Maybe you have seen the Entrecard widget on many blogs and you may have wondered what this is? Well, Entrecard is the new method to get free traffic to your blog by advertising your 125×125 ad for free on other blogs.
I have joined Entrecard about 2 weeks ago, and I must give some credits for that to Antibarbie, because I’ve joined after her comment on my article Free traffic requires hard work.
How Entrecard works?
1. In order to join Entrecard, your blog must be in English and it should be of reasonable quality, i.e. not spam, pornography or highly offensive.
2. When you join Entrecard you can upload your own personalized 125×125 ad, or you can choose from a few Entrecard ads, which are quiet pretty:
3. Once you have create your account you can start to earn credits. What are these credits and how you can earn them?
Credits are the currency of the Entrecard network. You pay with Entrecard credits instead of real money to advertise your Entrecard on other people’s widgets. Earning credits is very easy. You will earn 1 credit every time you drop your card for someone else (you can find blogs with Entrecard widget by going to Campaign tab where you can find them ordered by categories, by most popular, most recent, most recommended – see the image below). You will earn 1 credit every time someone else drops their card for you. You will earn credits every time someone advertises on your widget.
4. The image below is how your Entrecard dashboard will looks like. You can see what blog is advertising on your widget, what blog has left it’s entrecard, who wants to advertise on your widget. There are also advanced 3D statistics of traffic from ad campaigns and from Entrecard site, as well as stats for cards given and received.
5. When you choose to advertise on someone’s blog, your ad will be displayed for 24 hours, without any ad in rotation. You are able to see on your Dashboard on what blog is your ad running so if you receive more visits from a blog, you can advertise on that blog again.
For more help on how to use Entrecard you can read the Help section or Entrecard’s forums.
My traffic from Entrecard
My stats on Google Analytics displays to kind of referring site: entrecard.com (displays the visits you receive from entrecard.com – people who drops card on your blog) and entrecard.s3.amazonaws.com (visits from blogs where your ad is displaying). I can see these numbers in my Entrecard Dashboard, too.
In two weeks, I received 417 visits from people who drop their cards to my blog and 400 visits from ads I placed on other blog. That means about 800 visits in two weeks, for about 15 minutes/day of work. Isn’t that something?
2 tips for placing your ad
1. When you choose blogs where you want to advertise on, try to choose those that have the Entrecard widget displayed on the first visible screen, for their visitors to see you better. If the widget is displayed on the bottom of the page, your chance to be seen is lower.
2. Try to place your ad on those blogs who have a good Alexa Rank (a good traffic). I have Alexa Toolbar installed and I follow pretty easy the blog’s Alexa Rank. I choose to advertise on blogs with an Alexa Rank up to 5-600,000.
I have to admit that I have advertised also on blogs with a low Alexa Rank, but with Entrecard widget placed on the first visible screen.
My advice
If your blog is new, just launched or you have low traffic, Entrecard is a good way to drive traffic to your blog and to get known. You don’t have to work too hard for this and you can advertise on high traffic blogs without spending any money. How cool is that?
Entrecard on the blogosphere
You can find out more about Entrecard, by reading some interesting articles on blogosphere:
1. Interview with Entrecard’s Graham Langdon founder by Darren Rowse on Problogger.net.
2. 8 steps to becoming an Entrecard powerhouse on MastersOfSEO.com
3. Entrecard Economy Weaknesses on BruceHopkins.net
4. Entrecard Is Winning Over Blogrush on BloggingMix.com
5. Reasons you Could be Failing in Entrecard on Wiflba.com
January 14th, 2008
Welcome to the 5th edition of Resource for Bloggers Carnival! The only thing I could say for this edition is WOW! what a great participation. It seems that everybody is fresh for a new year. I’ve received a lot of articles and even if some of them didn’t meet the carnival criteria, I would thank you all for your participation.
