Healthy Fitness Ideas

Entre­card is run­ning a pro­mo­tion this week invit­ing all of its mem­bers to write a review of the Entre­card blog net­work.  I’ve writ­ten about the Entre­card blog net­work before, and so now is prob­a­bly a good time to re-visit the subject.

I started this blog on a shoe­string bud­get, con­sist­ing of my lim­ited free time and Hostmonster’s rea­son­able monthly web host­ing fee. I also chose the free and ver­sa­tile Word­Press blog platform.

Until I can mas­ter the obscure mys­ter­ies of Search Engine Opti­miza­tion (SEO) and write enough engag­ing posts to get reg­u­lar sub­scribers, there’s the bor­ing but nec­es­sary task of pro­mot­ing Healthy Fit­ness Ideas so that vis­i­tors will at least stop for a moment and take a peek while blog-surfing. That’s where Entre­card really shines, espe­cially for the new blogger. 

Advan­tages of the Entre­card blog network

Low-cost.  The only invest­ment to join is the time it takes to visit other blogs and click on the Entre­card wid­get.  The card-dropping process can be made less time-consuming if you use a speedy web browser like Google’s Chrome.  Some blog­gers man­age to drop 300 ECs in an hour, but I find that it often takes me longer.

Steady stream of new Entre­card vis­i­tors.  Since I last wrote about Entre­card, this blog’s Alexa rank­ing has increased sig­nif­i­cantly, due to more Entre­card vis­i­tors from adver­tis­ing, and con­tent that’s finally get­ting some SERP-love from Google and Bing.  Now, if I could just fig­ure out how to get the blog out of the Google’s sand­box and raise the Page Rank.

Learn as you Drop.  The qual­ity of the blogs in the Entre­card net­work ranges from out­stand­ing to ho-hum.  But after drop­ping nearly 9,000 ECs on new and estab­lished blogs, there’s noth­ing like study­ing other blogs, espe­cially the more pop­u­lar and estab­lished blogs, to learn more about the craft of blog­ging. Most of the blog­gers I’ve inter­acted with are friendly, so don’t be afraid leave a com­ment or ask a ques­tion, and you’ll prob­a­bly learn some­thing new.

Good Vis­i­bil­ity for Your Blog.  Entrecard’s terms of ser­vice (TOS) require that the Entre­card wid­get be located “above the fold” (on the upper half of web page in the browser), so your Entre­card adver­tise­ment will be seen and get attention.

Dis­ad­van­tages of the Entre­card blog network

Higher bounce rate.  A high bounce rate is a neg­a­tive for your blog in the eyes of Google’s search engine.  Bounce rate is the per­cent­age of single-page vis­its and gen­er­ally means that peo­ple who land on your home page “bounce” away after view­ing only one page, like a dis­as­trous blind date you can’t wait to end.  Google’s search algo­rithm favors sites that vis­i­tors stay on for a period of time, pre­sum­ably because it shows that the site has con­tent rel­e­vant to what the vis­i­tor was look­ing for.  So far, the page on this blog that has the longest view time is the post fea­tur­ing Jen­nifer Anniston’s Vit­a­m­in­wa­ter ad photo.  So much for my witty writ­ing style.  But if the high bounce rate is wor­ri­some, then you can decrease it by writ­ing con­tent that is rel­e­vant, engag­ing and entertaining.

Annoy­ing and Occa­sion­ally Infected Blogs. Despite Entrecard’s TOS, I’ve occa­sion­ally vis­ited blogs that have gen­er­ated a warn­ing from Google Chrome that the blog is con­nected to a site known to dis­trib­ute mal­ware.  If you intend to visit many unknown blogs, a good, up-to-date fire­wall is a must to pro­tect your com­puter from the bad guys on the inter­net.  I’ve also vis­ited Entre­card blogs that are best suited to adults over 18, and blogs with all sorts of pop-ups, pop-unders, redi­rects and auto-playing music and video.  Other Entre­card blogs load so slowly that I could make cof­fee before the Entre­card wid­get appears.  A few blogs seem to hide the Entre­card wid­get at the very bot­tom of the page, rather than plac­ing it above the fold.

How­ever, on bal­ance, I’d still rec­om­mend join­ing Entre­card, espe­cially if you’ve just start­ing out blog­ging and want to pro­mote your blog with­out spend­ing your lim­ited bud­get on advertising.

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