Free advertising with Entrecard
January 14th, 2008
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
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Entry Filed under: Blogging
This amount of traffic is not bad at all for two weeks. Besides, new blogs can get exposure and increase their brand awareness, even if people don’t click on the cards.
Simonne’s last blog post..Online, Offline, What Difference Does It Make For The Bear?
I agree with you, the best thing is the exposure for new blogs.
Entrecard has been good to me! I’ve made new blogging buddies, got new RSS Subscribers and commenting visitors through Entrecard. That alone makes it worth it to me!
AntiBarbie’s last blog post..What are your Daughters learning from you?
Thanks for getting entrecard in my attention. I’ve found some great blogs through entrecard.
I just joined a few days ago and so far I’ve been impressed.
mikster’s last blog post..A Different Type Of Head Banger
I was impressed too. Not only you got visitors, but you can also meet some great bloggers.
EntreCard is working for me, and I agree with your tips. Also I advertise on sites relevant to my blog.
Nice and informative post, Diana.
Saedel’s last blog post..OpTempo Reviews PlanetSaedel
Thanks for your kind words. I advertise also on relevant blogs.
A few things to consider though.
1. Alexa is a good counter when you’re in the sphere of webmastering or blogging because these people have the toolbar installed but outside that niche it isn’t so great. I have a niche site that gets 4 times as much daily traffic as OpTempo but has a much lower Alexa score.
2. Don’t use EntreCard on sites where you’re running Adsense. You will get your account smart priced and your earnings cut by up to 90%. This is especially critical if you’re developing Adsense using niche blogs
3. Don’t be too concerned about placement. People who want the widget above the fold are mostly serial droppers who don’t stick around but bounce away in less than 30 seconds.
Frank C’s last blog post..BlogRush, BlogFlush - A BlogRush Sucks Update
Thanks for your advices. But I’m not agree with your 3rd point. A blog gets more exposure if it’s ad is in the first visible screen.
Are you 100% sure that entrecard will get adsense smart priced? I’ve thought about using it but adsense is my main source of income. How does one go about finding out if a blog has been “smart priced”?
Bobby Revell’s last blog post..Confessions of a Politically Confused Average American
Any source of traffic that has a high bounce rate will tend to get an Adsense account smart priced. It can be EntreCard, SU or anything else. The rough measure is if your CTR drops below about 2-3% you’re in danger of being smart priced. However, there are some other factors that will allow lower CTR accounts not to be smart priced, such as higher than average conversions for advertisers. You can’t tell when you’re smart priced until you see your income drop 90%. Just another example of Google transparency.
Frank C’s last blog post..What Do You Make an Hour Blogging?
I’m having a good time with my entrecard…c ya around Diana…
nimrodjo’s last blog post..EntreCard Dropper
Well, then I must drop some cards on your blog
Hey, thanks for the link back, and I would like to be another person who says that Entrecard worked for them. I have gotten more comments, visitors, subscribers, and more ever since joining, I higly recommend it.
mc2w’s last blog post..Reasons you Could be Failing in Entrecard
Welcome! And thanks for pointing my point
I find this a very good review.
Many thanks.
Thanks. I’m glad you like it.
Your site doesn’t have to be in English, does it? I have another blog using my mother tongue, same with a few friends and all our sites are running entrecards. Cheers!
Kotsengkuba’s last blog post..It’s snowing cats and dogs!
From their “terms and conditions”: “We will delete accounts that represent websites not in English,…” I didn’t invented this
At Frank C on #3, I totally agree. I placed my entrecard at the bottom of my sidebar. Most of those “Droppers” are dropping just for the sake of dropping. Anyway, I think they’re still EC points so I just let them be.
I have google, now I’m removing all of my adsense blocks. Too bad they now own feedburner, it’s seems I’m still tied with them. Sh*t!
Kotsengkuba’s last blog post..It’s snowing cats and dogs!
Ok, now that I’ve installed Brian threaded comments plugin, you can comment directly to Frank’s comment.
That is a cool post on entre card..! and ya that is neat as well.. well understandable intro.
Thanks! You are as kind as allways
I just signed up with one of my blogs to see how it goes. So far I like what I am seeing, but time will tell.
London Blogger’s last blog post..An Unforgiving Religion – or a Government’s Show of Control?
Well, what do you think after about 2 weeks? Do you like it?
Perhaps I should also try the EntreCard, people seem to be happy with it.I recently wrote an article about marketing a blog.These are strategies that I personally use.It seems to be working according to my PR and alexa ranks.
Tom At The Home Business Archive’s last blog post..By: Les
You should try it. Did you try it?
Thanks for the link! you have a great blog going here. Entrecard is definitely one of the best ways to advertise your site with such little effort. It’s becoming one of my favorite advertising sites, thanks again for the link!
mastersofseo’s last blog post..rssHugger
Welcome and thanks for your kind words! I think I have advertised on your blog
Honestly, I think that entrecard, just like other traffic widgets it a loss of time, unless you think getting 200 more visitors per day is worth it.
Jonathan’s last blog post..Emilia Fox photos - nice shoot
Jonathan, for a new blog, 200 visitors/day is a great number though.
Entrecard is unquestionably one of very the best ways to advertise your.
Thanks for the link.
Welcome! I’m glad you agree with me
[...] Diane from 134u.com wrote a post Free advertising with Entrecard. Though I’ve seen several posts about entrecard, this one is the most well written and [...]
I think the positive trade-off, besides more blog traffic, is finding lots of cool blogs like your own.
webduck’s last blog post..I Am A Certified Honest Blogger!
You have absolutely right. Thanks for your appreciation
An unusual gap in between.. where are u?
Sorry for missing, I was ill. And my son, too.
Hey Diana,
that’s pretty good traffic, but does it stick? Do they subscribe to your blog or something?
Without that, the traffic is just as useless as that from Stumble and Diggs ‘most popular’ pages. Been there a couple of times and I rarely get a subscriber out of those visitors.
-Dave
Dave Origano’s last blog post..Do You REALLY Want To Be a Rockstar In Your Niche? - A Lesson In Consequences
You have your ad on a blog for 24 hours. It’s quiet impossible that all visitors just came and go just like that. I think this is different.
[...] submission from Diana13, also posted at My lucky number 13: Free advertising with Entrecard. Diana has a good advice for you: If your blog is new, just launched or you have low traffic, [...]
Entrecard is just one piece of the puzzle.Is worthless if you don;t have good content
treadm ratings’s last blog post..Lifespan TR 500 Treadmill review