No nonsense approach to making money on the Internet
I came across a funny video today about the coming of the second web bust. I don’t spend a lot of time on Youtube even though I should because I’m sure this vid is getting a lot of traffic. I’m graphically challenged 
Well since they said to blog about this video I had to blog it
As I’ve posted previously I’ve been having some decent luck with driving traffic utilizing the new service Entrecard. Entrecard allows you to design your own card which will be displayed when you advertise on other blogs. I initially just opened up Fireworks and through something together quickly. I should mention I’m graphically challenged. I can use the software, its the ideas for designs that I have problems with. Needless to say the design I through together was not stellar.
Some bloggers will not approve your ad to run if you don’t have a decent looking card. Well this is why when Anthony volunteered to offer his card design services, I sent him an email immediately asking for his help. I did not really know what I wanted in a design so I just asked Anthony to see what he could come up with that complemented this site. Anthony does this in his spare time, so it took him a couple of days and then he sent me a card and asked what I thought. I thought it looked excellent and looked a lot better than the piece of crap my limited abilities allowed.
The card Anthony Designed for me.
So if you are using Entrecard( if you are not you should be) and you need a great card developed then look up Anthony, he will do a great job for you at a decent price. He did have some free spots still available at the time of this writing, but even if he does not have any free ones left, his prices are very reasonable and would be a good investment for any site trying to promote themselves utilizing entrecard.
Anthony has provided a discount for BruceHopkins.net readers. Just mention you read it here and use the coupon code brucehopkins when you order for a 10% discount on design services.
I posted on the additional benefits with Entrecard a couple of weeks ago. My first reactions to this little program for sharing web business cards was positive. Guess what, unlike Blogrush, they are still positive. I’m seen a decent increase in traffic since joining this little program.
Your Account
| 611 credits in your account | 53 credits to advertise on your blog |
| 709 cards you dropped | 352 cards dropped on you |
| 129 clicks via ads you placed | 79 clicks from your blog to others |
| 227 clicks from entrecard.com to you | |
| 18 ads you bought | 9 ads bought from you |
As you can tell I’ve had over three hundred visitors from Entrecard during this period. I’m not totally sure the time frame for the stats, but I believe its for the past 7 days. If someone has other information contrary to this please let me know.
I just started dropping a decent amount of cards the past two days so I can build up a few credits. The entire Entrecard system works on a currency of Entrecard Credits and its what you use to purchase adverts on high profile blogs such as John Chow or Problogger.
All blogs start out with a cost of two credits to advertise, then that number increases as more people drop cards on your blog. The system requires the user to actually visit your blog to drop their card, so you get visitors from that. Of course these visitors are other bloggers in the system who are trying to earn credits, so they mostly swing by drop their card and go onto the next blog. This is exactly what I’ve been doing the past couple of days when I’m earned over 500 of the credits you see listed in my account.
The important numbers are the clicks via ads you placed. I’ve generated 129 visitors from ads placed on other blogs during this period. These are real visitors coming from other blogs to my site. I’m sure a certain number of these are other Entrecard users surfing through the ads building credits, but most are real visitors who may like my blog and stick around for a while. By the way if you are new and have not subscribed then click the RSS image now
You can see that I’ve also generated 79 visitors to other blogs that have chosen to advertise on this site.
Now these are not numbers that will launch me into A-List status, but every little bit helps. I don’t really see the value of Entrecard in the actual traffic, but more so in the community and relationships that are being built by the people involved in this little project. There is an ecosystem growing where not only do people earn credits the ways listed above, but links are being traded for credits and contests are being held for credits. This post is actually in response to the Entrecard contest on the Entrecard blog.
There is also a sense of helping one another out, but commenting on other blogger’s posts, submitting posts to social bookmarking sites or voting on posts. I’ve also had several blogs highlight certain posts on their speed links or other posts and I’ve done the same. This helps everyone’s technorati authority and to increase visibility of their blogs. These actions help everyone out in the community, which means we should all grow our traffic together. Everyone wins by working together.
Now I will have to admit there are a few things that still need work. The number one is the forums. Graham if you are reading this, those are not just going to work out. There are plenty of free forum packages out there that should be utilized. I would not even mind registering in another system and setting my avatar to my Entrecard avatar manually, but if the community is going to continue to communicate then there has to be a better tool for this.
Second thing, some of the credit prices are getting out of hand. At the time of this writing a spot on John Chow costs 181 credits and my little blog here costs 50 credits for a day. This makes it hard for the new people to gain those high profile spots and the traffic that goes along with it. I was lucky as I happened to be logged in right when John Chow joined, so I grabbed a day on his blog for the 2 credits. Considering the number of visitors I received form his blog that day, I could not justify letting go of that many credits for a single day now. Those things are hard to get a hold of. Something has to be done to top out the prices. I don’t know what that is, but at the rate its going in another couple of weeks it will take all my current 600 credits to grab a spot on his blog and probably quite a few others. I would agree to lower my cost to advertise. I would rather having new people able to advertise on this blog, when spots open up.
Technorati tags: entrecard, blogging, generating traffic, a-list, john chow, technorati
