EntreBlast

Archive for July, 2008

Kinda funny that my first and previous site news post was 07/03, but nonetheless I have some things I want to discuss.

Back From Vacation

I finally returned from Canada on Sunday, at one in the morning! I’d like to thank everyone that continued to drop on EntreBlast though I could not return it. I’m back to dropping daily now. I’m going on vacation once more for a week the 6th of August, but I’m pretty sure I’ll have internet access there, so no worries.

Sidebar Spots Available

I currently have two 125×125 sidebar ad spots available, and more to open up soon. The price for a one month ad is still the same, at $10 a month or 1500 credits a month. Additionally, I’m temporarily allowing people to purchase ads on a weekly basis for 400 ECs a week. For more information, check out the Advertise page.

Summer Credit Splash Goal

I haven’t done much to search around for sponsors lately, due to being on vacation, but I’m setting a goal to reach 30,000 ECs in donations. We are sitting at 22,000 long, so I plan on finding sponsors this week and be ready to launch the contest by the end of the first week in August. If you’re interested in donating, check out the Summer Credit Splash post.

EntreBlast is continuing to grow as time flies by, and with the contest coming in a few days, it sure doesn’t seem like it’ll slow down soon. Our last site news update, the beginning of this month, I was bragging about an Alexa ranking of 177,728. EntreBlast is currently sitting at 132,254 and it’s also been given a PageRank 1. People say these things don’t matter, but what else is there to go on?

Back from vacation and I’m glad to see Entrecard and EntreBlast did not fall apart while I was gone! Only 5 people participated for the chance to win 500 ECs in last week’s Entrecredit Blast. The winner is:

Chetan of Blog-o-Ninja – Blogging tips and tricks!

Congrats!

Week 12 Info:

Pot: 400 ECs

Sponsors: The Flying Beagle (300 ECs) – From rants to karate, a personal blog with a really cute Entrecard image.

Entrance: A comment on this post will do!

Three months of doing a weekly questionaire asking you guys to share your thoughts!

This week’s question is going to be more basic since I am away on vacation and this post was written a week ago, before I left. Therefore, I don’t know if anything big has happened this week.

How many ECs are you willing to fork over for a one day advertisement spot, on any blog? What is the most amount of ECs you’ve spent for an ad?

Lately Entrecard has showed strong encouragement for commenting on other people’s blogs. With the addition fo SezWho, and the posts on commenting lessons, I think people should start getting the idea that blog commenting is beneficial. Here are just a few of the many reasons why you should comment on blogs:

Links

Some blogs have do-follow enabled comments, which means that if you comment with a link to your site, search engine spiders like Google, will follow through to your site, giving your site a linkback. The more you comment on these types of blogs, well, they could contribute to your Google PageRank. That is, if you care about that.

Traffic

When you comment on a blog post, you should enter your website URL in the URL field. A quality comment will make readers wanting to see your blog. Make it to the Top Commentators list, if they have one, and you’ll probably receive traffic from that as well. You won’t be getting an enourmous ammount of traffic, but you will get some.

Branding

It’s about people remembering the name. Use the name of your blog or website when you comment. The more comments you make, the more people are going to start remembering you. If you don’t get them to check out your website through your comment the first time, eventually they will be too curious and won’t be able to resist.

Reputation

This kind of goes with branding. If you are leaving really good comments, people will remember you even more. It’s easier to do this with guest posting, but it can still work with blog commenting. If you make a SezWho profile, people can see how your comments on other blogs are rating. If you have SezWho installed on your own blog, and you are commenting on your own blog, (which you should be, it’s important to interact with your readers/commenters) they’ll want to check it out.

Community Feel

I mentioned this in the last section, but you should be commenting on your own blog. You should respond to people that take the time to read and share their thoughts on a post. This will benefit you, but make an impression on them. Responding to comments adds to your reputation. It helps make the relationship between the reader and the writer closer. It’s hard to see the impact from a writer’s perspective, but as a reader and the writer comments back, you’ll see what I mean.

And there you have it. There are a ton of benefits to commenting on blogs. If for some reason you aren’t doing so yet, try it out. Read a post, and share your thoughts. Like this post for example. What’s your view on blog commenting? Do you do it?

Hey guys,

Sorry for not being able to drop on you guys this past weekend, and I’m afraid it’ll continue until Saturday. I’m on vacation for this entire week and am without internet access! This post was written before I left and scheduled because I know internet access is unavailable.

I might be able to get access once or twice while I’m away, but if I do, I’ll be on just to moderate comments and make sure my blog is alive! Hopefully, nothing big happens on Entrecard that I’ll miss, like another partnership.

Anyways, last time I was gone, a month ago, you guys were AWESOME at continuing to drop daily while I could not return them. I hope you do it again this week! I really will appreciate it!

I have a post scheduled to go live Wednesday and Entrecard Thoughts will be up on Friday. So things will continue normally as far as content delivery!

I’m on vacation so I won’t be able to send the winner of week 10’s ECs until I get back on Saturday, however I’ll still announce the winner and this weeks information! The winner is:

Adiska – Tips on making money online.

Congrats! Your ECs WILL be sent!

Week 11 Info:

Pot: 500 ECs!

Sponsors: Please be sure to check them out and drop on them!
WP Themes Gallery (300 ECs) – Wordpress news and themes!
Worldwide Travel Blog (150 ECs) – Sweet travel pictures and places!

Entrance: Let’s go back to commenting! Just comment on this post and you are entered!

