed stat counter and some available enhanced plug-ins. But whatever suits your need or your interest will do just fine.

So, let me share my own experience with my web traffic analysis. Though I have been blogging for sometime now, I don’t really care about those stats until recently. I am not yet on the point of being crazy about web traffic though. But the analysis will surely help you in the long run. Where does my traffic come from?

Stumble Upon

I am new to stumble upon, so I am still feeling my way in this kind of social networking. I was just surprised to see the stats.

3 seconds. That’s how quick my visitors from stumbleupon stopover at my site. And what can you do with 3 seconds but move your mouse to the upper right x mark and click away. Or maybe they just read the first four words of the title of your latest post. Or maybe they just look at the title of the blog, and with one blink, fly away. How’s that for a 97% bounce rate? Now I know why some people hate this kind of traffic.

Entrecard

So far, I’ve visited the forum thrice or four times since my entry in this community. I am not so sure if I liked what I saw. But I had fun in their system of dropping, gaining credits and advertising on blogs.

So what about traffic from entrecarders? Do they have that lightning-quick feet that swiftly bounces off after the drop? Maybe yes. Maybe not. Based on my google analytics report, traffic from entrecard stays at an average of 50 seconds. 14 out of 100 visitors do click the “rest of the entry” or other pages on my site. You can do much in less than a minute, but not enough to read my 500+-worded entries.

Google

Then there are visitors from the google search engines. For the last 60 days, I had 1,700 plus visitors from google whose length of stay averaged more than four minutes. Not bad. I credit that to the long list of CPA board passers. Let’s just say that two minutes were spent on looking for the names. Those who passed will smile from ear to ear and tells his friends within the next two minutes or more before he closes the tab. Those who failed will spend the whole four minutes looking for their names, then closes the tab and sighs.

Then there’s the Pacquiao vs Diaz boxing fight. Visitors entering thru this keyword seem to stay longer, almost 10 minutes on average. I have a better SERP position on certain keywords, but I’m not sure if this is what the searchers are looking for. I simply got measly numbers for now. Maybe traffic will increase on fight day itself. Other bloggers are better positioned on shorter and more searchable keywords. Well, this is blogging sweetened by keyword hunting.

Other Visitors

Friends will always be friends. Whether they read my blog or not, the bond will never change. 5 of my offline friends read this blog. I got more visits from friendships developed online. I have not really brought all my blogfriends from my other blogs in here, though I posted an announcement. Those who missed that entry will not probably get here unless I make another announcement on the front page and on the latest entry of my blog site. And when they get here, they might probably get lost in the confusion of the identities.

On another note, traffic from forums is not really that much. I don’t have the guts to post a link in these forums everyday. I have not submitted my entries to article directories, too. But I noticed trackbacks from some websites. Yeah, those keyword aggregators!

So, in my 135 days in this blog, how many unique visitors did I have? Sitemeter listed more than 6,700 visits. Google analytics listed fewer because I installed the codes at a later date. Overall, my lightning quick visitors from SU are a mere 7% of the total traffic. Average bounce rate from all traffic is 70%. There is still a lot of room for improvement. Perhaps I’ll try another strategy to increase traffic and lessen my bounce rate.

The more you get serious with blogging, the more you get serious with web traffic and other analysis.

Credits To My Top 10 Entrecard Droppers

ceblogger — Thu, 29 May 2008 03:37:46 +0000

I wanted to do this earlier but just kept on postponing. I waited till the end of the month to give recognition to my regular droppers. I think now is the appropriate time. But aside from a mention and a link, I’d also like to give them entrecard credits as a bonus. So, for my top 5, I’d give them 50 ec credits each. The next five will receive 20 ec credits each. This isn’t really much but it is just my way of appreciation.

Top 5

Sonnie’s Porch
Life in The Internet
HelpMyCashGrow.com
Holywood Star
What a Life!

Rounding up the top 10

Youth Generation
Software Introduction
Golden Dagger: Cebu Imaginations
A Girl for All Status
Balay ni Bambit

For those who might want to be in my top 10 next month, you can start dropping now.

Again, thank you fellow entrecarders!

Where Is Your Entrecard Widget?

ceblogger — Fri, 02 May 2008 11:47:28 +0000

Did you quit on Entrecard just like the others? Or are you hiding it down under, afraid of the higher bounce rates?

No Widget

Some quit Entrecard and blamed it on the ad pricing, the drop in drops, and the high bounce rates. As to the ad pricing changes three weeks ago, we were told to hold on for a while and let time pass by for the ad prices to settle down. But the others were not so patient. They sold their ec points and deleted their widgets. Some even went on to shamelessly advertise their sites in the widgets of others, despite the fact that they had deleted theirs. Some business sites were advertising too (without widgets). Entrecard is supposed to be a free system, if it’s not a blog they’re advertising, then they should pay ad spaces with real money. I know that some entrecarders were disappointed at this.

As to the bounce rates, I’ll just refer you to Turnip’s post. He has got an excellent post about it.

Widget location

When I was just a day old using Entrecard, a blogger friend advised me not to put my widget above the fold. He said that entrecarders are just in for the drops and won’t bother to read the entries. I insisted that it’s better that way for the visitors to easily locate my widget and make a drop. A drop earns me a point, right? And since my site easily loads, my post will not escape their eyes.

If you have money-earning ad spaces all over your blog, it would be understandable that you place your widget at a not-so-high-value location. But if you are a new blogger with no ads and/or blank PWs blocks, it would be nice to put that Entrecard widget at some better location. Even John Chow and Darren Rowse place their widgets at the middle of their right side bar. It is just disappointing to know that some are hiding theirs at the footer or among the other ads somewhere at the bottom. It is not really advertiser (and dropper)-friendly. At the current price of $5/1000ec, an ec is equivalent to $.005. Four drops to your widget is equivalent to the $.02 price of your unutilized PW adspace above your post.

For those reading this post who is not an entrecarder, join Entrecard now and see how it will increase your blog traffic (and Alexa too). You’ll also get to know some great blogs in the blogosphere. And don’t forget to choose a nice location for your widget. You earn points on drops and getting drops, and you earn on ads. Some serious blog readers are guised as droppers.

Entrecard: Are You Here Just For The Drop?

ceblogger — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 11:51:49 +0000

Don’t mind the question in my title. I welcome all droppers here with open arms. That is the reason why I did not place my widget at the bottom of my page. You know very well that some are doing it for the purpose of making you notice their posts first. Whatever your reason for dropping by, or by whatever means that brought you here, you are most welcome. You may even come back here everyday.

And if you’re not here for the drop, you might as well check out my other posts. There must be something here that might be of help to you.

I really appreciate your visit.