How to use Entrecard to grow your blog

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Entrecard seems to be the new/future of social networking. Keep dropping on me and I will continue to drop on you. I really do not mind bounce rates in a non-self hosted blog yet. Conversions are all important so if you get 100 droppers a day and 5% convert to your blog, at the end of 100 days, theoretically you should have 500 converts! That is the way to look at entrecard. There is a wonderful blog dedicated to entrecard and it has great posts that will help beginners and older users as well.

Many droppers just drop and go, well, you are welcome. I do that too sometimes. However some blogs are welcoming and interesting. They have what I am looking for or what I did not know I needed and that gets me reading and leaving comments. Believe it or not that comment brings me visitors. Dropping brings me visitors. Blogging brings me visitors.

Getting your visitors to come back is all-important. How to do that with entrecard is relatively simple. If you look hard and long enough, you will find blogs/bloggers that interest you. Warm up to them, make useful comments on their blogs, reciprocate their drops, put them in your favorites list. That suddenly becomes social networking. Soon you have a community no matter how small and it will grow into what you dream of some day. Consistency is the word.

Do not lose focus and do not be in a hurry. If you realize that with 5 subscribers to your blog daily in one year you will have up to 1825 regular readers of your blog (from Entrecard alone). then if you use Blogcatalog or Digg or Stumble also, the number further increases. Soon adverts on your blog will be going for double and triple figures.

The good thing about entrecard-grown blogs is that majority of the readers are entrecarders so you will continue to get drops. The hard work is at the begining. I think the first 100 days. If you make 300 per day drops in those early days, certainly you will have loads of converts. However, you must have great fresh and useful content if you want me to be back to your blog. Pro-blog reviews also has a few lovely entrecard and blogging posts.

Drop and go, but please bookmark me, subscribe to my RSS feed and drop a comment. I will reciprocate.

Part 2: The best kept secrets of blog traffic building

Socialize it
Socializing a blog involves some of the most time-consuming efforts in blog management. You have to first visit the social sites of which there are many. There you have to join groups and form alliances. then you have to visit the blogs of these new-found allies and 'endorse' some of their works. Some, usually less than 30% will reciprocate, as their eyes will be trailing the big fish bloggers, not you rookie.

Is it right to do this? Well, it is all relative, but a little bit of this would not hurt. However, one must not forget the primary business of the day:blogging. Do not lose sight, just continue to blog. New quality content. The internet will find you. You do not need to spend all your time seeking social sites and not have good quality content at home. If you do that, you may get visitors to your blog, but they will leave disappointed and will never come back. Put sticky content that people can not do without on your blog. Even if it has been said before, say it in a different way.

RSS Virus
This virus is more potent than anything I have heard of. You must have an RSS feed....whether you like it or not if you want your blog to survive. In addition to having one, encourage visitors to subscribe to it. Mine is powered by feedburner and I want you to subscribe. It is at the upper left hand corner of my page. If you do, you will always get the latest entries on this blog.

Include an advanced RSS burner or reader that will allow you to sign visitors up by email too. The RSS virus is so viral and we usually can not tell where it will get to in the blogosphere. When a virus carries your information, rest assured it will get to many continents. Blogs fail if they fail to concentrate on stuff like this.

Watch your Stats
If you blog, you want traffic. I am often amused when 'experts say, do not get obsessed by traffic. Apart from content, trafic is the most important aspect of blog development. Traffic validates content. If you remember in the first part of this post, I said that your blog is just numbers, 'one's and 'zero's sitting somewhere. If nobody reads it, it is useless. when you watch your stats, you see how things that you do daily, affect your traffic.

Wordpress has excellent dashboard stats. You can also use google analytics which is free. I have a link to site meter also as backup. Look at it closely, visit those that have sent you traffic, learn from them too. Mahalo actually gives excellent tutorials on the tool. Do those things that drive you traffic more.

Read your blog, read other blogs, get 'hot'content
This must sound crazy, but I am saying it. Read your blog. A must read for others is also a must-read for you. there will be hidden typos, 'nuke' them. read other blogs to get great ideas and blog about them. third is to hunt for hot news. Your blog is not necessarily about news, but being the first, or among the first small sites to blog about some new remotely or closely related news activity or development has a way of getting you ranked really high on searches.

Do not hesitate to blog at 1 am. You may find something from an Australian blog and there you are. Also, a blog like Techcrunch has mid-night bloggers, so be the first to comment/link to one of their articles. They do publish your trackback and that could inch you up the ladder too.

And the beat goes on.....
. There are many other tips and secrets, but I have shared the experiences I have had with blogging in my first 30 days. This post is definitely non-exhaustive, so expect more guidance as we move along. the best is yet to come.I can continue, but I will stop here so that we will have space in the concluding part of the series to discuss where blogging is going. thanks you for stopping by and please link to me. You can visit my first blog here.