Entrecard is a free advertising exchange network founded by Graham Langdon who was kind enough to answer some questions to help About.com's Guide to Web Logs readers learn how to effectively use Entrecard to drive traffic (and ultimately revenue) to their blogs.
What is the purpose and goal of Entrecard?
The goal of Entrecard is to provide a free platform for promoting your blog to an audience of other ambitious bloggers. To this end we offer a number of popular solutions:
- Dropping your card for others puts your digital business card in their inbox, as a way of saying "I was here, check out my site."
- Purchasing ads for free on any of the 4000+ blogs in the network.
- Forums to provide a chance to interact with thousands of other bloggers in a casual and relaxed atmosphere.
- A shop which allows you to raise awareness of your blog by allowing you to buy and sell blog reviews, SEO consultation, graphic design, and much more.
All of the ads in the network, as well as everything in the shop, is paid for in Credits. You get these credits for free by dropping your card for others, publishing others' ads on your site, and receiving cards that others drop for you.
So, taking all this together, the goal and purpose of Entrecard is to provide you with a totally unique and effective toolbox that you, the blogger, can use for free to promote your blog.
How can Entrecard benefit bloggers? What can Entrecard do for them?
Traffic: Right from the start, Entrecard will bring a steady stream of traffic to your blog. Some of this traffic will be people who find you as a newcomer to their category and be interested to see bloggers writing about the same topic as themselves. Once you start spending your credits on advertising, you'll receive traffic from sites you advertise on. And finally, some traffic will be from people dropping their card for you to earn credits. Don't worry about this traffic too much, you earn a credit too when they drop their card for you, and your site is exposed to someone who otherwise wouldn't be exposed to your site. With the credits you earn, you can immediately start purchasing some advertising on other blogs.
The Shop: There are a number of services available to bloggers in our shop, and you can pay for all of them in credits. Blog reviews are a great way to boost your exposure and get some pointers, Search Engine consultations are a great way to learn from more experienced bloggers how to boost your search engine rankings. Ebooks available to teach you all sorts of tips and tricks. Many of these things are services you wouldn't actually spend money to purchase, but because you can purchase them with Entrecard Credits, why not?
The Forum and Social Network in General: The forum is a great place to chat with other bloggers about anything and everything blogging related, and in doing so motivate other's to check out your blog. When you find bloggers you like you can favorite them, and they can favorite you. The deeper you get into our social network, the more traffic your going to get from the site itself as members reach your profile more often.
What should bloggers know or understand about Entrecard before joining?
Before joining, you should have a 125x125 image in PNG format available and ready. You should also be aware that you will receive advertisement requests almost immediately, because the cost to advertise on your blog starts at just 2 credits per day. Your price will increase as you receive more and more drops from other members. Attracting Entrecard members to your site is a great way to quickly raise your price.
Any site that you buy an ad on will display your ad for a full 24 hours, but the most popular blogs can have a wait period of several days. Also, make sure to check various statistics such as Pagerank, Alexa rank, and subscriber count before advertising on any given blog to make sure it aligns with your goals. For best results, advertise with blogs in your category.
Have fun, and if you need any help don't be afraid to ask questions in the forum!
What type of traffic bump can Entrecard members expect to see?
The amount of traffic you will see varies. Members that are very active, who drop lots of cards, buy lots of ads, and chat on our forum can receive hundreds of hits per day from other bloggers. Members who are very inactive, and do not drop cards or interact on our forums, will likely only see about 20 hits per day.
Your Alexa ranking will also improve dramatically. Take a look at a graph of what happened to five sites right after joining Entrecard. (see picture above)
Every single one of these sites is "put on the map" as soon as they install the Entrecard widget!
For new Entrecard users who may be overwhelmed or intimidated by the user dashboard and the various features available, what are the first 5 things a new Entrecard member should do to begin driving traffic to their blogs?
- The first step is to put the widget on your blog by visiting the "Get Code" tab.
- Familiarize yourself with the inbox. It runs horizontally across your dashboard, and lists all the cards that others have dropped for you. Many members take pride in reciprocating drops, or dropping a card on everyone who has dropped one on them. (see picture above)
- Familiarize yourself with your advertisers as they come in. They apply to advertise on your blog, and appear in the column labeled "advertisers." You need to approve or deny each request from an advertiser. When you approve them, they will move to the "on your widget" column, meaning their ad is scheduled to run on your site. (see picture above)
- Start talking to people in our forums. You'll start getting a reputation immediately, and people will start visiting your blog in a pretty social way. Everyone here wants to help and get to know everyone else better. If you don't understand something, just ask. Tons of members will be eager to help.
- Start dropping! Visit other sites in your category via the "campaign" tab, and click the "drop yours" logo on their widgets.