If you want to see the previous editions, you can find them here:
- Resource for Bloggers Carnival – Edition 1
- Resource for Bloggers Carnival – Edition 2
- Resource for Bloggers Carnival – Edition 3
- Resource for Bloggers Carnival – Edition 4
Well, let’s see what we have in this edition:
Saedel presents How Viral Linking Taught Me To Be Patient posted at Planet Saedel, saying, “In this post, I discussed what viral linking is, why it is tempting, and how it taught me to be patient.”
Karen Zara presents Should Blog Comments Be Moderated? Why? posted at a1-fan-fun, saying, “Three reasons why blog comments should be moderated and three reasons why they shouldn’t. What side do you take?”
PabloPabla presents What Makes Me Stumble and Digg Your Post posted at Blogsreview.Net, saying, “Why is it that nobody stumbles your blog posts or articles? Or why is it that you don’t get a Digg? In this article, I will share with you what makes me stumble or digg a post when I visit a blog. By the time you complete reading this article, you will have an idea of what goes on the mind of a StumbleUpon stumbler or Digg digger.”
Vishnu presents Domain Name change – Issues – Tips – Tricks posted at Beautiful Minds, saying, “The issues a blogger is gonna face when he/she is gonna change the url of the existing blog.!”
Saedel presents 10 Commonly Used Net Lingos To Improve Your Internet Experience posted at Planet Saedel, saying, “I am going to share with you my top 10 popular internet lingos to help you improve your online surfing experience.”
James Alenteal presents 5 reasons Why Blogs & Content Marketing Beats SEO & PPC. posted at James Alenteal’s Conversion Rate Clinic, saying, “Two Classic Online Marketing Models — One Depends on blogging.”
Isabella Mori presents compassion and social media posted at change therapy, saying, “This article talks about the community and compassion that can develop among bloggers. ”
Vahid Chaychi presents 5 Things that All Bloggers Have to Know or Have posted at Weboma Work at Home, saying, “What is blogging? Is it just signing up for a free blog at www.blogger.com and start posting? Definitely not! What are the most important things that bloggers have to know/have?”
andrew784 presents 33 Reasons to Start a Blog posted at Personal Hack, saying, “Have you thought about starting a blog but never actually followed through? Or did you start your blog a long time ago but stopped posting to it, and are now wondering why you started it in the first place? This is a great post to get you motivated to start your own blog, or to regularly post on your current blog.”
Summer presents 5 Things You Should Be Doing Online In 2008 posted at Wired For Noise, saying, “Sites to ad to your blogging arsenal to really beef up your blogging power.”
Hill Robertson presents Sometimes External Links are Bad posted at Hill Robertson, saying, “A lot of plugin or add-on features for many blogs and other websites use external links do display data (in this case image files) that is stored on external servers. They can be nice when everything works but they can also be a real pain when they don’t.”
Christine presents Finding Your Special Talent posted at Me, My Kid and Life: An American Single Mom Living in France, saying, “Most of us are told to get a practical job and to ‘deal with it’ because ‘that’s life’. Remember, you don’t have to be one of those people when you raise your own children or choose a direction for your own life.”
Tip Diva presents Top Ten Tips – Getting Out In The Blogosphere posted at Tip Diva, saying, “Congratulations, you’ve started a new blog. Whether personal, business or even an interest-based blog, you’re now in a word filled with millions of other blogs. But how will you ever get noticed? Here are some tips to draw visitors to your blog.”
Saedel presents Improvement Using Addition By Subtraction posted at PlanetSaedel, saying, “Have you heard of the phrase “addition by subtraction?” If you have not, I’m inviting you to read ahead, I’ll explain it using simple examples. Otherwise, stay with me, you might be able to share here or learn new perspectives.”
James Alenteal presents A subtle conversion rate & response booster from 3 masters. posted at James Alenteal’s Conversion Rate Clinic, saying, “Article on increasing blog & website opt-ins.”
Brett presents Are You Making The Most Of Google’s Search Statistics posted at Monetize Your Blog, saying, “Google Webmaster Tools is a great resource to optimize the search traffic to your blog.”
Pearl presents Interesting Posts Around the Web – Jan 4 posted at Interesting Observations, saying, “Check out his blog, I am sure you will like it.”
