Where should you place the Entrecard widget?
Written on March 8th, 2008 by Ben Barden
A typical day for me includes 200+ drops on sites with the Entrecard widget. Some of these I drop on every day, some are the sites that drop on me. Either way, I visit a lot of sites and I see the Entrecard widget placed in a number of different locations.
The “drop and run” scenario
Some Entrecard users go to a site, drop their card, and move on. Some sites think this situation is not helped if you put the
Entrecard widget at the top of your site. I couldn’t disagree more. Most of the time, the “drop and run” scenario occurs due to one of the following reasons:
1.) The visitor is not interested in your site. Sorry, but not everyone will be. That doesn’t mean your site is bad – it just means you can’t please everyone.
2.)The visitor didn’t have anything to say. I’ll admit that I don’t comment every time I drop a card, but I do scan the latest post and think about whether I want to comment on it. If I have nothing to say, is there much point commenting to say I dropped my card?
3.)The visitor didn’t see any new content since their last visit. OK, so not all sites update every day, but posting new content is important if you want new comments!
What is “above the fold”?
In the “offline world”, large newspapers (broadsheets) are distributed with a single fold across the middle. When you go to buy a newspaper, you’ll see the top half of the front page – i.e. the content that appears above the fold.
On the web, above the fold refers to the content that can be seen without having to scroll down. This is where you should place the content that you value the most – the things you want people to see before they look at the other content on your site. The term is relative, though – it varies depending on the size of a user’s monitor, the screen resolution they use, whether they run their browser maximised, how many toolbars they have installed and so on.
Why should you place the Entrecard widget above the fold?
If you place the widget halfway down the page, or worse still at the very bottom, people have to scroll to find it. Once they’ve dropped their card, they probably won’t scroll back up to read your content.
On the other hand, if you place the widget at the top of the page, people can drop their card quickly and easily. When they have dropped their card, they are much more likely to read the first post on your site if they don’t have to scroll up to see it. If the widget is halfway down the page, chances are it’ll appear partway through a post – and not many people start reading from the middle.
A case for writing good content.
If you place the widget above the fold, you’d better have a good post at the top of your site to get people to comment. I can’t say I write an excellent post every time I blog, but I do try for this very reason. If the first post a potential reader sees is not worth reading, how can you expect them to leave a comment?
What do you think?
March 9th, 2008 at 1:53 am
My two cents: I try to be as active as I can in the Entrecard community, but the fact is, Entrecard is not my priority.
Creating high-quality content to help shelter pets on my blog is my purpose. If that means that my Entrecard widget falls below the fold versus other widgets that more directly support my purpose, so be it. Entrecard can’t be looked at in a vacuum. I think it is important to look at the role of E-card in the overall purpose of your blog. If droppers cannot be bothered to scroll down to find the card, that’s not really the sort of readers I particularly care about, so I’m not going to adjust the placement of my widget simply to satisfy drop-and-runners.
I’m looking for readers that, like me, genuinely want to do what they can to help shelter pets. Through Entrecard, I’ve found several wonderful people/blogs that are interested in just that. But, I’ve also found lots of other people who are apparently only interested in the drop. That’s fine with me. But I’m not particularly concerned about that type of traffic, so if I lose some Entrecard traffic due to the fact that my widget is “below the fold,” ah well. That type of traffic is not really meaningful to my blog anyway.
March 9th, 2008 at 3:02 am
The unfortunate thing about dropping is that it results in a very high bounce rate (i.e. “low-quality” traffic). While placing the Entrecard near the top of the page is a good thing for droppers, few of these droppers will actually bother looking what is on your site. If the entrecard was not at the top of the page, it means that the dropper will have to look around for the Entrecard.
It may be inconvenient for droppers, but a Entrecard placed slightly below the fold may actually be the ideal spot.
March 9th, 2008 at 5:26 am
Gave me something to think about. I scooted my Entrecard up because of this post. I put it at the top of my left sidebar, but due to the layout and design of my template (with a widebar spanning two sidebars) it didn’t make it above the fold. On the other hand, it is visible as soon as a reader begins reading my latest post.
March 9th, 2008 at 6:53 am
Ben, you are quite correct. If anyone wants a visitor to their site to leave a comment on one of their articles, the onus is upon the author. Give the visitor something worthwhile and 8 out of 10 times the visitor will respond with a meaningful comment. Nice to find the techie without the jargon writing here.
March 9th, 2008 at 4:50 pm
Jen – content is very important, without content you have no blog. It’s not so much that people are too lazy to scroll down for the widget. If they have to scroll down to see it, they may not scroll back up to read your content. It’s true that not everyone will be interested in every blog they visit, but in my opinion we need to make sure we don’t lose the potential readers who will like a blog. Keeping the Entrecard widget in line with the top of the first post might be the most sensible idea.
