Dropping 300 Cards a Day With Entrecard
I made a post about Entrecard some time ago about the fact that it can be very beneficial for your blog in gaining you traffic, readers, and comments. However for the system to work for you, you must work for the system, and this is achieved by dropping as many cards as possible (up to the 300 max) on various blogs within the Entrecard network. With this in mind I decided that over spring break I would drop 300 cards a day for 7 straight days and see what the effects truly were. First here are a few images of the following, my cards dropped, cards dropped on me, and my organic clicks from Entrecard to me.
The cards that I dropped.
Cards drop on me
Organic Clicks from Entrecard to my blog
As you can see the more cards I dropped, the more drops I ultimately received and thus the higher my organic click rate went. I believe that the cause of the increased Organic clicks is due to my popularity ranking increasing (which happens when you receive more drops upon your blog)
Since my 7 day trial of dropping the 300 cards a day, I have more or less stopped dropping entirely for a few reasons. First and foremost I want to see what exactly will happen to these stats when I am not dropping all of these cards every day.
Below is a screen shot of my traffic from March 1 until present (I dropped 300 a day from the 8th to the 14th)
Awstats traffic shot
As you can see, my traffic during this period was increasing however I do not consider this “good” traffic.
What does that mean?
Very simply, when you are running a blog your goal is to increase readership, earnings, and comments. Unfortunately during this period of product testing none of these stats increased, and my guess is the only thing on this blog that did increase was my bounce rate (which is not a good thing)
Synopsis
I have now decided that I will not be dropping 300 cards a day for a while as it does very little for me (even though I thought it would) Possibly over the summer if I have 20 minutes to kill I will give it a shot but in reality it is not beneficial.
Does anyone have thoughts about this?
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10 Responses to “Dropping 300 Cards a Day With Entrecard”
Carl says:
March 18, 2009 at 7:11 pm
Excellent post and research. Your work provides great value to us all. Yes. We all want huge traffic and hope someday become a blogger celebrity. But building the relationship with the readers takes time, doesn’t it? Just a thought. I wondered if your results would yield differently if you were to drop on sites only similar to yours.
Peter J. Foti says:
March 19, 2009 at 1:17 am
What I generally did was drop 150 cards on Making Money Online sites and the rest on random. I figured that people in the Make Money Online niche are not clicking ads and things of that nature whereas say someone with an art niche may be more prone to doing so. But next time I try this (I want a few samples) I will do all different Niches.
ptamaro says:
March 19, 2009 at 1:28 am
Great post. I’ve had similar experience with EntreCard, but it’s a great service and I get a nice consistent low flow of traffic from it (nothing like the numbers you get though).
I think it’s like a lot of other services in the sense that “you get what you give”, you know? I’ve found a lot of really good blogs through EntreCard, and it requires very little time and effort so it’s worth it for me.
I think over time you can actually build-up some decent organic traffic and it’s fun…
Peter J. Foti says:
March 19, 2009 at 5:37 am
I agree the best part of EntreCard is the Organic traffic. Its like the snowball effect, the more cards you drop the more traffic you get and initally your bounce rate increases. However over time the more cards you drop and get dropped on you the higher your popularity rank will become at which point you begin to receive a nice amount of Organic traffic. That is essentially the only reason that I will do a month of 300 cards a day this summer.
VanillaSeven says:
March 19, 2009 at 3:22 pm
Interesting topic,
I’ve been dropping 300x every single day without a miss since December 2008, you can see the effect on my alexa or EC ranking. It takes about an hour for me to click all 300.
Wondering how you guys managed in 20 mins?
What I can say about the result, it’s more than statistic, I’m starting to build a network of fellow bloggers, which ended up with more organic traffic. In short, circle of friends which support each others
Peter J. Foti says:
March 19, 2009 at 8:36 pm
I use the Entrecard toolbar are just fire off 10 at a time, so it does not take very long. But the thing you should think about or even experiment with is, when you stop dropping those cards for say a week, are you going to loose the house that youve built? In my opinion you may not loose the entire thing but it would have an adverse effect.
Aldon @ Orient Lodge says:
March 19, 2009 at 10:53 pm
I have to say my approach and experiences seem to be very different. I try to drop 300 cards a day. If I’m not too busy, I manage to get it done. However, for me, this is time spread out over around an hour and a half to two hours each day.
I spend this time getting to know the other blogs and leaving comments. I’m pleased to see VanillaSeven here. It is a blog that I have come to enjoy.
So, my first comment is, that it isn’t about the card drops, it is about establishing relationships. This takes time and cannot be done over a seven day period.
About half of my traffic comes from people dropping on me after I’ve dropped on them. Another third comes from advertising and the final sixth comes from people viewing my profile.
So, you need a good advertising strategy on EntreCard if you are going to get it to work. Also, you need to be there for the long haul to build up your popularity. I’m frequently the most popular blog in my category, which gets me more traffic.
Then, there is the aspect of how all of this fits together. You need to have a good card. You need to have good content on your site. You need to comment on other sites and you need to be frequently seen.
I’m seen in many different places with many different ads and they compliment each other. A single ad, by itself won’t do much for you.
So, those are a few of my thoughts on this.
Aldon
Peter J. Foti says:
March 20, 2009 at 12:35 am
Interesting take on the topic and I agree with you 100% that commenting is huge. For me personally while im at school I like to drop alot less cards though the cards that I do drop I comment on the sites as well. I do not think that dropping alone will get it done, and this is also something that I will try to integrate next time I do this. However I pose the same question for you as I did for Vanilla Seven, do you think you would maintain all of those relationships if you stopped dropping so many cards?
Thanks for the comment,
Peter J. Foti
Doug says:
March 23, 2009 at 3:51 pm
On my oldest blog, the one with the most posts, I receive most of my traffic from Google Searches. Traffic visitors who arrive at my site as a result of a specific search are also the visitors most likely to click on subject matter advertising.
The bottom line seems to be longevity in the blogging world with quality posts that will generate traffic for years and years.
EntreCard plays a role of course, and there are 30,000 potential visitors so it is of great value to keep my blogs here as well. Clicking earns credits that are used to advertise and continue to promote. Over time this will generate more visitor activity and greater visibility on the web.
Peter J. Foti says:
March 23, 2009 at 10:19 pm
I agree, this social marketing stuff like EntreCard, and all of those social sites like Digg and Stumble are great for short bursts of traffic that may land you a few readers. But in reality, over the long term like you said, Organic Search Engine traffic reigns supreme and that is achieved through content content and more content.
Thanks for the comment!