Troy presents All The Free Domains You Could Want posted at The Free Website Project, saying, “If you pay for only one thing on for website, make it a good top-level domain name. Free TLD services are hard to find, but I’ve compiled a little list here.”
Steve Osborne presents Blog Writing Tip: “Has Got” Has Got to Go posted at TheWritersBag.com, saying, “Two phrases should be banished from the English language: has got and have got. The contraction forms of these phrases (“he’s got,” “I’ve got,” etc.) should also be banned. Why?”
Lin Burress presents Social Networking Tips For All You Whiners posted at Telling It Like It Is, saying, “What does your blog offer that would make anyone want to visit, comment, subscribe or link to your blog? Who are you anyway? Does anyone even know you or know that your blog exists? You can join all the social networking sites that you want, but it won’t do you one bit of good unless you actively participate in getting to know your fellow bloggers on a more personal basis.”
Dan-O presents Learn the Proven Money Making Keys to Successful E-commerce posted at Danogo.com – Discover. Inspiring. Media, saying, “Outlines the critical factors used by sites like Amazon and eBay that can be used to put together an online money making business.”
Christine presents Monetizing Your Website Through Inspiration and Desire posted at Me, My Kid and Life: An American Single Mom Living in France, saying, “There are several ways of making money from a website. You could sell a product or offer a service. Another way to make money from a website would be to place ads on your site which bring an income when people visit the site – which creates page impressions – or when people click on the ad itself, hence a Click Through Rate (CTR). This article will discuss making money from your website from the ads which you place on your site.”
Marc Berry presents What is Web 2.0? posted at techne-eikon.com, saying, “Web 2.0 is not a suite of technologies, but rather the people of the internet, and what they are doing with those technolgies. This is the first in a series of articles that will be exploring the nature and style of this brave new, people oriented internet.”
Alfa King presents Enhancing your authority posted at Alfa King Memories, saying, “It’s the aim of every blogger to become an authority in the blogoshpere. For whatever reasons; little does it matter. And once they accede to a certain level, it’s legitimate to want to reach the summum bonum.”
Aaron Anderson presents Are These 3 Blogging Mistakes Costing You Readers? posted at Online Business Blog, saying, “There are a ton of blogs that are basically asking there readers to leave. They are so confusing that it actually starts to give you a head ache. And it’s not something that would be all that difficult to fix. All that matters is consistency. Consistency not only in what you write… but also in the way you present it.”
Brian Terry presents The Law of Necessity posted at Big Selling Website Design, saying, “What motivates people to buy and then by pushing all the right buttons increase your sales conversions.”
Brett presents SEO – Backlink Anchor Text Optimization posted at Make Money Blogging, saying, “Learn how to make the most of your backlinks. Its on of the key planks in a strategy to gain for search engine traffic.”
Dave Origano presents Be Likeable And Be Controversial – Writing Your Way To Success posted at Online Marketing & Exponential Business Growth Blog, saying, “Millions of new websites, blogs and businesses are made every single year. The world is changing at such a speed almost noone can keep up-to-date with everything. There are so many solutions to any problem you have, that standing out from the crowd is slowly becoming the only way to grow your business.”
Graphic Identity presents 10 Enhancement Ideas to Optimize your Design Blog Topic posted at Graphic Identity Tutorials, saying, “We often read SEO tips for general blogs. I was so curious how to implement those tips and tricks to my design blog topic. Because a design blog niche (like any other niches) always has uniqueness in context, and therefore I always experiment and doing trial and error to improve my blog. Here are 10 enhancement ideas to optimize your Design Blog Topic.”
IMZ2H presents Make your own Wordpress widgets in 10 easy steps! posted at Internet Marketing Zero 2 Hero Blog, saying, “A tutorial I wrote about how to make your own custom Wordpress widgets. As easy as copy / paste / change a couple of words. You can put almost anything into a widget (provided it fits into your sidebar).”
Chris Christensen presents Twitter and TwitterPod posted at Inside Chris’s Head, saying, “Use Twitter to connect to your readers and other bloggers. This is a review of TwitterPod.”
