Last week I made a post about people who use Entrecard precariously and place their widgets above the fold. I do not agree with this strategy and claimed that it takes up valuable space that could be used to monetize your website. Divablogger took the bait and issued a nicely written response to my argument. The following post is my retort.

Let’s start with the first comment that got my attention:

“placing it somewhere more accessible makes it convenient for people to drop their cards”

I agree completely with you. This statement is actually helping me to prove my point. You see, although I do like Entrecard for its potential to generate a fair amount of traffic to a website, the advertisements on the widgets are still free and cost $0 in real world money. So why would you sacrifice space on your website where you could be making real money in order to promote somebody else’s site who is just using you for your widget? Don’t you feel so….used? You are willingly giving up the potential to sell ad space on your site and make money online for a silly Entrecard point. I’m no economist but I would call this “negative equity”. You are not gaining anything valuable by giving away prime real estate on your blog nor are you being properly compensated for it. If ever in doubt, just repeat this mantra: “What Would John Chow Do?”.

You also stated the following:

“Being in directories (which are strongly promoted by the creators) is like being a part of the daily life of entrecarders who use these directories and are too lazy to create their own.”

I’m not entirely sure what you meant by that statement. Firstly, of course directories will be promoted by their creators! I promote all kinds of things that I make; this started in kindergarten when I made my first hand print on paint then had my parents hang it on their refrigerator. It’s just plain simple to understand. Secondly, although Entrecard is a fantastic avenue to reach a wide readership and gain an audience, I don’t necessarily want to be in a directory of lazy people. “Dress for success”, as they say. I would rather have proactive Entrecarders and Bloggers like my sponsor JasonBoom that participate and support my site. He is obviously working hard at promoting his brand and blog and is not a “lazy” blogger. If you take away all of the lazy bloggers, I believe that the web would be filled with content that is of much higher in quality than what is available today.

I guess we could go around and around in this argument. You believe that placing your Entrecard widget, which gives away a free link and takes away space for paid advertisers “above the fold” is the smarter and better thing to do. I believe that placing the free link widget that still brings me traffic “below the fold”, thus saving more prominent spaces for paid advertisers is the smarter thing to do. The point I was trying to make is a financial one, where as you were making a point about quantity of traffic. In the end it is just a question of “quality versus quantity”. I would much rather have 1000 daily visitors who found my site through other quality “non-lazy” blogger’s websites. These visitors would probably read multiple posts and pages per visit, leave comments, become advertisers, and even help me out by clicking and following my affiliate links. It seems to me that you, on the other hand, would be satisfied with 1000 daily visitors who get to your site, click the widget and leave. I’m in this for the quality, but if that’s the kind of visitor that you want going to your site, then I hope your strategy works out for you. To me, it’s a no-brainer.

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Dear Entrecard users,

I want to take this time to talk to you all about a little something I call “common sense”. This letter is not intended for EVERY Entrecard user, just the vast majority of them that make my life really easy.

In the last few days, I have been using Entrecard (henceforth known as ‘ec’) more and more in order to rack up credits so that I can spend them on certain things for this site. Recently I have traded 500 ec’s for a header design that is being worked on right now. With so many other interesting things in the ec marketplace, it makes good sense to rack up a ton of points and spend them on things that will help make your site better, more interesting, or more visible.

As you know, it is possible to get ec credits either by dropping your card at other websites or by ‘charging’ people to advertise on your site. The thing I love about advertising with ec, and no doubt one reason why so many people love it, is that in reality the advertisement is free. The point of ec is to get you to visit other websites and check out the work of other bloggers in your niche or in new niches all together. The truth of the fact is that most people (myself included) will sometimes just load up 20 pages at a time, drop their cards, and leave.

Not sure where I’m going with this yet? Hold on, it’s coming.

If you look at my site, or countless other successful blogs, you’ll see a sidebar with a few paid advertisements on them. I’m working on selling more ads on my site and the requests will come in soon, I’m sure. Those paid sponsors become acquaintances in the short term and possibly business partners and friends in the long run. They get to know the blogger and vice versa. So, here we go. Why on earth would you, as a blogger and web designer, place your Entrecard widget above the paid links and in a place that is really easy to find on your site?! You are basically giving away PRIME real estate on your site for people to quickly find the widget, click it, and leave your site. They basically “hit it and quit it”, if you know what I mean. They love you and leave you. They hunt you and dump you. Do you see where I’m going now?

Another reason why you should NOT place your ads front and center is that, in the long run, advertisers will get mad and leave you. Why should they pay a premium to advertise on your site if you are giving away free advertisement in a space that is even better than theirs?

USE YOUR HEAD, PEOPLE!!

I’m not mad at you. In fact, I love you because you make my life easier. I just wanted to tell you my thoughts on your decision. I probably don’t remember who you are, what your blog is, or what it’s about but I do thank you for the credit.