If you’d like to sponsor the Weekly Entrecredit Blast, visit my Entrecard profile! Your donation will be put in next week’s pot and you’ll receive a link to your blog! Plus, you’ll still be allowed to enter for a chance to win the pot!

Important: I am on vacation and will have limited internet access. If you have never commented on EntreBlast before and your comment gets held for moderation, just wait and I will get to it by the time I come back on Saturday.

This week we’ll talk about the Entrecard-SezWho partnership that happened on Tuesday.

First off, EntreBlast has SezWho installed and so maybe you guys will be more inclined in sharing your thoughts each week on Entrecard Thoughts Friday! Each week, I’ll rate everyone who comments on Entrecard Thoughts Friday from now on!

So, what are your thoughts on the SezWho partnership? Have you installed SezWho on your blog?

Not getting dropped on?

Are you receiving either 0 or just a few drops a day and wondering why? Or, recently have you noticed a decrease in the amount of drops you are receiving, even if you are continuing to drop regularly? Chances are, there is something wrong with your EC widget or website. Here are some explantions to your confusion. Check out these things and see if they solve your problems!

Reasons Why You Aren’t Receiving Drops

Your site takes way too long to load.

When it comes to dropping, Entrecarders can be very impatient. Well, when it comes to loading a site at all, I think everyone is impatient! If your site takes too long to load, people will just close it and move on. You can speed up site loading times by removing scripts and widgets that you don’t need, which is most of them.

Your site doesn’t load at all!

Great. I spent all this time trying to get this one site to load and then I get the message that says it can’t load the site! If that is happening, or your site is down, well, you can’t get drops! It’s important to keep track of your site’s bandwidth usage, since that is probably the problem if your site is down. If it’s not, it could be your host. A reliable host is important!

Your Entrecard widget is too hard to find.

A skilled Entrecard dropper can find a widget in a matter of seconds. The eyes draw to the sidebar, and look for a square with a little gold strip underneath. It’s usually easy to pick out. However, some people like to hide their widget. Either at the bottom of the site, stuck in a post, or hidden in a cluster of ads. If this is the case, you are going to frustrate some people, and they might think you don’t even have a widget! Make sure your widget is clearly visible.

Your Entrecard widget is impossible to find – it’s not there!

It’s really fun trying to reciprocate drops, searching the entire page for the widget, checking the places where users sometimes hide it, and then finally deciding that the widget isn’t even there. Fun fun! You could be a regular dropper and then one day you could find that your widget isn’t there. This happens sometimes if you accidentally remove the code from your sidebar or edit it. This could be from adding, removing, or editing, soemthing right next to the EC widget, and the code for the widget just gets stuck in the mess.

You are banned from Entrecard.

This is easy to figure out if you try to log in to Entrecard. No one will be able to drop on you if you’re banned! This could be due to a number of things. You can check out this list of ways your blog could have been banned from Entrecard for.

Additionally, you probably aren’t receiving a whole lot of drops because you aren’t dropping yourself! The reasons above are for those who continue to drop regularly. However, if you aren’t, you won’t be getting many drops back either. It’s important to regularly return drops and drop on new blogs. This will increase the amount of drops you receive.

Buzz has been generating yesterday after Graham mentioned in the ‘Latest Buzz’ section of the Dashboard that Entrecard is going to be announcing its new partner on Tuesday. Well, today is the day. At 00:00 AM Eastern time, Graham announced Entrecard’s new partner.

The new Entrecard partner is:

Sezwho

Sezwho is a social networking site encouraging users to provide quality content and build a reputation for doing so. Your contributions (such as guest posting and commenting) get tracked and can be seen on your Sezwho profile. This builds credibility and reputation.

What does this mean for Entrecard now?

Sezwho will help add a community feel as well as rewarding users for commenting on other blogs. You’ll earn ECs for comments that you make on blogs. Quality comments is a must though! You won’t earn credits for lame comments. Users will rate your comments and from there you’ll receive between 1 and 10 ECs. Sweet huh?

Get Started with Sezwho

Getting started is super easy. You can register from your Entrecard Dashboard! Once there, under QuickStats, you should see a link asking you to sign up with Sezwho. Fill out the three fields and you are done! Once you have registered, you will have to download and activate the plugin to your blog.

For more information, Graham has posted a lengthy announcement on the Entrecard blog. Check out the official announcement of the partnership between Entrecard and Sezwho.

P.S – Sezwho is activated on EntreBlast!

Sorry for posting this late. Ever had one of those days where you just don’t feel like writing? Yeah, it was one of those days. The winner of the 444 EC pot is:

JunkieYard Dot Com – Check out this blog, there is a huge Entrecard contest going on!

Congrats! Your prize has been sent!

Week 10 Info:

Pot: 807 ECs! Almost doubled of last weeks!

Sponsors:
your hand in mine (500 ECs) – Pictures and interesting stories that go along. Thanks for the huge donation!
Blog-o-Ninja (157 ECs) – Blogging tips and tricks!
Worldwide Travel Blog (150 ECs) – Sweet travel pictures and places!

Entrance: Stumble EntreBlast’s homepage: www.entreblast.com. Then, leave a comment on this post with your stumble upon username!

If you’d like to sponsor the Weekly Entrecredit Blast, visit my Entrecard profile! Your donation will be put in next week’s pot and you’ll receive a link to your blog! Plus, you’ll still be allowed to enter for a chance to win the pot!