How to Get More Blog Readers with Entrecard

September 29, 2008

How to Get More Blog Readers with Entrecard

Welcome to Scraps of Mind. I'm delighted to see you. Why not check out the site, and if you like what you see, subscribe to my RSS feed and get daily updates delivered to you. If you're not sure what the RSS thing is, then check out this 'RSS made easy' post. Thanks for visiting and I look forward to seeing more of you.

Regular readers of Scraps of Mind may recall an article I wrote a couple of months ago explaining how you can advertise your blog for free using Entrecard. That’s the little graphic thingy in my sidebar with the gold bar at the bottom.

Basically you sign up (click on the gold bar if you haven’t already signed up), put the Entrecard widget on your blog and then go and visit other blogs and click on their widget to earn Entrecard Credits (EC). Your visit will be recorded in their Entrecard dashboard and usually they will return the visit, also earning you ECs. You can then use your ECs to advertise for a day on any Entrecard member’s blog, as well as accepting advertisements (earning more ECs) from other blogs to place their graphic in your Entrecard widget.

It’s very easy and, whilst taking a little bit of time, can be a very effective way of generating more traffic for your blog.

But traffic is not the same as readers!

The theory is that potential new readers will come to your blog, read what you have to say and come back for more. But what can happen is that Entrecard ‘droppers’ will mostly hit your blog, click on your Entrecard widget and then zoom off. Never looking at your blog at all.

So your stats look great, but you haven’t improved your readership at all.

But it doesn’t have to be that way.

First you need to make a call on whether it’s traffic or readers that is more important to you.

If you chose Readers then here are some tips to turn that traffic into new readers.

Content

First and foremost you need to have content that is of interest to the readers you want to attract.

If your blog is scrapbooking related then you need to ensure that your content is the sort that would interest you if you were a new visitor hitting on your blog for the first time. What are the things that interest you when you visit your favorite blogs? That’s a good starting point to evaluate your own blog content.

Posting Frequency

Closely linked to blog content is the frequency that you post on your blog. You should try to have something new on your blog at least once a week. And ideally more often. If a new visitor sees that your blog hasn’t been updated for nearly a month then the chances are they won’t be too interested in returning.

Choosing which Blogs to ‘drop’ on

As I said earlier, the Entrecard system works by reciprocal visiting by blog owners. Now there are blogs about every topic under the sun on the Internet. And many of those blog owners are unlikely to be interested in your topic of scrapbooking (or whatever it is). So they will be just hitting your blog, clicking on your Entrecard widget and leaving. boosting your stats but not your readership.

You are far more likely to find potential new readers if you concentrate on blogs in your niche and those that are likely to be of interest to your target audience. For example, Scraps of Mind is a scrapbooking blog. So I like to drop my Entrecard mainly on other scrapbooking blogs, graphic design blogs, blogs about home, family and parenting. Because there is a greater likelihood that these folk might be interested in the Scraps of Mind content.

Regular Dropping

Don’t just drop once on someone’s blog and expect that they will automatically become a reader of yours. Visit them regularly and they will be likely to visit you. And during these visits there’s a good chance that they will read something on your blog that will catch their interest enough for them to want to become a regular reader.

If you go into the Drops Inbox in your Entrecard dashboard you will see all the people who have visited your blog and dropped their card on you. You can click on their graphic and return the visit easily.

You can find new blogs in your topic area by clicking the Campaign button at the top of the Entrecard page and looking in the categories that the blogs are grouped in.

And by the way, this works both ways. You will also be exposed to a bunch of new blogs and are likely to find ones that you want to read regularly too. (I love a win/win situation).

Advertise in the right places

As you build up your ECs you will want to use them to place your own card (and link) on other blogs to encourage visitors to your blog.

This is basically an advertisement for your blog. So choose where you place your ad carefully. If you choose to advertise on a finance focussed blog, the chance of being clicked on by someone who is interested in scrapbooking is probably not all that great. I don’t mean that scrapbookers are not interested in finance, but you’re only going to be on there for one day and it’s fair to say that most of the people who visit that blog are likely to be interested in financial topics rather than scrapbooking.

So you will be more likely to find potential new readers if you advertise on another scrapbooking blog or a parenting blog or one that deals with topics that are of general interest to the majority of scrapbookers.

You’ll note I am speaking in broad generalizations here because of course people are interested in all sorts of things. But you are trying to get the most mileage out of your Entrecard ad.

A picture’s worth a thousand words

When you’re designing the graphic for your Entrecard card think about what message it conveys. A picture of your cat is very cute but it doesn’t tell someone viewing your ad that your blog is about scrapbooking. So if they are a scrapbooker they may not have sufficient curiosity to click and check you out. Remember we’re trying to focus on traffic that has the potential to become readers here.

So make sure that your graphic sends out a clear message about what your blog is about.

So how did it work for me?

Well when I started using Entrecard I had no idea of any of this. I basically clicked on every Entrecard blog I came across. And that was great for generating traffic but most of these folk weren’t really interested in scrapbooking so they were never going to become a regular reader. They just click in, drop and click out.

I kind of worked this stuff out by trial and error. It certainly takes a bit of effort, but as any of you who have tried to build your readership know, this is something that takes work. The ‘build it and they will come’ approach doesn’t work with blogs.

So if you’re really interested in Readers rather than Traffic, I recommend that you sign up to Entrecard, and follow the steps above and start welcoming your new readers.

If you found this article interesting please let me know. I never know whether blog improvement tips are something that Scraps of Mind readers want to read here. And maybe click on the Stumble button below if you thing that other scrapbookers woud find this useful.

I’d be really interested to hear about anyone else’s experiences with Entrecard or any tips in building your blog readership that you might like to share with us. Your comments below are always warmly welcomed.