Well probably the most noticeable has been the drop in traffic. While dropping my 300 a day, I was getting between 100-200 unique visitors a day. Not bad considering my blog was and is still very new. Now I’m getting between 30-60 unique visits a day, I have no other form of advertising going on apart from a couple of link exchanges, so I’m very happy with my 30-60. The number of comments I receive has dropped slightly, but nothing to drastic. This proves the point that the majority of EC’ers are only on your blog to drop. Nothing else. It’s nice to know my traffic is here to read my blog, not drop their cards. A stat I rarely keep track of but noticed an increase in is my RSS subscription. I logged into my feedburner account on Saturday to find I have 31 subscribers. I can’t really put that down to pulling out of Entrecard dropping though. The two stats I’m most happy with though, are my ”Bounce Rate” and my ” Avg. Time on Site”. for the first time in months they seem to be heading in the rite direction.

What have I been doing then?
As Entrecard isn’t eating up all of the time I have to spend on the internet, I’ve actually had to time to concentrate on ”Make money online” and ”Make money blogging. I recently registered a whole lot of Domain Names. One domain name now has a fully developed site which more or less runs itself. And no, it isn’t a spam blog or a blog that uses other peoples posts. I’ve also set up a couple of Niche blogs, one focuses on iPod accessories and the other is an educational resource. I intend to use these two to make money using Google Adsense. People say Google Adsense is dead, I can assure you it isn’t.

With the domains I can’t find a use for just yet, I’ve discovered domain parking. You change the name servers of your domains to which ever parking service you use, then you receive a percentage of the revenue generated from the ads placed upon your domain names. So far in April, I’ve earned $25 from domain parking. I’m currently using Sedo to park my domains, as far as I’m aware we split the ad revenue 50/50, so really I’ve earned $50. I’ve heard there are better companies out there offering a better revenue split. I really need to start looking in to it.

I’ve also started working on referrals. If you don’t no what this is? Where have you been? Basically, I receive x-amount of $ if somebody signs up for a service or purchases something via a link I’ve placed on one of my blogs. The 125×125 orange FlashDen ad banner you see in my sidebar is starting to finally generate some revenue. By placing it on my CMSNerd site, I’ve improved my click through rate and people are starting to actually purchase credits to spend on FlashDen. This means I earn a commission fee. The obvious reason why the FlashDen referral scheme is working so well on CMSNerd is because it’s targeting the rite audience, CMSNerd is a site aimed at web designers. Flashden is a web designers paradise. Now I need to find some referral schemes that I think will work well with Funk13.

I’ve discovered there are endless ways to make money online, I love reading about them and trying them out. Now I’m actually starting to make money online myself, I can afford to try bigger and better schemes. I just have to try and stay within my limits, but still have the balls to experiment. As I’ve learned with most things I’ve tried, practice makes perfect. If something fails the first time, pick yourself and try again.

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But because Entrecard is a fantastic, easy to use blog promotion tool, I think a lot of people are simply forgetting that there’s a world outside of Entrecard. Entrecard can be quite a big time killer. Dropping 300 cards a day isn’t exactly a 30 second job is it? If you want your advertising campaigns to be successful, you have to go out and find the rite blogs to advertise on. This is another major time killer. You might be a bit of a forum addict? So, like all good forums addicts, you might spend time reading and replying to many different topics. Yet again, very time consuming. A good part of your evening or what ever amount of time you spend online, is going to be taken up by Entrecard.

So, with all of your time spent focussing on Entrecard you’re going to be neglecting other important areas of blog promotion and development. I understand that for a lot of people Entrecard is all they really need. But my blog is about making money from blogging, I need to reach out and expose myself to a much broader audience. Over the last week or so, I’ve found myself neglecting the following areas:

• SEO
• Blogcatalog
• High quality link building
• Affiliate marketing
• Technorati
• My Pay Per Post Project
• Blog/website related forums

I know without Entrecard my blog wouldn’t be receiving half as many hits as it does. But admit it, Entrecard traffic isn’t exactly the best type of traffic is it? So, I’m sacrificing so many important areas of blog promotion and development, just for the sake of trying to reach the popular section of EC, and making my Google Analytics charts look a little busier with all those 30 second card dropping visits.

I know for definite, cutting back on my EC drops and general activity on EC will damage my traffic, but if I put as much effort in to the non EC areas, I’m confident I will gain all that traffic back. And hopefully this new traffic will be on Funk13 to read my blog, not to simply drop a card. No offence to anyone who does power drop.

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