Crafting a Successful Entrecard Strategy
About every 2.3 seconds a new, revolutionary – take your business to the next level without working – tool comes on-line. Many of these tools aren’t working as promised, mush like the ‘rushing of the blogs’ by Reese a few months back.
However there are a few that begin to offer incredible value to for bloggers and on-line entrepreneurs. One such tool is Entrecard. It’s the better version of a traffic exchange program. As Patric Altoft, on BlogStorm, says it’s “the widget that actually sends traffic.”
The Entrecard network uses credits, which can be sent to anyone on the network using the user’s email address. A credit comes from either dropping a card or receiving a card. Earning credits from dropping card encourages the users to visit blogs within the Entrecard network (real traffic). Second, allowing other blogs to advertise on your blog’s Entrecard widget earns credits.
Although several probloggers like John Chow and Darren Rowse are using Entrecard, Dave at eXtra seems to think the service is on its way out.“Entrecard is another widget fad that is spreading across the blogosphere right now.”
“Once the buzz wears out, [Entrecard’s owner] will sell the site, pocket a decent deal of money, and leave most people with another useless widget on their blogs.”
Yet other bloggers disagree saying Entrecard has increased traffic to their blog and being part of the network encourages repeat visitors. If its the visitors you might be looking for from Entrecard, here’s a few tips for success.
1) Advertise on Only the Best Blogs
There are two levels of thought for advertising on the ‘best’ sites. The first idea is advertising on the new or cheap sites. Generally the cost of having your ad on a new blog is 2 credits. With this low amount used, you can afford advertising on hundreds of blogs. Check the “Most Recent Tab” as much as possible and find relevant sites for your ad. Every time there’s a new blog, advertise on it.
The second idea of the ‘best’ blogs means blogs with the widget ‘above the fold.’ This means advertise on blogs where your ad will be seen. But this means finding sites with the widget above the fold and checking back to see if the widget has moved.
2) Put the Widget on All of Your Blogs
Most bloggers have multiple blogs, get an Entrecard for each of your blogs to see which blog it works best on. However, Entrecard does have a quality control in-place, so check to see if each blog meets the requirements for Entrecard. Second, as of now, Entrecard requires an email address for each Entrecard, so you’ll have to have multiple emails.
3) Drop and Network
You earn a credit from visiting a blog and dropping your Entrecard; however, most users drop and run. This drop-and-run refers to users bouncing to a blog, dropping a card, and visiting the next blog solely to earn more credits.
Instead visit the blogs in the Entrecard network and contribute to her blog by commenting, adding her blog to your blogroll, and writing about her posts. It’s the blogger who network — they’re the successful bloggers.
4) Move the Widget Higher
By having the widget be one of the first things visitors see, you can command more credits from other bloggers wanting to advertise on your blog. Second, this makes other Entrecard Users more likely to visit your site more often. Yes, that includes the drop-and-run visitors.
5) Be Patient
When you do create an account, you’ll be asked to approve adverts for other bloggers. Wait for the credit cost to move higher, which means you’ll earn more credits from others advertising on your site.
Finally, Entrecard isn’t the super pill for your blog; it’s just one more tool for networking and driving traffic to your site. At the end of the day, it’s the blogs that give tremendous value to the readers and advertisers that profit the most, so focus o giving tremendous value.
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Comments
Entrecard is not a fad, any more than MyBlogLog or BlogCatalog is, because they’re all social networks. They’ve been around for years, and I aim to see to it that Entrecard is not only around for years, but becomes the de-facto tool for bloggers to build and network their blog.
I have some Entrecard tips and tricks you might want to check out. I am also advertising on blogs no matter what the widget placement is. There are some blogs which have it well beneath the fold but they do get some traffic.
Wow, you got a comment from the Entrecard entrepreneur himself. I agree with Graham, once they sort out all the technical glitches plaguing the system right now, EC should take off in a big way. Its growth is currently stalling a bit for some reason.
I agree with all of the suggestions but I think entrecard needs to work out the credit pricing system. Since prices for “advertisment” will depend on how active a blogger is in entrecard, what happens is that there are some sites that do not have much value in terms of traffic or whose P.R is only 1 or 0 but they cost a lot of ec in order that you could advertise in them. This does not make sense at all. The sites p.r ranking, alexa ranking and other acceptable measurment of a blog’s sucess should all play a part in the pricing of the “advertisment” and not just based solely on how active a blogger is in entrecard.
I found your site on technorati and read a few of your other posts. Keep up the good work. I just added your RSS feed to my Google News Reader. Looking forward to reading more from you.
Aaron Wakling