Back in March I decided to slowly ween myself off Entrecard. I must admit, Entrecard was a brilliant way of getting traffic to my blog, but I was spending far to much time dropping cards and messing around in the EC forums. I started blogging in order to learn how to make money online, not chill out on a site which to me resembles MySpace. It’s now been over a month since I decided to stop playing an active part in Entrecard, so, what have effects been on my blog?
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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April 22nd, 2008 at 3:10 am
Hey, just found your site. I’m going to be setting up a blog soon should I sign up to entrecard? it does look good
April 22nd, 2008 at 11:06 am
I’d sign up to EC if I was you. Give it a try it will definitely kick start your blog. Ec isn’t bad for your blog it’s just that I have limited time. I still have a full time job and a busy social life, so I only have a limited amount of time to spend on the internet. I’d rather be learning new things than dropping 300 times a day.
If you need help let me know.
April 22nd, 2008 at 12:17 pm
I just added my second blog to Entrecard and now I feel about the same way you do. I was dropping about 60-100 cards a day. Then I bumped up to 300. I noticed the traffic change, but that is really all. I think I will go back to the original plan. A few cards a day. I am wasting too much time on this.
April 22nd, 2008 at 4:51 pm
I noticed something strange. Since I have dropped entrecard, traffic from Google gone over 3000 extra unique hits a month and its growing by the week.
I dont actually know if it really has something to do with Entrecard. Just saying.
I agree with the bounce rate. Since dropping entrecard my site’s bounce rate also dropped a lot.
April 23rd, 2008 at 5:15 pm
I am right there with you Funked. I think EC is a great way to get your blog off the ground and build up some initial interest in the site. After you get people to the site you have to get them to stick around and comment.
I’ve started using StumbleUpon and the stumble posts in the EntreCard Forum to build up quality visits. Yesterday I posted a review of Matt Mullenweg’s new site design and had Jeff from BuzzMyBlog stumble the post. After he had stumbled it and written a quick review I posted on the forum to stumble the post. That post wound up being viewed 32 times yesterday, and my unique visits jumped to over 150. Pretty decent numbers from using the two systems together.
BTW…I only dropped 12 cards yesterday and still received 53 visitors from EC.
April 24th, 2008 at 2:55 am
Stephan Miller - I added my other site to ec too, just to get a bit of traffic flowing through it.
esvl- 3000? cool
send some my way lol
Bryan - I’ve only just realised the power of stumble upon. I stumbled a different blog i have he other day. Traffic went crazy! If you’re in to stumbling try
piqqus.com/signup.php?r=388&c=2184o2z60o4707c64808 kind of cheating but very useful.
May 2nd, 2008 at 1:27 am
I too have been thinking about dropping EC, because not one comment has come through , while I do make an attempt to comment on others when i find something interesting,
shame, good idea…. just not working well for me
May 5th, 2008 at 2:30 pm
I only drop cards if I am visiting a site for other reasons. It is a waste of time dropping cards when the value of an EC credit is around 1 cent!
I do run EC campaigns from time to time and I use the EC’s that build up as prizes in contests or to purchase other products in the store.
It is good for an initial traffic boost but, it hits your bounce rate hard and it does take up (sometimes) valuable space.
May 16th, 2008 at 9:08 am
Funked! What’s up dude, just read you reply over on OMG and wanted to check out your digs. Cool place I might ad. Your CMS nerd gig is pretty nifty as well.
So I found this post about EC… Post a link on OMG to this… it may help those fellas over there get a bit closer to reality. - Peace!
May 16th, 2008 at 10:37 am
Hey Biscuit, nice of you to stop by. Thx for the feed back on my sites, It’s always appreciated.