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Today, I dropped my 25,000th Entrecard. I would have never imagined all the way back on the 17th of December 2007, when I first installed Entrecard on this blog, that it would become such a phenomenon. Looking back, it’s been quite the wild ride… I’ve put a massive amount of time and effort into becoming one of the top users in the system, and I’ve got back quite a bit from it.

I’ve seen my blog go from absolute no name, to a site that most people will actually remember. I’ve made many friends among the blogosphere, and participated in some pretty cool events and contests. I’ve watched Entrecard grow and flourish.

Read more for my full retrospective of my experience as an Entrecard power user!

A little history

I remember back when I first signed up, John Chow was the king of Entrecard, and everyone was complaining because he was just too popular to beat. I always thought that was pretty funny, because it sounded like he would never lose the throne, but I didn’t believe that one bit.

Right away, I started power dropping, and I saw my own popularity rise. There was a direct correlation there, the more you gave to the Entrecard community, the more you got back. That’s the golden rule, one I’m glad I figured out early.

Then came along Saphrym, who finally took John Chow down, and became the new number 1. Being an extremely active member in the community, his unique “brand” and his $250 contest surely put him on the top. Heck even now he’s the only extra moderator in the forums, but alas, he is no longer the top dog.

Only recently has he lost the top spot to Hochstadt, who I think has earned the top spot much in the same way Saphrym had, with his unique blog brand and involvement in the community.

Personally, I made it as high as #3 on the most popular page (although, I don’t have a screenshot to prove it :P), and I definitely noticed a sharp increase in traffic by being up there. Even being in the top 3 of your category is a great step up.

How did I rise the ranks? Well, I tried my best to get to know a lot of bloggers (see my message box count!), but it all comes down to dropping.

My Dropping

I dropped 300 cards a day almost from the very first day. I started off by building a big list of blogs from 2-3 categories close to mine, and just started dropping. Eventually I trimmed this, added that, refined my list. Then, scrapped it and started all over again. I’ve tweaked my bookmark list constantly, including those who drop and comment on my blog, then dropping inactive blogs and non-reciprocated.

Most people say that the whole bookmark list power dropping method is totally not what Entrecard is all about, but I disagree. I work hard to choose blogs I know are good, and read and comment all the time as I go along.

Honestly, I’ve spent hundreds of hours dropping and working on my list, I think anyway you can make things easier on yourself, you should do. Entrecard is great, but it shouldn’t take over your life.

Writing quality posts should be your number 1 priority, not spending 4-5 hours dropping cards.

Now with the implementation of the drop inbox, I have an almost perfect mix of bookmarked blogs and reciprocal dropping, and it’s working great. I would definitely recommend this strategy for anyone wanting to hit 300 drops a day.

Boy, I’ve dropped a lot, and hence been dropped on a lot as well. In fact, I’ve accumulated almost 40,000 credits from drops alone! Where have all the credits gone?

My Advertising

I only have about 2000ec in my account right now, and I barely ever have more than 3000ec at one time. I don’t believe in hoarding credits, or selling them for real money.

Recently, there has been a bit of debate as to how effective advertising actually is. A lot of users have decided to give up on it all together, because of the generally low click returns. This is really only a small piece of the puzzle though.

The most important thing of all is branding. Getting people to remember your site is crucial, and them seeing your ad as they do their drops helps big time. Once they start recognizing your image, every time they see it helps them remember you.

That’s why I like to advertise on a real variety of blogs, 95% of the time though I will go for either high cost ads that get a lot of drops a day, or super cheap ads to potentially get new visitors, or at least, the owner to drop on my site!

So, after all this time, what has Entrecard done for me traffic wise?

My Traffic

Let’s thank big Mr. Google for Analytics, the sickest stat tracking system out there. Here are my entire Entrecard traffic statistics ever since the day I joined:

Hits from Entrecard.com: 7,791
Hits from Ads: 3,840

I would get into more detail, but honestly there’s just too much info to lay out here (and the graphs are too big :P). I think this Entrecard quickstats picture will explain my traffic well enough (there is a bit of a discrepancy between Google and Entrecard over number of ad clicks I received)

Overall, even though according to Google, the Entrecard traffic is fairly fast to leave, and page views are pretty low, the stats were better than I expected. Honestly, when I first signed up I figured the traffic would be horrible, but it’s not the case.

If you write good content, droppers will stop to take a look, comment, and maybe even subscribe your feed. The community is super strong with Entrecard, and it’s just awesome pure and simple.

The Future

Even though Entrecard has really taken up a lot more time than I expected, or wanted really, I don’t see myself stopping anytime soon. It is just too valuable of a blogging tool.

For a new-growing blog, it is bar none the best tool you can use to get your name out there, and become known within the blogosphere. I don’t think Yimto would be anywhere near this point had it not been for Entrecard.

So to Graham, Phirate, and all the other members of the Entrecard team, I say thanks, and keep up the amazing job!

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