raymondloesch.com

Hey friends, it’s been about a month now using Entrecard and I just wanted to take a post to fill you in on what that has meant to raymondloesch.com - Earning a Living Online. Next to StumbleUpon and Organic Search it’s been holding it’s own in terms of bringing in the traffic. here are my stats as of today:

As you can see the stats are pretty good, although I don’t think these stats are for the whole month as I know I dropped more than 1,914 cards. Speaking of which I had my first 300 card drop day yesterday, I can’t believe I was able to reach that mark as I tend to read most blogs I drop a card on, It took over 6 hours to drop 300 Entrecards. I don’t think I will be able to do that again, although with the new script I picked up from TechiePortal.com I just may be able to hit that number again. The script opens a new EntreCard site on pressing the Win+Z button, you should definitely check this one out. The stats claim that I have advertised on 28 sites, I know that is wrong also, I know I have advertised on at least twice that and still have 20 adverts pending a couple from as far back as Jan 3. I am afraid to cancel these adverts I think that may hurt my stats someow, just don’t know how yet.

If anybody can make sense of the stats please drop me a line, I would like to have a better understanding of how they arrive at some of their numbers. Is Entrecard bringing quality visitors to my site? I don’t have the full answer to that yet, but I can tell you I have made quite a few friends, found some great blogs to subscribe to, increased my RSS subscribers and have learned a few new things. So all in all being an Entrecard member has been a tremendous benefit to me and my blog. The biggest benefit I see to being a member of Entrecard is having your blog seen by people who might not otherwise find your blog. I advertise on as many blogs as I can, some bring good traffic and some bring little traffic, but they all at least bring some traffic.

Finally I wanted to give a big thumbs up to CavemanConclusion.com for the ingenious little trick he has going on with his Entrecard Widget. Half of the Entrecard sites you visit try to hide the widget at the bottom of their site, so you will at least read through to get to it. Now I understand the reasoning behind this, you want your visitors to see what is actually on your site. The rest of us proudly put it above the fold so it easy to find. Cavemanconclusion.com makes his widget jump around a few times before you can actually click to drop your card, I love this. I don’t recommend that others do this as the novelty will wear off very quickly, but it is very cool so please do go and check it out.

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Hi Friends, Hope all is well with you and you are enjoying your Holidays. It’s been a few days since my last post due to the overwhelming demand of my time from the job and family obligations brought on by the Holidays. This week I have been playing with a new web service called Entrecard. If you have not heard of it or have and just not have gotten into it yet, Let me fill you in on what is going on in the world of Entrecard and what my observations have been over the past week.

First, what is Entrecard and how does it pertain to the world of Bloggers. If you belong to a Chamber of Commerce or a Small Business Association you have been to a networking event. What these networking events do is allow members to network with each other, share triumphs, failures and basically learn from each others successes and failures. One of the key features of these meet and greets is to pass around your business card and hopefully drum up some business. This in a nutshell is what Entrecard is all about. You sign up your blog at Entrecard.com, place the widget on your site, visit other sites that have the Entrecard Widget and drop your card.

With Entrecard you get out of Entrecard what you put into it. The best way to utilize Entrecard is to log in to your dashboard, click on campaign and start choosing blogs to go to and drop your card on their sites. Soon you will get other sites wanting to advertise on your site, you earn credits by dropping your card onto the widget on the other sites and by other sites advertising on your site. You pay for these advertisements with the credits you earn, the newer the site is to Entrecard the lower the credits needed to advertise on these sites.

So now that you have your Internet Business Card, here are a few pointers on how to maximize Entrecard and bring more traffic to your blog. What I do each day is log in to my Entrecard account and check the campaigns section, I usually check the most recent section. This shows the latest 30 sites that registered with Entrecard, and usually these are the cheapest in terms of credits it cost to advertise on their site.

When you first sign up for Entrecard you will be on this list and other sites will see you and advertise on your site, for the same reason the cost to advertise is very little credits when you first start out. When these people choose to advertise with your site they go to a queue in your dashboard where you can approve them or not. As a rule I usually approve everyone unless they are not appropriate for my readers, I always go to their site and check out the site to make sure they are appropriate for my readers and while I am there I drop my card and earn another credit.

When you drop your card for someone, by clicking ‘Drop yours’ on the bottom of someone’s widget, your card will be displayed in their inbox when they log into Entrecard. The Entrecard member can click through to visit your site via your card in their inbox. I use this on a daily basis, what I do is click on the cards in my inbox and visit the site, then drop my card on their widget then click on the ad to check out the next site and drop my card on their site. I follow these advertisements until they run out and then go to the next card in my inbox. You can rack up quite a few credits doing this as well as find some very interesting blogs that you might want to visit on a regular basis or even sign up for their RSS feed. If I like the site or a particular post I will Stumble and Digg the post, I feel this is a nice way to pay back to the community.

In the image above you can see the Inbox, the key is to keep on top of it and check these sites out. Also in the image above you can see my stats, I have been in Entrecard for a little over a week and have had over 200 visitors thanks to Entrecard. To put this in perspective I have been displaying the Blogrush Widget on my site for three months and had only 16 visitors from Blogrush. Might be time to rethink that piece of real estate on my blog. Entrecard is turning out to be a fun little community to be a part of that is growing each and every day. I have found some really great blogs that I might have never found thanks to Entrecard.