Postcards from the Funny Farm

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This one is for my readers who blog and all those who take the time to comment. Comments are the vehicle of the future for blog communication, networking, and yes: making money. This is true because as more and more spam ensues, we will only be able to tell what is real from what is not by the manner of comments we read. You know those watches they try and sell you in front of the grocery store. You can probably tell they are fakes, but what about the guy who has the real Guess watches for dirt cheap? You want to recognize him as well. So is the way of comments. The comments we leave should show that we are indeed real readers/customers. I am very thankful for the amount of comments I receive here and I want to show respect by making sure they all make it to publishing and that they not get stuck in a spam quarantine. Akismet, the native WordPress comment spam protection plugin, spams a lot of good comments on my blog. I don’t always have the time to check it for false-negatives. As a result, I have probably missed at least several comments from many great writers, friends, and visitors. I’ve suffered with it long enough. Today I added a second tool to my arsenal. Now I’m using Recaptcha.

A couple synchronous things happened today that got me thinking about comments in the future of the blogosphere: 1) Wordpress came out with its latest update, 2.6 and 2) Entrecard sent me an email explaining they have teamed up with Sez Who to give their readers more credits when they have a Sez Who enabled blog. Lucky for me, I have been using Sez Who already for a while. It’s not too complicated, you just activate a Wordpress plugin (if you are like me and using Wordpress). It gives the author of a post a small icon that when rolled over shows her/his comment history on that blog. There are also rating features. It’s neat. Try it out.

As I was upgrading Wordpress I realized I had 77 comments in Akismet. I got that sinking feeling that maybe some of them were not spam (the term is “False Negatives”). Sure enough I found out that comments from some of my best friends, and most valuable networks, were NOT POSTED! As much as I love WordPress and see it as very good spam protection with Akismet, I had to activate Recaptcha as another layer of protection. Basically, it is better now because the reCaptcha keeps most spam out requiring a human typing code. Then, the Akismet is still necessary for the spam that can beat ReCaptcha. I still have to check my Akismet daily, but it is likely to be much less to pore through. This is a plugin/service I have always loved I just thought it was too cumbersome for you my readers. The commenter has to type the letters from a random image to make the comment go through. Akismet guesses whether a comment is spam which does not guarantee 100% true negatives (ie; only spam will be caught). It can and does often catch good comments. If I miss them, it has the potential of offending my commenters.

So … in a nutshell, I think the commenting revolution is about to begin and for me in my rocket ship, we’ll be flying with recaptcha. Does typing the ReCaptcha to comment bother you? I hope not … I want to make participating in discussions here as easy and trustworthy as possible. Nonetheless, I have tried both and I’m not disciplined enough to check the Akismet every day. Here’s to a great future of communication where the blog owners do everything they can to “keep it real” and so do the commenters. My apologies to those whose legit comments never showed up here. It wasn’t my doing and it won’t happen again.

I see the biggest challenge to blog authors today as keeping visitors on their site long enough to have an impact through their writing. I’ve seen and heard the effective traffic brought on by games and gimmicks for shiny items like designer jewelry. I wonder if that traffic really reads their stuff though. Readers that stay is what I am always thinking about when I create and innovate my blog.

Going down my reading list of blogs today, I found that a few blog titles really stood out and urged a comment out of me without me even reading the post. As I went on to read the post my idea changed a little, but the gist of my comment came from that initial reaction to … the title.

As a teacher of writing, I have told my students for years that what sets a good article apart from a great one is its creative, thought-provoking title. Now, as a blog writer, I see that is all the more true in electronic medium. There are two types of readers among many that visit your blog:

1. Quick hoppers: These folks are looking forsomething they don’t find at your blog, or they are just trying to get EC points for Entrecard. Whatever the reason, their intention is not to stay long. These people might be the ones to consider in a creative, innovative title. Even more so if you have a SUMMATIVE title. I’ll give an example shortly.
2. The second kind are people who are looking for something and found it through a search on your blog. There are more than these two types, but when talking about summative titles, you should consider these two. So, howabout that example … okay … patience my good friend:

Imagine you have two blogs to read that you have starred for later. You look at the title of the first one and it says:

“As if …”

Then you restar that because your are not quite ready to let it go and you come across one that says:

“Songs that Stay in Your Head.”

