EntreCard
Posted on May 12th, 2008 by Preston under Reviews
Entrecard is the bloggers traffic exchange. Specifically made to hone to a bloggers needs, Entrecard is a great way to get free traffic to your website. Like any other online traffic exchanging system, Entrecard has it’s high and low points. Hopefully with the information I am about to provide you, you will be able to make a final decision on whether you will decide to use this program.
The great part of Entrecard is that it is a very simple setup, and anyone wishing to use it can get it up and running in minutes. There is no complex form or html code to put on your site. To get going just sign up, verify your email address, choose the image you want to use for your site, and insert the small html code onto your page anywhere. That’s it, you’ve set it up, Entrecard is installed and ready to use on your site.
Now that you’ve got it set up, you will probably get a few advertising requests in the next hour or two. This is normal because your blog costs only a few credits to advertise on currently. When a new blog joins, it only costs 2 EntreCredits to advertise on. Each time an advertisement is bought, that number doubles. When you first join you will get a few advertiser requests because 2 EntreCredits is a very small price to pay for advertisement. After a while you will casually rest at a cost somewhere near 32 EntreCredits, sometimes a bit lower.
As for actually earning these EntreCredits, there are many ways to do so. You get 1 EntreCredit for each blog that you “drop” your EntreCard at, and 1 for each other blogger that “drops” their card on your blog. ”Dropping” means visiting the blog, finding their EntreCard widget and clicking the “drop” button. You also earn 25% of the advertising credits you earn on your blog. This means if someone pays 100 EntreCredits to advertise on your blog, you will earn 25 credits just for letting it run.
On top of the cheap advertising and easy usability, their forums also provide a great place to expand and meet other blogmasters. While you most likely won’t get any real customers for anything you are selling, you can make friends with those who have users that might. Perhaps you will meet someone willing to do a linkback, or even a full article about your site. Even if you don’t post in the forums, if you are an active “card-dropper” your image is shown to the owner of the blogs you drop at every day. The owner may see you frequently and check in on your site to see if it’s any good.
One issue stands out above all else on EntreCard, the quality of traffic. While normally we take a neutral stance on traffic quality, this is one of our few exceptions. Nearly all traffic you get to your blog from EntreCard is from other bloggers using EntreCard. The only reason you get hits is because they want to hit the little “drop” button on your blog. Some may view for a little bit, but most won’t stay. Even if a regular person clicks your image on anothers site, it takes them not to your actual site, but to your EntreCard page. If they decide they still want to see the site, then they must click on your URL listed on the page, this concept gives very low conversions.
One last note I have is… DON’T GET ADDICTED TO ENTRECARD!!! Many webmasters think EntreCard is good, just like you should after reading this, but some of them use it as their primary source for traffic. This is a bad(actually horrible) thought and should be immediately omitted from your mind. EntreCard is not the solution to your traffic troubles and should be used just for a few spare hits here and there. If you start getting bad or no conversions, just remove it, don’t waste valuable space on your blog for it. You shouldn’t have to put serious amounts of time into EntreCard to make it work for you, if you are, you should stop using it.
EntreCard gets $3.50/$5.00 simply because the traffic lacks any real users, and conversions are hard to get from their bounce page. Other than that the service is wonderful and an excellent idea for anyone entering into the blog world. If you have a blog, you should have EntreCard.
May 14th, 2008 at 2:18 am
It’s funny how people request to advertise without even looking at who they’re advertising on. I had an account a week before my site was even up and I was already getting 2-3 requests a day. Approved all of them and got free credits LOL
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May 14th, 2008 at 3:03 am
Thanks for this post, because before reading it I’ve never really understood what EntreCard was.
I agree with you: there are lots of people addicted to EntreCards on the net; it’s amazing!
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May 14th, 2008 at 9:25 am
Thanks for the informative review. I just started a blog and am very new to the whole experience. I had never heard of EntreCard. If I saw a link for it I would have thought it was some sort of restaurant loyalty program. I am going to look into it because you said it was so easy to set up and use. I am not a techie by a long shot, but this sounds like something that I could do.
May 19th, 2008 at 3:01 pm
Entrecard is alright, but doesn’t bring me near as much traffic as I expected. You need Tons of EC to get yourself anywhere, but its a good source (as cronus stated) for a few hits here and there.
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May 19th, 2008 at 10:54 pm
Like I had posted on your contest, this is the post I had read, EntreCard sounds very enticing and I’m just getting ready to hop on over and check it out for myself! Thanks for the great advertisement review!
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May 20th, 2008 at 1:14 am
Great review. I haven’t started with Entrecard and I don’t intend to get addicted to it. I will check it out sometime though.
May 20th, 2008 at 3:51 am
Entrecard is very great.I think its one of the many bloggers wish to read like the entrecard.well more power to you guys.