Friday, November 7, 2008

The Concept Behind "Top Monthly Droppers"

Browsing through the Entrecard directory, you'll find that many people feature a list of ten or so blogs each month, which either have produced the most number of consecutive returns to their blog (top droppers) or have produced the greatest return rate for advertising on other blogs.

While the concept is simple — you are linking to another blog within the network, rewarding them for visiting your blog and supporting your blogging efforts — more happens "behind the scenes" than you might initially think.

Let's assume that just 1% of the entire network of Entrecard was to create a list of their Top Droppers. This would mean that anywhere between 200 and 300 blogs were to add this list somewhere to their blog, whether on a dedicated page, in a post, or within the sidebar.  If you are listed on just a few of them, it could amount to a few hundred additional visits, or at the very least, a few more links back to your site.

Linking to people who visit your site helps further build a relationship beyond the rather close relationship you may have developed with other blogs on the network.  If you are able to continue dropping on the same, "favorite" blogs each day, you will help them build their blog and online presence as a blogger - more rewarding down the road than anyone might realize.

In addition, linking to other blogs will reward the groups of people you have linked to - you are helping them build PageRank, or Google's ranking of a site's popularity - which will help them across the board when it comes to selling advertisements on their site, ranking in various search engines, and other purposes.  Visitors not a part of Entrecard may see additional value in this, despite the fact that they haven't even become a member of the tool/service yet.

Other Points:
  • Linking back to your "Top Droppers" shows your commitment to building a community and further rewarding people who have helped grow your blog.
  • You are able to connect to people who may not have ever visited your blog before, because you are providing links to sites that they normally would never have visited.
  • In the long-term, every site that links to your blog/you link out will benefit from the additional links with a few additional readers/subscribers/visits.
All in all, it is important to reward your frequent visitors and commentators on your site - Entrecard has proven that.  You can read more on this tip and comments from other members on this Entrecard post .

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think it depends on your concept of blogging. Just because a person drops on you everyday does not necessarily constitute a reader of your blog.

As for building PR since blogger is by default no follow this surely doesn't hold true for blogs using that platform. Or at least commenters from those blogs.

Personally I am against lists like you suggest, however I do believe in "rewarding" my readers and commenters by making comments that do follow and adding blogs to my blog rolls in the sidebar. This is there every day and not just the day a post is displayed.

Like I said at the beginning it depends on your motives at the end of the day.

Anonymous said...

Yes, I think many people use Entrecard for different goals - whether it is for the relationships/connections to other bloggers or for the extra traffic.

I guess that I should have rephrased the linking portion. It is more the fact that you are acknowledging that they are helping you build your blog more than building "imaginary" search engine "credits."

Thanks for your comment, by the way.

Anonymous said...

A couple months ago when I was using Entrecard to generate most of my traffic (things haven't changed much, I just don't have to try as hard now), I made the top droppers thing a contest.

For a while, I gave a random dropper each day something like 100 EC and at the end of the week, I would take all the people who dropped on my blog 7 times an entry into a contest for something like 500 EC... At the end of the month, anyone who dropped on my blog every single day was entered into another contest (I know, this gets complicated) and the first prize would get 1000 EC, second was 500 EC and third was 100 EC...

Obviously when I announced winners, I would provide a link. I would be using something like 6500 credits a month just for the contest, but the resulting traffic was much better than the traffic I generated with placing ads through Entrecard. I was getting anywhere between 300-500 drops a day on my blog and was quickly becoming one of the most popular blogs in the community.

The problem is, it takes a lot of time to do something like that... something I don't have much of when I'm in school.

Just another thought to add to the top droppers list... when people just simply click a box to get a chance at some extra credits, those people will have no problem continuing to do it.

Anonymous said...

@jesse - Thank you for your comment.

That method may be more beneficial in the long-term, both for those new to your blog and people who continually visit it.

However, even though rewarding members may be one of [our] top priorities, it isn't mandatory that people continue visiting every day of the month. It takes a lot of dedication to do that, especially on the part of the people who don't miss a single day - that is where the reward comes in.