The first title requires guessing (brain strain) and curiousity (again, brain drain). Nowadays very few readers will bother with a post like this unless they are good friends of yours or extreme fans of your personality etc. The second title is suggestive. It doesn’t even require the reader to finish the post in order to leave a comment. As Entrecard and “blog hopping” becomes more of the social norm in blogging, you should do all you can to get a comment, if not just get hoppers to stop and read the words you worked so hard on.

I think titles are something I’m going to do a series on. They are scantly addressed in the blogosphere
To Entrecard hoppers and other speed-readers: “Would that be something you’d enjoy, and stay awhile for? Wait, don’t answer that, I know you’re in a big hurry ;)

I wrote just days ago about how to choose Entrecard advertisers. It’s still valid except for one thing, cheap doesn’t mean what cheap used to mean. Here’s an excerpt from the article on their blog below:

Written on April 7th, 2008 by Graham
Today we release our long-awaited modification to the pricing system.

It’s going to go live within the next 24 hours. Just to be clear, we are talking about a complete change to the way everyone’s advertising prices are calculated.

Starting today, your ad price is determined solely by demand for your ad spot. Every time someone purchases, or applies to purchase an ad on your site, your price doubles. Every time an ad finishes running, your price halves.

Cheap ads now will mean that not enough people apply to advertise on them.  With my own blog costing in the 600’s per day now, it is going to cost a poor blogger 600 clicks for one day on my blog.  I wouldn’t wish that torture on anyone.  Still, we’ll have to see how it plays out.  It could be a positive and kick those really high pointer blogs that have very little value in their content off the top of the mountain.  If that happens, that will be very good.  I wrote about the actual system of Entrecard if you want to know more from a beginner standpoint.  You’ll find that article here.

This is an example of yet another company who has an idea and thinks every idea they will have after that will be just as good.  One thing I like about Blog Catalog is that they respect their users enough to ask their input repetitively.  That’s what Web 2.0 is all about.  I’d have liked to done a poll at least about this before it went live.  I’ll have to try it and see if it’s something I like or something I’m going to make new space for my own advertising on my sidebar with.

What do you think of Entrecard’s new pricing system?

What I have read in the FAQ’s at Entrecard, and my own experience bears it out, is that the EC cost to advertise on a site is not proportionate to that site’s traffic.  It is based on how many sites they drop on.

For this reason, as you consider what sites to advertise on within Entrecard, make sure you go through to the actual site and measure either it’s Technorati rating, or Google PageRank, etc.  That will be a much better indicator of whether they are worth your EC credits for a day of advertising.  I have found dozens of blogs with a zero rating on the two sources mentioned and yet cost 3-400 EC’s to advertise.  A blog like that probably is either brand new or doesn’t have much content.  All the high EC’s show is that they either have the clicking system gamed with a program or something or they have enough spare hours in the day to click and click and click.

For this reason, look for the low EC “diamonds in the rough” that have a high rating on the sources mentioned.  I recommend making them your favorites, then you don’t have to search for them everytime it’s time to buy.  Their EC cost will stay low unless they start clicking all day long which most good serious bloggers don’t really have time to do I think.  I am planning on clicking less.  Having a high EC cost really isn’t of much worth.  What do you think of this tip?

This article is Part I of my series “Finest Hour of Social Networks” where I examine social networks and their effectiveness in raising real traffic (low bounce rate/readers who stay more than the duration of two ckicks!) This goal is important for monetization and for building a following to your blog. If these ideas are something you’re interested in, this series will help you achieve those goals.

