I’ve recently read James’ post on ending the use of EntreCard (EC) in his site. The Comment King has always been skeptical about its usefulness and voiced his dislike about it since the beginning. I understand he has high standards. There are a few things he can’t sacrifice, and has set the expectations very high. For any company, he’s the kind of customer every CEO should listen to. I also understand a company can’t please everyone. This definitely applies to the EC system – they just can’t work to everyone’s advantage, even though they are trying.
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:
- High bounce-rate.
- Irrelevant ad request with ugly design.
- Not a significant traffic increase.
- 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.
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I like the concept of the new EC economy for multiple reasons. I feel that the new paradigm will tend to encourage blogs of quality. The imperative to drop in order to receive reciprocal drops is no longer there. You drop as you want to and slowly increase your credits at a rate that you feel is appropriate, then once you’ve saved up enough, you advertise. You can take a vacation and not feel like people will get pissed at you for not reciprocating their drops.
Graham and Phirate know what they’re doing. You’ll probably find that the loudest opposition will come from blog owners who have little content of interest.
Periapex’s last blog post..Deconstruction of an Apicoectomy.
No, Entrecard is junk. I told James that back in February – I knew he’d see it for himself sooner or later.
You are wallowing in the gutter when you put this kind of thing on your blog.
I’ve read. I’ve been thinking. I’m still thinking.
First, thank you for the very kind words. They mean a lot to me.
Now. I’ll agree I have certain standards for our blog. We’re not here for a good time; we’re here for a long time.
I’ll also put forth that I did give Entrecard a good, long haul of a chance. I do try to look at all sides of the coin.
I’ll admit that our blog does have enough readership and traffic that Entrecard probably wouldn’t have made a big difference.
But if you know me, then you know I’m all about the small guy, not the big shots – had Entrecard been solid, good… I would’ve promoted it to heaven and back, no matter what traffic it drove.
I think what disturbs me is that the concept you put forth is that we shouldn’t expect the best, irregardless of the service or product. We, as consumers, should expect the least and be pleasantly surprised when we receive more, or lower our expectations to meet the only level of standards the supplier can put forth.
Why? Why should I lower my standards because someone else couldn’t achieve higher ones? Meeting halfway? Maybe. Still…
It leaves me with the feeling that there is nothing wrong with certain systems, services or products. I can’t help but sense that the thought is that there’s nothing wrong with broken gadgets or low-quality toy – but there is something wrong with consumers with higher expectations.
So, do we settle for less? Why? What is wrong with expecting high quality and receiving it? Certainly, someone will always abuse or game the system – but a good system manages to stave that off as long as possible, earning admiration and respect from more than the general population, not less than a few.
On a side note, I’m curious as to why you’d put your widget low down to discourage droppers? Aren’t you penalizing advertisers, the good guys?
James,
No, I’m not asking you to lower your standards. I’m just asking you to change your expectations. Think about it, EntreCard was introduced in Oct/Nov 2007 as a brand new innovation. The system was not tested in large scale format and they hadn’t worked out all the bugs. Also remember that the service is FREE. Now, you had a problem with the system in Feb 2008 – that’s only about 4 months after. For some systems, it’ll take at least a year for any major changes to happen. EC changed their system in less than 6. Maybe that’s not fast enough per your expectations. Other people had similar issues as yours – most of them were making money online types, where they wanted quick turnaround – no time to beta test where page real-estate is costing them money.
If you look at it from my perspective, where I don’t make money online, and I don’t worry about page real-estate, having one widget on my sidebar is hardly a nuisance – especially when I can control the content. I still get the benefit of traffic and some I’m able to convert (ie. comment, join my community). How much does it cost me? FREE. Nada. zip.
I don’t game the system either. I tried doing speed-drop or chain-drop, but that got old and tiresome real fast. So I don’t do it anymore. Haven’t done that since Jan 2008. Now, at my leisure, I can check who visit my site and return a card back, essentially saying “I was here.” Without EC system, the owner has to resort to checking the web server logs and doing some analytics. Here I just point and click.