Nicholas – a high bounce rate is also true of traffic from StumbleUpon and Digg. It’s up to the blog owner to give people a reason not to move onto the next site immediately. Good content is the key, and keeping the Entrecard widget high on the page can work very well. If you’ve had good results with the widget placed slightly lower, then that’s good. Remember though, “slightly below the fold” for you may actually be above the fold for someone else. It all depends on things like screen size as I mentioned in the post.
anniebluesky – personally, I think it would be better above the tag cloud, but it’s easy to find where it is now. Looks good!
arnold – thanks for the feedback. Hopefully this will help both readers and writers alike.
Thanks for all the comments.
March 9th, 2008 at 6:57 pm
Congrats on becoming a regular writer on the Entrecard blog Ben. I may just become a regular reader of this blog now (as if I don’t have enough to keep me busy on your own blog).
I completely agree with you on the placement – I’m the type of person who tries to read everyone’s latest post but I find if I don’t find it in at least one mouse scroll, I tend to not want to go back to the site unless the person has some really good content!
March 9th, 2008 at 8:15 pm
Thanks fragileheart.
March 9th, 2008 at 9:54 pm
My opinion is different, though. Depends on the initial intention of a person visiting your site.
If I intend only to drop entrecards, whether I scroll or not, I’ll leave as soon as I’ve done so.
If on the way I’m scrolling (and I won’t if the entrecard is above the fold) and my eyes catch something, I may stopped a while and take a look. That’s another 2 cents on placing entrecard below the fold
March 10th, 2008 at 10:04 pm
Thanks for advertising on my blog. I’d read your post a few days ago and made a mental note of it. I should never become so complacent that I think I know everything, or even almost everything; the moment I do I find something new that had never occurred to me.
March 11th, 2008 at 6:56 am
Louis – if someone is hell bent on dropping their card without doing anything else, I guess there isn’t much that can be done to stop that, short of a big banner saying “Hey you! Don’t do that”…
I don’t agree with your logic as to why scrolling is a good thing. How about if the widget is above the fold and you are not just visiting to drop your card? Why are you more likely to have something catch your eye if you scroll than if you don’t?
Many people simply don’t scroll at all when they come to a site for the first time – there are too many other sites that might be better. They look at the site and decide whether they want to keep looking around based on what they see when they arrive. You have to grab someone’s attention very quickly if you want them to stay on your site.
The logic behind putting the widget above the fold is to try and get the ones who only came to drop their card to stick around. It’s tough, but it can be done, and it’s more likely to happen if they don’t have to hunt for the widget.
If you’re someone who is happy to look around a site, then that’s good. Unfortunately not everyone is the same. The high bounce rate many Entrecard sites experience suggests that a lot of people are dropping their cards and moving on. If they are the majority, it makes sense to try and convert them into readers before looking to other groups of users, doesn’t it?
March 11th, 2008 at 11:08 pm
feefifoto – thanks
There’s always something new to learn!
April 4th, 2008 at 3:32 pm
I agree with placement of card at the top of the page… best place for attention. No scrolling needed. I am new to entrecard. Will explore options for placement but think top of column is proabably most effective.
April 10th, 2008 at 8:32 am
Excellent ideas regarding card placement! Now if anyone can tell me how I can get my blog on Multiply to accept an Entrecard widget I’ll be in business. How can you get around the javascript issue?
July 2nd, 2008 at 2:16 pm
Makes perfect sense.
If you care for others, then others will care for you.
July 2nd, 2008 at 9:55 pm
I have a wordpress blog and I am not able to place the widget. Can someone help me?
August 10th, 2008 at 7:30 pm
Hi there! Brand new here, just signed up today. I’ve made sure I’ve gone to those blogs that have dropped on mine. I’ve also taken the moment to read their first post and glance around. As I would if I went through another site.
The widget is lower than I’d like though on my blog. I’ll be moving it up, but not so that it draws too much attention. To be honest, too much on a blog will have people move on. In my experience.
September 24th, 2008 at 5:28 am
^_^ hay
October 28th, 2008 at 5:21 am
I am finally getting it, but having a problem with my own widget. I recently edited the widget and want to place it on my site, but can’t get the code. Is that because I have adverts in line to post? Should I just wait until all are through and then the new code will show up?
I love this whole idea and want to do it right.
Thanks for your help – Fisher
November 1st, 2008 at 9:15 pm
Thanks for this post. I’m brand new to Entrecard, and it’s definitely made me think about how to best implement it on my site.
November 10th, 2008 at 11:26 am
i still cant use entrecard widget on my site. says javascript not enabled. please help
December 2nd, 2008 at 9:09 am
I can’t put my widget on my blog. What will i do? Please help
December 25th, 2008 at 3:01 am
i have a problem on how to paste my entrecard widget on my site. can u help me?