It’s time for another series because I have a lot to say and I don’t want to burn out trying to say it all in one article. I hope you get something out of it. As always, your discussion is invaluable to the series’ evolution throughout. I really appreciate your comments. Ok, well here goes: One common thread that seems to run through every site I run across these days is the topic of building blog traffic. “How can I do it!” Whether you are growing your internet business or just trying to get more readers for your online publishing, it is the burning question in everyone’s mind. There are many ways published out there that you can take and use and make your own. Most of these ways really do work. Depending on how much a blogger puts into it, (including sometimes unholy amounts of time at the comp away from your family) they can work astoundingly well. At the same time, I myself have tried others of them only to come up exhausted and without a shard of new traffic. In the year and a half that I have been blogging, I’ve tried almost everything. I have tricks up my sleeve that I could share until the cows come home. I don’t get to them that often these days because there is other content I need to get to, content about psychology and inspiration and education. The stuff I am passionate about is my favorite stuff to share on here. At the same time, my primary audience here (as measured by visits and referrals) has always been innovative bloggers and noobs. Social networking can literally explode the traffic of my friends ad cohorts out there. It behooves me to share what I know about blogging. With content on this site it is a lot like my family and my work, I try to find a happy balance.
Because I have so much to share about social networking and traffic for bloggers, I am penning this series which will ultimately consist of IV parts as outlined below:

Series: Finest Hour of Social Networks
Part I
BlogCatalog
Entrecard

Part II
Facebook
Fuel My Blog

Part III
Twitter
Social Spark and other monetized social networks.

Part IV
Final Thoughts

Taking these on in ABC order, today’s part focuses on two powerful social networks: Blog Catalog and Entrecard. Join me as I analyze how these 2 services can increase your blog’s traffic no matter whether you are a noob or someone who’d been doing it so long you are starting to burn out … or maybe you are somewhere in the middle. I believe these services can revolutionize the traffic of your blog.

Blog Catalog has been around at least as long as 2005 when I first started checking them out. They have been through normal gradual changes for a company run by young guys and they have emerged in 2008 to be a daunting force for the Technoratis and MyBlogLogs of the world. Blog Catalog has stayed solid at listening to the customers and at innovating the marketplace as best they can. They have come up with some really fun widgets that I use along with so really helpful services in their site for bloggers. The end result is a giant set of tools to increase your blog’s traffic. Here is how I use Blog Catalog to reach out and increase my blog’s traffic:

1. Friend’s list - This is such a great feature. When someone decides they like my blog they add me as a friend on BlogCatalog. I get an email alter and I check their blog out. If I like their blog I can add them if not, they remain my one-way friend anyway. This is a great way to access networks of bloggers with your like-minded favorites etc.

2. Discussions - I hang around BC Discussions daily. It is an excellent way to promote your blog and get help or givehelp with blog issues. more important than anything, it’s a way to sample people and their blogs so you can develop relationships that last. I have commented on blogs through this service years ago and to this day they are still visiting my blog and I theirs.

3. Widgets - BC offers incredibly designed blog widgets. You have to try them all to see which work for you. For me, I like the discussion widget because it shows where I have been talking out in the sphere for those would be interested. I suppose it’s a status message kind of like Twitter or Facebook that way. The difference is that there is no limitation of characters and the thread can interact indefinitely (as many do!)

Through using these three facets of Blog Catalog I have met hundreds of people but just between 15-20 people who remain friends and/or fans of mine and who frequent my site. I get backlinks (this refers to when another site links to you) that bring in traffic perpetually and that increase your ranks with the search engines. I highly recommend you join Blog Catalog, pimp out your profile there and then take part in the three amazing service I listed above. You will see an increase in your traffic.

Now for the second and newer of the two in our discussion today: The sophisticated looking Entrecard.

Entrecard works like this: You create a 125×125 “Entrepeneur Card” or Entrecard for your site. Then you upload it to your profile and pimp out the other parts of the profile. At that point you need to do two things for the service to get you traffic: 1) You need to “drop” your Entrecard on other blogs, and

2) You need to advertise on other blogs. These two actions are theoretically harmonious because every time you visit another Entrecard site and drop your card on it, you get 1 “ec” point. The site you dropped on also gets 1 ec in the process. It is good etiquette to return the drop, but not everyone does it. In your profile, there is a section called “Drop Inbox.” This shows the last 80 or so drops on your site. Many people use that page as the way to “drop back.” The idea of dropping back on everyone is really a foolish idea. It can take hours sometimes to go through them all. I have developed a way to drop every day that takes me less than half-an-hour and I drop over 80 a day. If you are interested in hearing how, just look at the button below my Entrecard that contains the words about “Above the Fold.” It’s something I am trying to promote and hope it catches on.

