10 Simple Ways to Squeeze the Most Out of Entrecard for Your Greater Advantage

Ok, so you've taken the plunge and signed up for Entrecard.  You read my previous article, "Entrecard Madness - My First 24 Hours" and decided that you really need the traffic.  You need the traffic so badly that you're going to risk life and limb, focus and attention, and, possibly, increased symptoms of ADD, ADHD, OCD or Depression, in order to get it.

Well, Congratulations...!

HOW YA DOIN? HOW YA DOIN? HOW YA DOIN?

So being the kind of person that I am, I thought I would create a Top 10 kind of list of things to do in order to both save time and maximize your efforts while using Entrecard.  In other words...

Get In, Hit Hard and Get Out.
So, here they are...in no particular order (wrong!)

10 Simple Ways to Squeeze the Most Out of Entrecard for Your Greater Advantage

The Following Assumes You Already Have an Account

1. Definitely Have a 125x125 Ad Graphic Made for Your Card.  If you need one, I'll help you make one in exchange for a link or a post pointing here.  Otherwise, you can try Caveman's blog, "Caveman Conclusion."  In that post, he makes a "backlink for payment" optional, and I don't.  I guess I'm not that nice but, somehow, I'm nice enough to point you to him, though.  Ya get my drift?  We just value our time differently.

   Either way, GET A GRAPHIC for your Entrecard or people will realize your an amateur.  A graphic will help you hide that fact... for a little while, anyways.

2. Make Sure Your Entrecard Widget is NEAR THE TOP of Your Blog.

   Some people are trying to come up with ways to get "chain droppers" (people who drop their card and then just click the ad to go to the next site) to stay on their blogs longer.  One person suggested putting the widget at the very BOTTOM so people would have to scroll past stuff in order to find it.

   Well, let's think this through for a second:  if you're chain dropping (which is perfectly legitimate) just to rack up your credits (1 credit per card drop), are you REALLY in the mood to stop and peruse blogs?  Theoretically, maybe.  In reality, no.  When you're on a mission, you're on a mission.  And anyone who has to play "Where's Waldo?" looking for the Entrecard widget can just as easily take any easy route back to Entrecard home page and start over.
   But most importantly, who's gonna want to advertise on your blog if your Entrecard widget is jammed half a mile down the page?  No one.  And that would suck.  So place your widget in a RESPECTABLE place.  Near the top is nice for the advertisers and card droppers - and if placed next to a tantalizing ad or your list of recent posts, that would be good for you, too; as long as it was near the top. 

   Note:  Middle isn't bad, either, but top sidebar area is best. Just keep it fair and reasonable.

3. Drop Cards With Those Who Dropped Cards With You First. 

   (Working in a NEW BROWSER WINDOW and in the DASHBOARD area of your Entrecard back office) Within moments of signing up, you're going to see Entrecards in your INBOX column (to which, by the way, you can subscribe).  Those are from people who just dropped their card to "say hi", hoping you'll click on the card and visit their site.  You want to RIGHT CLICK on each of them and open them all in new tabs (or new windows if you've got an old browser).

   This will not lead to each Entrecard's owner's website but rather to an information page about that Entrecard user.  From there, you can decide whether you want to advertise with them or not but that's for later.  For now, you just want to click on the links leading to their websites.  While you're running down the tabs, clicking to each one, the previous one's are loading. 

   Then you just go back and click "drop card" on each site's Entrecard widget which will earn you like 5-10 credits very quickly.  And remember!  Dropping cards is nothing more than for YOU to get a credit, for YOU to see a widget owner's site, and for YOU to have your ad seen in the site owner's inbox.  Dropping cards has NOTHING to do with accepting or requesting advertising although dropping cards DOES affect advertising costs.

   Note:  Some will argue that "chain dropping" is faster and, therefore, better.  But the reason I suggest you first drop cards with those who dropped cards with you first is because they just proved that they are actively working the system.  You can start chain dropping on the last card in your inbox.

4. Click the Campaign Tab and Choose an Appropriate Category to Advertise. 

   After "card dropping" those who dropped cards with you AND "chain dropping" about 10-20 sites, you'll have 1 credit for each card you dropped and 1 credit for each card that had, in the meanwhile, been dropped on your site widget.  This will give you some credits to start making advertising requests.

   We all know the value of a "good deal" and newbies blogs cost only 2 credits to advertise on them.  But if a lot of cards get dropped on them, then their advertising charge goes up rapidly and their ad queue fills up quickly.  That's really no cause to rush because there'll be new people just like you coming in but it will help get your credits up to get your ad on, at least, 1 blog pretty quickly.