Oh, did I mention this is a FREE service? I get customer service and traffic, all for free. Maybe that’s the problem… EC should have a “premium” service where only A-List bloggers can visit other A-List bloggers. Maybe then changes will move more swiftly?
I don’t expect free things to be crap, but I don’t expect high standards either. Maybe somewhere in the middle, a compromise, if you will. Considering a lot of people are happy with it (including me), it can’t be all that bad, right?
As for the widget at the bottom, I admit that’s pretty drastic to curb chain dropping. But as Periapex said above, the need to chain drop is no longer there with the new ad pricing system. So this point is moot.
@Periapex: yeah, the new system seems to be working pretty good. They had quite a few feedback and some time to re-invent it. Good for them. Good for us.
_
@Tony: Duly noted. Thank you for your input in this matter.
Well written and good post. My only addition would be to add at the end of the day, is not the relative number of visitors worth a 125×125 space on your site? For me the answer is clearly yes, if only 10% become regular readers (I suspect mine is higher) then it is worth it. The friends I have made and the quality blogs that I have been introduced to are just a bonus. I think the system is improving and it seems unlikely that I will ever totally abandon it … time of course will tell. Cheers!
Hi Lincoln. Thanks for the compliments and visiting. It’s always the same trend actually: small blogs benefit. I guess it’s all relative. When I have 5 readers, getting 5 more is DOUBLE the traffic. A-list bloggers already have 10,000 readers, it’s next to impossible to double that, no matter which social media site they’re using.
I almost signed up the other day but I’m a bit reluctant to add another widget to my blog… plus the high bounce rate.
Hi Zhu. I don’t think you should worry about EntreCard since you already have quite a lot of people who comments on your site. But if you want more visitors, then give EC a chance.
Like I mentioned above, with the new ad pricing scheme, high bounce rate is going to be reduced drastically because there’s no incentive to drop’n’run. A lot of of the people who chain drop are complaining about it, and hating it – which is a good thing.
Thanks for the kind compliment, Rudy! I’m so flattered that you think my blog is good. 🙂 EntreCard has its good points and bad points. For a little bitty blog like mine, it’s an invaluable source of traffic. I like to think that EC opens the door to let people into my place, but it’s up to me to make them want to stay for a while. Not everyone will, but that’s okay.
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Hi Heather. We all started itty bitty in the beginning. Takes time and dedication to develop it. EC just another vehicle to speed up the development a bit. 🙂
I’ve been with Entrecard for a little more than a week now. I use it more for networking, not so much for traffic, so I could care less if a popular entrecard blog costs 2000+ credits to advertise on, because I’m not paying it. I drop about 15 cards a day, and that’s it. I’ve had some successful ad campaigns, and some not so successful, but when I look to advertise on someone’s blog, I look for someone in my niche, a low credit price, and I also check seo centro to make sure they’re getting some search engine traffic.
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Hi Ria.
That’s a good way to approach promoting your blog. The key point is getting visibility, and EC (among other things) provides that. There’s enough variety in EC to advertise on so many different niches.
Entrecard increases bounce rate to most of the Entrecard users ,but why it this happen,it is because most of us just drop and bounce.On the other hand,i suggest that try to interact with the most frequent droppers to your site such as thank you message to them and build up some rapport or invite them to your blog to join some campaign or subscribed as reader and so on.Ultimately,you are not only will receive credits but a constant traffics and reduce bounce rate
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Hi Felex.
Yeah, I try to interact with my most frequent droppers by visiting/commenting on their blogs. I don’t send “thank you” notes because I believe the way to say thanks is to participate in other’s blog/community.
” I believe the way to say thanks is to participate in other’s blog/community. ”
Probably one of the smartest things ever said on this general subject.
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[…] me to many good people. I stuck with it through the changes, and many ups and downs. I had argued with others, who dropped it earlier, about its value and possibilities. But, lately, I’m seeing what they […]