FitBuff presents DVT Symptoms – Do You Have Any of These? posted at FitBuff.com’s Total Mind and Body Fitness Blog, saying, “Blogging isn’t a very high contact sport, but new research indicates we may be at increased risk of DVT (it’s not just limited to frequent fliers anymore). Check these symptoms to see if you’re suffering from any, so you can catch it before it’s too late…”
That concludes this edition. Submit your blog article to the next edition of resource for bloggers using our carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.
This was the last edition held on this blog. This is the rule of the game. The next 4 editions will be hosted on Simonne’s blog, All Tips and Tricks.
The next edition of Resource for Bloggers Carnival will be held on 26th January. The submission deadline will be on 25th January.
Thank you all for participating to the 5th edition of Resource for Bloggers Carnival.
Technorati tags: blog carnival, bloggers, article for bloggers, blogging.
January 13th, 2008
I’ve started My lucky number 13 four month ago as a personal blog. That time I didn’t know too much what involves a blogging activity and what skills I must have. I just thought that I’ll start the blog and I’ll learn on the way. I’ve write some posts, but I wasn’t satisfied neither about my articles content or the style I’ve used to write them. I had the feeling that something is missing. So I’ve started to read a lot of other blogs, especially blogging related, to figure out what did I do wrong.
If you take a look at my Categories, you will see that the Blogging category is more populated than the others. That’s because I begin to like to write about blogging and everything related and I think I’ll focuse on these kind of articles. Even my articles are still inexpertly (at least that’s how I see them) I think that some practice and perseverance will help me. I know that there are many (too many) articles blogging related, but I still discover that there are many unknown and obscure things for many bloggers, so I think if I understand them, why not to share with my readers?
I want to mention some blogs/bloggers from where I’ve learned a lot about blogging and, in my opinion, those blogs should be considered the ABC of blogging for every person who starts a blog.
1. Skelliewag.org written by Skellie, is by far the blog from where I’ve learned from every single post. It’s a blog about creating better content. It’s 100% ad and affiliate free and I can add that it is “paid review” free. Skellie’s articles are easy to understand since she includes examples as well. In that blog even the comments are like little posts and a newbie can learn a lot from the comments, too. You can find her best articles (though I think all her articles are great) in the best of Skelliewag in 2007. Skellie also write as guest for other blogs, like ProBlogger and Daily Blog Tips.
2. Problogger is written mostly by Darren Rowse, but you will find a lot of great guest posts too. There are a lot of tips about blogging, making money online, search engine optimization, writing and much more. The articles are easy to read and understand. One month ago I’ve found out that he runs another blog, too, Digital Photography School, another great blog with a lot of valuable posts. I just wonder: does he ever sleep? 
3. Daily Blog Tips are written by a team, but I like especially Daniel Scocco’s posts. He writes a lot of blogging tips, resources and links to make your blog better. If you are new to blogging (and even if you aren’t), you will find here a lot of answers to your questions. It really worth to read this blog.
4. DoshDosh written by Maki (who I’ve just read in his About page that he is a guy and not a girl – sorry Maki, I was fooled by your anime girls from your blog ) is a blog about professional blogging and making money online. There are very interesting articles, very well written and containing a lot of resources, including links to other articles or to forums discussions. Most of the articles are very long, so you must to have some patient to read them entirely.
5. JohnTP is written by JohnTP, of course, who was born on a 13 day. Lucky man! I’ve found his blog recently, but I’ve learned a lot from his articles. The blog is about blogging and making money online, but you will find also articles about SEO, tutorials, and much more. You will find many useful tips to improve your blog, so check it out.
There are also other great blogs about blogging I’ve read, but from several days I’m stuck on these five 
Please leave a comment and share with me/us which blog do you read most. It doesn’t necessarily to be a blogging blog. I think that if we share each other our favorite’s blogs, we can build a huge resource with worth reading blogs. This is the best thing about blogging, except making friends, that many bloggers writes about what they know best and a huge amount of knowledge are floating through the internet, just waiting for us to discover 
What blogs do you like more? From which blog you consider you have learned a lot?
January 10th, 2008