   The question remains as to whether it's better to get your card seen quickly on a bunch of newbie blogs where most of the traffic will be from low-value chain droppers or whether to get on only a couple of newbie blogs and make a few higher-value purchases to get on a more highly travelled blog.  In other words, will 10 ads on newbie bloggers sites for 20-30 credits be any better than 2 ads on 2 sites that cost 15 credits each but have better non-Entrecard traffic?

   I think the latter, but if your blog is eye-popping, and interesting enough, even chain-droppers can be persuaded to stick around a while.  They're only human, after all. 

   So pick a few new Entrecard users' blogs on-the-cheap, and save some credits for a couple of expensive blogs.

5. Quickly Check Blogs Before Advertising On Them. 

   It doesn't matter that they SAY they are relevant, it's up to you to verify.  It's also a good idea to see if their widget is placed fairly or buried near the bottom.  Unless it's placed fairly, it's going to seriously curtail the number of eyeballs you get on your ad and that sucks.  Do this quickly as there are many others doing the same and ad queues can get filled up quickly (limit of 10 ads queued per site).

   Remember to drop your card while you're checking them out for an extra credit but, if you decide to advertise with them, drop the card AFTER you make the advert request or your card drop could make the advert cost go up for you! ;-)

6. Quickly Check Blogs of People Requesting to Advertise With You. 

   It's entirely up to you whether you want to allow UNRELATED ads to appear on your site.  If you do, it would probably mean less of your organic visitors would probably click on that ad when it appears in your widget but it could, at the same time, make your blog appear pretty wierd.  After all, how attractive, and/or sensible, is a "bald Britney Spears" in your sidebar?

   Remember here, as well, to drop your card when checking out Entrecard advert requests for relevance to your blog.
7. Thank Everyone Who Advertises With You Via EntreCard's Messaging. 

   By thanking everyone who advertises with you, you don't exactly get any credits, but you DO get their eyeballs on your card again AND it lets them know, by what you say, that you might be the kind of person they'd want to visit or do business with, again, in the near future.  In short, it can't hurt, and...

   Remember, there's no rule against you including a friendly invitation to do something else such as, "By the way, if you Twitter, feel free to follow me on Twitter and I'll follow you back!"

    

8. Subscribe to the 3 Feeds in Your Dashboard:  Requested Ads, Your Ads and Inbox.

   This will accomplish several things:

   1. Being notified of Entrecard advert requests will allow you to approve them quickly.  This will decrease the likelihood of an advertiser cancelling an ad request due to a concern that you might not get around to it soon, or at all.  Meanwhile, they are watching other juicy ad spots go by for which they might only have sufficient credits were they to cancel the one they placed with you.  The sooner you verify and approve advert requests, the better.
   2. Being notified of what's happening with YOUR Entrecard ad requests allows you, for example, to quickly find other places to advertise should one of your advert requests be rejected.  You spent your credits for a reason - you want them working for you, not just sitting there looking pretty.  The sooner you can replace a rejected advert request, the better.
   3. Being notified of what's happening in your Entrecard Inbox can be useful as it gives you both a way of seeing how steadily the flow of cards dropped at your site remains.  If, most days, you get 20 cards dropped at your site but, next day, there's only three, then you know you have some trouble-shooting to do.  It also reminds you to get back in there and bring up your credit stores by performing Steps 3 through 5.

9. Make Yourself Very Visible in the Forum. 

   START, in the very least, 1 NEW post in each of the (currently 4) main categories.  Also contribute to 3-5 threads authored by other people.  Preferably newer posts so they last longer and, also preferably, where your post will be one of the first three. You may just post naturally as you would anywhere else, too.  These are just guidelines for more traffic but without looking obnoxious.

   Remember, it certainly can't hurt to do the SAME on the Entrecard blog.  Just a few intelligently placed, relevant comments will do.

10. GIVE RECOMMENDATIONS!
    Everyone loves having something nice said about them.  It inspires them to want to be nice to you in return, sometimes.  Recommendations are simply testimonials.  They can be about anything so if you haven't had any direct experience with the site owner, you can still compliment about how nice his or her site looks, how well they write or how something they wrote might have opened your eyes, etc.
    Recommendations can be left by clicking on a persons card WHILE AT ENTRECARD (clicking a card that's displayed on a site's widget will only follow through to the next website).  That will bring you to that person's info page with the recommendation link on the right side.  The rest should be pretty obvious.

START HERE

Leave an EntreCard Recommendation for Me and I Will Leave a Recommendation for You.

If you leave one, you may also leave YOUR EntreCard info in the comment section so that you can exchange recommendations with OTHER EntreCard users who are passing through. 

To get your link to put in the comment section, use the following code, just exchange the x's below with your usernumber:

<p align="center"><font size="4"><a target="_blank" href="http://entrecard.com/details/XXXX">Exchange Reviews with Me at ENTRECARD!</a></font></p>
I WILL be checking them so please keep it real, thanks.

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