You get ads on other sites by paying for them in “ec’s” In other words, the more dropping you do and selling of your own space, the more ec’s you have to buy ads.

My traffic has grown nearly 50% through Entrecard which has felt really good. On the other had, the bounce rate for those hits is remarkably low so. People click through like wildfire just to get ec’s. I must admit however that I have received some ad business through Entrecard and many comments by new readers. So I can’t say it’s just empty traffic. I guess the higher the numbers, the better the chance you have of gaining new fans. In the same way, how can anyone know if they like you if they never see you? Entrecard can be a little complicated and clicking through all those sites can be cumbersome. It works for me to raise traffic and to get my 125×125 “Messy Marvin” PostCards avatar out there. I’m not sure if one day’s link actually registers with the search engines, but that isn’t really why I do it.

Social networks like these are exploding traffic for many people I know. If you want more people coming to your site, to read the words you write or buy the things you sell, I doubly encourage you to start with these two. Get registered and begin to explore what works for you. If you have questions, contact me or leave a comment. I firmly believe these two social networks can and will revolutionize your traffic records. Let us know how it goes. I’ll leave you with this: We spend a lot of hours on the computer with internet businesses our and blogs: why not try and make each one our finest!

Next time in my series: Finest Hour of Social Networks

Part II
Facebook
Do people actually use this blue book? If so why? Can it help my traffic?

Fuel My Blog
Somethings Cooking! Will it help my traffic?
And much more to say on these two services I have used for some time now.

What do you think using Blog Catalog and Entrecard to build traffic?

An Entrecard, “Blog of the Day” award was granted to Postcards from the Funny Farm today. (Woo Hoo) This is a real honor for me since anyone who uses Entrecard knows there are so many blogs on there. This award also shows that any blogger, theoretically, could do a “blog of the day” feature but there is one problem with that: discipline and work! This blogger has that discipline. This is similar to my weekly “Blog Safari” so I know how much work it probably is to keep up daily.  I applaud the writer of this blog, Lady Rose, for doing this service so dutifully. You can read the actual award writeup here. If you are from Entrecard, make sure you drop on the site!

I’ve been using a new social networking/marketing service called Entrecard and this post is a summary of my findings. By way of introduction, let me just tell you that this is one startup company that if they were handing out logo pens I would be eagerly taking several. This company is valuable and serves a viable purpose, unlike so many internet startups out there.

Entrecard is a service that allows you to drop your virtual card on blogs you visit as they leave theirs on yours. You both get “credits” for doing so and this allows you with time to purchase advertising on other blogs. This is not normal advertising, it is just exposure or advertising for your blog. Above in the screen shot you see the line of cards that were dropped on my site just today. It is good etiquette to visit each one and drop and comment back. In all honesty, I don’t always comment. There are some weak blogs on Entrecard. Besides that, sometimes I have 50 or more dropped on my blog and who has time to read and comment on that many blogs?

You see here one of the size choices for a widget. This is the size I have here on my blog. You can see it’s a simple pic with a link to the site along with a bar down below that allows you to drop your Entrecard.

This is a great day to find new blogs out there. It’s also a great way to get your blog noticed. One drawback is that the established Entrecard blogs are very expensive (in terms of credits, nothing costs anything in terms of dollars and cents) to advertise on and I have noticed this doesn’t necessarily correlate with quality.

At the same time, the “drops inbox” has a feed so you can subscribe to the feed that tells you who dropped at your blog. This makes “dropping back” really easy, well I won’t say easy, but it gets done!

People will request to advertise on your site. Once approved by you, their widget will appear for one day on your site. It’s a cool back to grassroots marketing for blogs.

There is a limited selection of blogs on Entrecard which I don’t know is a blessing or a curse. For example, I was looking for blogs on Fuel my Blog the other day and it was like sifting through hayseed. Entrecard is the opposite, there are only a handful to choose from in each category and that makes it easy to get familiar with the ones you frequent.

To conclude my very short review, I find Entrecard productive. I have gained a few new readers and some traffic as a result of using it. the drawbacks are that it is time consuming and limited in the blogs it exposes you to. If you try it out, make sure you drop on this site!