raymondloesch.com

I think I have finally gone off the deep end. I cannot believe I have not posted in almost two weeks! I have been way to busy at my office and I need to make some changes. I am currently working on a video for a new widget that will be posted here in a couple of days, so look for that it should be very interesting. [Tag-Tec]Jack Humphrey[/Tag-Tec] came out with his 2008 version of the Authority Black Book and I have been immersing myself in the wealth of information he has given yet again for free. So what’s going on and what have I been up to? Let me fill you in a little and share my insights and new found information with you.

Entrecard

I have not been dropping cards for the last 4-5 days, I wanted to see how this effects the card drops on my blog. Card dropping on my blog has significantly dropped and my advertising rate plummeted. I have not decided yet which way I will go with this as Entrecard takes up a lot of time and I am still deciding if it is worth the effort. I will get back to you on this one.

Social Authority

I have not been contributing as much as I would like to in this community. I have been keeping up with the Diggs and the Stumbles if I like the posts and sites that I am visiting. This is a great community of people that are looking to help others like them that are trying to earn a living online. If you have not joined the network visit us here.

Authority Black Book

Another one from the mind of Jack Humphrey. The Authority Black Book is one of the must reads of 2008, it is a very in depth look at the workings of a successful social marketing blueprint. I have read through it three times and am looking forward to reading it again this time with my handy highlighter at the ready. Yes folks, it is that good. Best of all it is free, you can get it here.

Atomic Blogging

I have purchased Atomic Blogging and studying the accompanying information that I received from them. I want to change the look and feel of a couple of my blog sites and thought that Atomic Blogging would be a good fit. I will let you know the outcome after a couple of weeks of trial and error. Has anyone else used this system and do you like it?

Well that’s about it for now, life is crazy, you never know what is going to come your way. I am starting to learn to try to relax a little more and get a little more sleep as of right now I am currently getting about 5 hours a night and would like to try to get to at least 6 hours a night(at least on the weekends). I have decided to not even look at my computer on sundays until all of my family is tucked away into bed. I want to spend as much time with my children as I can as they are getting older fast and soon will probably not want to spend any time with me or my wife.

I have to apologize for not posting for a couple of days, I have been busy socializing. Whether the method you use to Earn A Living Online is Affiliate Marketing, Google Adsense, or Product Creation one of the most important things you have to do is to get traffic. Social Marketing is one of the quickest ways to build an online presence, and that is what I have been spending a lot of time doing lately. Social Marketing or Networking helps to get your brand out there and build links to your sites, and in some cases will teach you a thing or two. This is what I have been doing the past couple of days….

Entrecard – I have had a quite bit of traffic due to Entrecard and the major dropping of my cards I have been doing.

SocialAuthority – Jack humphrey’s new Social Network has been incredible in bringing traffic and gaining a lot of new friends in the Social Marketing crowd. I cannot believe the resources that are available there just for the asking.

StumbleUpon – Been spending a lot of time Stumbling sites to gain some authority

Technorati – Faving some of the great sites that I have been coming across.

That’s just to name a few of the things going on. Take advantage of the socializing that is going on around you and it will pay you back tenfold, but be careful and do it with the intention of actually participating in the process and not just spamming these Social Networks.

Have a favorite Social Network that you subscribe or belong to? Why not share it here and let some of us benefit from your experience.

Anybody else having problems with Entrecard? I try to drop my cards on other sites but I cannot do it using Firefox browser. I can do it using Internet Explorer, but for some reason when I use Firefox I get “Get It” instead of “Drop Yours”. While I am pointing out problems I am having with Entrecard I should also mention for you Entrecard users out there, How about looking at your dashboard once in a while. I still adverts waiting to be approved or denied since January 3rd, I don’t want to cancel as I think this will have a negative impact on my Advert rating. On the plus side I do like the new changes that the folks at Entrecard have come up with, the new way of displaying the inbox is very cool, and I like the fact that I can add my favorites.

UPDATE —> Thanks to Walt at 365tofreedom.com

Answer to my problem solved: clear your cache, close firefox, then open it again and log back into Entrecard…everything should be back to normal.

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 [Tag-Tec]StumbleUpon[/Tag-Tec] 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.

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 [Tag-Tec]Entrecard[/Tag-Tec] 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 [Tag-tec]Stumble[/Tag-Tec] and [Tag-Tec]Digg[/Tag-tec] 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.