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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I’ve been hard at work on a new blog design / layout these last few weeks and I think that it’s almost ready for “prime time”.  There are still a few bugs that I need to work out (darn Wordpress!) but I think it’ll be ready in the next week or so.  With that in mind, I wanted to introduce to you the new spokesperson for LearnHow2Earn!

This is the new mascot for the site:

I hope you like him, because you’ll be seeing a lot of each other! I decided that a young owl is the perfect representation and embodiment of this website.  Note that he’s holding a pad of paper and pencil, ready to learn and become the wise old owl that we all think of!  He’s here to take notes from me and you, so the more we communicate the more he’ll learn!

He’s here to learn how 2 earn.  Are you?

Shortly after placing my advertisement “cards” on the sidebar less than 24 hours ago I was contact by Jason, webmaster of JasonBoom.com. Jason purchased the $10 ad spot and his ad will be seen on that spot for the next 30 days.

Jason, a fellow Hoosier, has been “making a living online, through freelance writing, web design, and web hosting business”.

Check out Jason’t blog at JasonBoom.com and tell him thanks for advertising on Learn How 2 Earn!

It’s been said that a picture is worth a thousand words. As a blogger, I can relate to that point. When coming up with a post, often times I find that my post would be enhanced and taken to another level if I could only find the right image to add to my article. Sometimes a visual can really carry a point across to the audience in order to help them really understand what is being said. Other times, a picture can help readers quickly grasp your main concept without actually reading every single word of an article.When it comes to writing for a certain audience, especially when it comes to getting new users to like your site and stay a while, a image is crucial. Coppyblogger suggests that a blogger should

“Start with a striking visual cue: A picture is worth a thousand words, and Stumblers really take that to heart. Nothing grabs their attention more than a striking image. StumbleUpon users seem more likely to be drawn in by the smart use of images, and there’s no better placement for a great image than at the top of your article.”

Although the Coppyblogger article is written specifically for grabbing the attention of StumbleUpon users, I think that guests coming your site from other blogs are likely to treat your blog the same way as a SU user. That is, within 2-3 seconds they will judge your site on looks and aesthetic appeal. If that fails, they will move on. However, if your site grabs their attention with an image or its design, they will stick around and listen to what you have to say.

Daily Blog Tips states that

“yes, you can overcome a bad first impression with great content, but why not take advantage of the first impression? An attractive, professional-looking blog design will give you the look of a blog that’s on its way to success, and visitors are more likely to want to be a part of that. “

While they are not necessarily talking about only a catchy image, what they say rings true. If you want your users to associate your blog with being “good”, you may as well make it look like it belongs with the likes of the pros, right?

Most blogs that I see fall in to one of two categories: Those that will be here in 2 years and those that won’t be here in 2 years. I think that it’s easy to categorize a blog after reading it and looking at the blog for a few days. Right now, blogging about making money online is the “in” thing to do. Most bloggers want to get lucky and be the next John Chow. I’m sure that the 80/20 rule will apply to this niche as well; 80% of those bloggers won’t be around in 2 years.

If you are a blogger that wants to be around in 2 years, make sure to grab new readers any way you can! Add a good pictures to your post from places like stock.xchng, the Creative Commons image search, or the FreePhotoBank. These sites are free and offer you images that you can legally use on your blog without restrictions.

It’s not easy to compete in this flooded market of “make money online” blogs. Give yourself any advantage you can find and a good place to start is by commanding your reader’s attention with a high quality contextual image. The closer your blog appears to success, the more likely you’ll work hard to make your blog succeed!

Introduction
On Tuesday I learned about and signed up to a new link exchange service called Entrecard. Entrecard is a new program from the same guy that launched the One Million Dollar Wiki and has been generating a lot of buzz around the blogosphere. Entrecard is like a business card swapping service where you create your virtual business card with your website’s logo and you “drop” your card at others websites that are using Entrecard. By dropping your card at other websites, you receive credit with which you can purchase advertising on other website. As a member of Entrecard, you also receive credits whenever people drop their cards at your website.

The Good
Shortly after joining, I immediately began receiving traffic and offers from advertisers to advertise on my website. This makes sense because I was the new kid on the block and ads on my site were very cheap (credit-wise…there’s no money exchange going on w/ Entrecard). Additionally, these new visitors left some positive comments on my posts and made me feel good about my site (awwww). Thirdly, all this new traffic helped me to almost top my 1-day visitor record of 83. I got 78 hits yesterday thanks to Entrecard and its influx of traffic. And did I mention that Entrecard is free? To join, click on the button “Get one!” on the right sidebar.
The Bad
With every good thing comes a bad thing. After analyzing my logs, I noticed that most of my new visitors stayed on for an average of 24 seconds. Just long enough for the site to load and for them to find the Entrecard button so they could give themselves credit for dropping off their card.
It seems to me that it’s fairly easy to game the system by clicking on each advertiser daily. You gain enough credits to place your ads on the big name sites like John Chow or Problogger without having to spend a dime.
Conclusion
I’m going to say that it’s too early to tell if Entrecard is good or bad. I know that it is good AND bad, but I don’t think that it’s decisively one OR the other. The influx of traffic is nice for the stats, but if these new visitors aren’t reading my posts, signing up for the RSS feed, or clicking on my links then I don’t know if I should bother using this service. I have a few ads running in the next few days through Entrecard so I’ll see how that turns out for me. In the meantime, I guess it’s a hung jury.