Is Entrecard the small blog heaven?
Entrecard is my major source of traffic. I would prefer search engine traffic, but traffic is traffic. There are a few things that could go wrong with Entrecard. There is a debate going on, about how being a member of Entrecard could actually take a toll on your search engine ranking, but I didn’t have any ranking in the first place so I am not able to see the effects of something like this; maybe down the line.
The amount required to advertise on my blog has gone up a lot recently. The amount of credits required to advertise on ones blog fluctuates daily, and is related to the amount of drops one receives. To receive a card, for someone to drop a card on you, they must visit your blog. So as the number of visitors Entrecard sends to you increases, so does the cost to advertise on your blog. In total, I have received about 1400 visits to my blog in the past three weeks from Entrecard. I dropped 1361 cards and had about 1069 cards dropped on me.
When you drop a card or someone drops a card on you, you receive a credit. You can use these credits to advertise your card on other blogs. The more credits you have the more advertisements you can place on other people’s widgets. Entrecard also has a marketplace. You can use your credits like a currency to purchase custom design logos, long term advertising, reviews, custom articles etc. You can also make your services available for pay.
To get the most out of Entrecard you must be active; u must drop cards and advertise regularly.
What I do is:
-Advertise on blogs that have a higher Alexa ranking than mine, more readers than mine and many RSS subscribers.
If an ad works, I buy it again even if I have to pay more the second or third time.
-Advertise on new Blogs. When a blog enters the system it only costs 2 credits to place ads on them; so I try and buy as many cheaper ads as I can. Cheap does not necessarily mean low value.
I divide my credits and advertise on new and older blogs. If I can afford it and there is space for advertising on their blog, I try and return the favour and buy an ad from the blogs that advertise on mine.
What I will start doing is writing recommendations for other Blogs, and perhaps get some for mine.
You can also read the firts post I wrotte about entrecard a couple of months ago:
Increase Traffic with Entrecard