Today I was perusing a certain store and I found an item that caught my attention. The store was the Entrecard shop and the product was a custom logo design. This logo design cost me 500 Entrecard Credits, an amount which I found considerable.

The logo will be done in the next few days, and I hope that the end result is successful. I want a brand / header image that really captures the essence of this site and the environment that it fosters. My plan for this site is to share with you everything that I know and everything that I learn about making money online through blogging or affiliate marketing. I am certain that this aspect is quite nebulous and I hope that the designer that works on my logo will be able to understand what I mean.

500ec, although a big part of my Entrecard bank account, is quite a deal for a custom designed logo. Services on Digital Point range from $20 and up, so I was thrilled to know I could get the same service for Entrecard Credits. I think that a new logo will help me to spruce up my branding now that I have the owl at my side. The owl, along with some catchy typeography could help make my site more memorable. I think the owl is doing a good job; since adding him to my site I’ve seen my RSS readership and daily visits go up. That may also have something to do with my guests posts at other blogs, but for now let’s just assume it was the owl.

Hi everybody!

As you can probably tell, my new Wordpress theme is up and live!  What’d you think?  If you’re reading this through the RSS feed, come to the site and see for yourself!

So, how did I come up with this design?  Firstly, I think that blues and whites are a great color scheme for a website.  My old black and red was nice, but I feel that a “kinder, gentler” look and feel would provide my visitors with a better reading experience.  The light color scheme is less aggressive and easier on the eyes.

The top section allows me to easily update the users with important news and events, promote certain products or maybe even sell advertising spots in the future.

I changed the “tag line” of the site from “making money online made easy” to “webtrepreneurship explored”.  This new tagline better embodies the site as I am trying out new programs and strategies, rather than claiming that making money online is easy.

Inspiration

So, where did I get the inspiration for the site?  It all started in December of last year when I saw the Google Zeitgeist for 2007.  I thought that the design was super clean and easy on the eyes so the color scheme is very similar to that one.

The sidebar on the left was very appealing to me, but it’s really not appropriate for blogs.  Thusly, I examined the Zeitgeist site and made a mockup for my site.  First I did it all in CSS and HTML, nothing fancy.  It was just a test to see how it would look.

The end result of that test was this:

This design is the basis of the new design, and I wanted to try out 2 sidebars.  After testing it for a bit I realized that the content area ended up being too small and made my page really lengthy, so I nixed one sidebar.  The end result is this new theme.  I hope you like it!

If you have any comments, feel free to share them with me.

Writing blog posts on a regular basis is a challenging task. Ideas come and go, themes ebb and flow. With so many current events and new technologies happening on a regular basis, I find that coming up with new ideas for blog posts is often easy but writing an entire meaningful post about the subject is a whole new story.

These are 3 main methods that I use to come up with blog posts:

1. Shotgun. The shotgun approach to blog posts is rather interesting. I’ll sit down and think for about 5 minutes and write down whatever main ideas come to mind. Whenever the time is up, I narrow those ideas down and take the top 2 ideas. With the top 2 ideas, I see what I can come up with. I’ll either write both posts back to back, write one and save the other as a rough unfinished draft, or I’ll just write one and scrap the other if it turns out to be too beastly. This method has worked out pretty well for me so far and I suspect that many other bloggers take this approach to coming up with ideas. An example of the shotgun approach is this article.
2. Buzz. Whenever there’s a new buzz going on about a new technology, affiliate program, marketing scam tool like Blogrush, or news that play a part in the life of affiliate marketers and “make money online” bloggers, I’ll usually sit down and find out as much as I can about the topic and come up with a post about it. It’s important to stay up on current events and inform your audience of what’s going on. If for no other reason, your visitors will see that you’re talking about the same news that others are talking about and they’ll feel as though you’re in the loop with the mainstream. If I’m able to come up with a quality post and John Chow has come up with a so-so post about something, then they may even give me some much needed street cred! An example of a researched post can be seen here. An example of a “buzz” posting is something like this one.
3. Ideas. These are the fun posts. Sometimes I’ll be sitting in walking to/from class and an idea for a post will hit me out of nowhere. The concept will come about and I’ll think “man, that’ll make for an interesting post”. These posts are the easiest ones to write and the concepts that I want to present to you just flow like water from a fire hose. An example of an “idea” post is this one you’ve just read!

Although I’ve presented my 3 general idea gathering categories in a rather simplistic manner, I want to stress that quality is important. You just can’t sit there and type your ideas that don’t really flow from one paragraph to the next just for the sake of having a post for the day. I am of the opinion that it is better to write well and less often than it is to write poorly and regularly. Especially in the “make money online” niche, well written articles tend to bring in more viewers and help to valuate your blog better than those poorly written sites. You want to present yourself as a professional to let your potential advertisers know that you’re serious and ready to get down to business.

Out of the 3 methods that I presented, which one appeals to you the most? Do you do anything different to come up with your blog post ideas?