Who would ever have thought that Entrecard would have become so big so quickly? Not me, that’s for sure. Whilst I thought it would be big news amongst small/medium size bloggers there is no way I predicted that it would have such a large affect on blogging in general. I see Entrecard widgets on almost all of the blogs I visit now. The cool thing is that it does bring traffic so why not?
The Danger Of Entrecard
I was recently asked by somebody to explain the benefits of “free”, he just didn’t get it. Entrecard is a great example of how free can help, there is no way that it would have grown to this size if you had a sign up fee. It just wouldn’t. Nor would it have had the huge amounts of exposure across some of the biggest names in the world of blogging. However, free comes at a price. That price is usually quality. In Entrecards case it’s not the quality of the service itself (it’s as professional a setup as anything paid out there) but it’s in the quality of the members. As the word spread the quality of many of the members blogs was “dodgy” at best, then came the start of the abuse of the messaging system to spam fellow bloggers. Of course everybody is already aware as well of what appears to be huge discrepancies in advertising prices, unless you go for a named blog it’s pretty much a lottery as to how much traffic your ad spot will generate.
All of the above factors are down to Entrecard being a free network and are out of your control. However the biggest danger of using Entrecard is completely in your hands and it’s something I think is going to become a big issue down the line. Bloggers are starting to become obsessive about Entrecard. Spending hours dropping hundreds of cards, boosting not only their own advertising prices but also those of the random blogs they choose to drop on. It’s very easy for people to treat Entrecard as their only source of link building just because it’s so damn easy to drop a card. Rather than spending hours dropping you could be writing new content, commenting on other people’s blogs, creating forum posts, sourcing directories, using Stumble and any number of other ways of link building.
I’m not anti-Entrecard, I use it and will continue to, however I don’t spend much time dropping my card. In fact the only card drops I do are when I visit a blog (usually found through a link on another site or search) and like it. I certainly don’t spend hours on the Entrecard dashboard random dropping. Entrecard can be a good source of visitors to your website but over use it at the expense of your other link building techniques and I think you’ll be sorry in the long run.
4 Responses to “Have You Been Suckered In By Entrecard?”
SEO Optimization
February 9, 2008
Entrecard it is fun indeed and they did grow really too fast. I drop entrecards when I try to promote something via the widget, or when I want to let the folks know that I was there (in case I don’t feel like leaving a comment).
What is interesting about entrecard, unlike many thought that it would be just a waste of time from people dropping a card and leaving, I have found lots of new readers from there that became regulars and with which I exchange emails occasionally. Also I have discovered a lot of good blogs on different niches, to me, it looks like a fancy blog directory.
SEO Optimization’s last blog post..Don’t Miss The Chance To Win BlueGlory
|North Management
February 25, 2008
I have wanted one of these forever! THANKS for the great work
|Ian
February 26, 2008
I’ve really enjoyed playing with Entrecard. And its not all drop and run traffic, I have subscriptions and regular comments from people who discovered my blog through EC. Also, I’ve found a stack of interesting blogs I now read regularly.
Ian’s last blog post..Breaking the internet
|Ria
April 13, 2008
Interesting review, but I don’t understand, what do you think the negative long term effects are for people who are just dropping cards all day?
Ria’s last blog post..HELLSING-EPISODE 2-CLUB M-1 1/2 STARS
|