08 Dec, 2007
Entrecard Free Traffic - The Experience
Posted by: admin In: Uncategorized
Entrecard is a way for you to freely advertise on other blogs by using credits you can earn from visiting other blogs or by the advertisements you show on your own - all completely free!
Background
Entrecard was launched not long ago, and instantly got the blogging communitys interest.
Entrecard is the first and only free exchange network for 125×125 ads. Through this revolutionary platform, you can advertise your own 125×125 Entrecard on any blog in the network, for free, for a number of days.
You pay for this advertising with Entrecard Credits, that you earn for free by networking (a.k.a. visiting blogs and dropping your card for other bloggers).
What will I tell you
Absolutely everything I learned or experienced.
In this post I give a relatively detailed walkthrough of my experiences, which you can use as an evaluation of the Entrecard system. I detail my first 24 hours as an advertiser and publisher of the Entrecard system and the effect after a few days.
Signing up
The system is really easy to sign up to, you use a simple form, after which Entrecard sends you a confirmation e-mail, upon which confirming you are ready to go. The code to put on your site is a simple javascript code, which is easy to install if you have average and above experience in editing Wordpress themes or general web coding skills.
My first 24 hours - The experience
Getting started was really easy, and within 5-10 minutes the first advertiser wanted to advertise on my blog. It was not overly relevant, but it was a quick start, and the 2 credits I received for the advert was well worth it. The price (credits) of my site grows automatically, depending on the amount of traffic and interest I receive.
Strategies for buying adverts
After getting some credits by visiting some blogs and dropping my card, I started buying up advertising space on the recently added blogs. All blogs start out by only costing 2 credits, so even well trafficked sites are easy to buy at a very low rate in the beginning.
I “purchased” a few adverts on 2-credit sites, and they did in fact provide a lot more value than that, especially if you consider that my blog went from 2 credits to 15 credits per advertisement and my site was fully booked up untill the 18th of December (14 days) in less than 2 hours.
You could also do a bit of research on each blog you want to advertise on. At the very least, visit it, have a look around (remember to click on the “drop a card” to earn credits) and weigh in several things, such as:
- The placement of the ad (Is the ad prominently placed at the top like here, or in the very bottom)
See http://www.heavilytrafficked.com/ as a great example, it is shown at the very top - The size of the site (Amount of pages on the site, an indication of age and possible traffic-indicator as well)
- Amount of visitors (We’re now approaching the bit more thorough research area)
- Pagerank (Yes, I know, Google PR is currently being very discredited, but try to use it as a gauge on how Google weighs the site, and use that as part of your evaluation).
What to pay attention to
Visit the blogs you want to advertise to before purchasing an advert. At 2 credits you can gamble (it takes about 1 minute to get 2 credits by clicking) but some more expensive blogs might have a lot of interest, but the actual entrecard is placed at the very bottom of the page or is mixed in with a lot of other advertising.
Personally, I use this system as I believe it should be used. I have placed it front and center (well, to the right actually) at the very top of the sidebar. That is the least I can do. If someone wants to advertise on your blog, you should promote it proudly and not hide it somewhere like you were ashamed of it. Its a bad investment for the advertiser, and it sends a bad signal to other investors, and the visitors themselves. (Well, that is my opinion anyway).
What is missing - the cons
I would really wish that the system was set up for multiple blogs/sites. I have several sites to which I could offer advertising and then promote individually through the same system. In my opinion, its a big setback in an otherwise very interesting and promising system.
It is fully functional at this time, I read about some problems in the forums about early bugs, but all seem to have been ironed out so far.
Quick notes
- Within the first 24 hours, I gained a lot of credits, which I instantly used to purchase traffic on a range of blogs, some more costly than others, but I wanted to see how much it would gain me.
- Actual traffic gained via the system (according to Google Analytics): 92 unique visitors
- My ad spaces was sold out (for the first 14 days) within 3 hours approximately.
- I found 10+ blogs that was interesting for more than a quick glance and 5+ that I actually subscribed to their feed.
Conclusion
Entrecard is a very interesting system that can bring a lot of targeted traffic very easily to your site “for free”, and you can find a lot of interesting blogs in the process.
The system is very easy to use, and you do not pay any money for the experience, so its easy to experiment without any consequences.
Try it out, and remember to drop your card on my blog or purchase advertising right here on tutorialvine.com 
