Make Money Online (part 8) - Entrecard Phenomenon

In my post How to use widgets for increasing traffic I described 4 basic social networking sites. BlogRush, BlogCatalog, MyBlogLog and BUMPzee. Main source of traffic from these sites was from Last visitors widget, except of BlogRush with Other blog posts widget. In this post I want to write about next social networking site Entrecard.

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You can see Entrecard widgets on many blogs now. It is phenomenon of last year in the blogger world. From my experience, Entrecard can very successfully increase traffic, especially for new blogs or sites. Entrecard has 3 basic ideas:

1. Earn credits from adding link on my site to another site.
2. Earn credits from dropping other widget cards.
3. Earned credits I can use to buy ads for my site.

It is very simple view on the system. Entrecard has much more possibilities how to earn or spend credits. More info how to work with it you can find bellow or in Entrecard Official E-Book .

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After pressing Sign up now! on Entrecard main page you have to fill registration form. Before filling data prepare your card, 125*125 image, that represents your blog. Make it as attractive, as it is possible, because it must attract visitors to click on it. After filling data and pressing button Signup it is time to add a widget on your blog.

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To add the widget on your blog you need code, that you can add on your blog. To do it, click on link Get code in header of page. Then choose type of widget and copy the code to clipboard. To add it on your blog, go to Blogger pages and add code to template just as you did it while adding AdSense code.

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After successful adding widget on your blog it is time to earn some credits. You can do it simply by dropping card on another blogs, or approving ads on your site. Ad will be shown in your widget for 1 day. Go to Dashboard page, where you will find all necessary links.

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When you want to advertise your blog to spend your credits, go to Campaign page. There you can choose blogs where your ad can be shown. There is important how much credits you can spend. Each blog has own price for advertising. This price is generated from blog popularity. You can advertise on more blogs, but your add will be shown only after approving by owner of site.

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Now I want to describe main advantages and disadvantages of Entrecard.

Advantages

• Excellent source of traffic
• New feature: Add more than one blog to an account
• It is register also new blogs or pages

Disadvantages

• You have to spend a lot of time by dropping cards
• Not very well targeted traffic. A lot of visitors visit your page only for dropping card.

If you try Entrecard is on your decision. And it is also your decision how much time do you spend by dropping cards. My opinion is, Entrecard is very good source of traffic, especially for new blogs.

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Used terms and abbreviations
Social Networking
Communities of people who share interests and activities or who are interested in exploring the interests and activities of others.
Widget
is an element of a graphical user interface (GUI) that displays an information arrangement changeable by the user, such as a window or a text box.

Make Money Online (part 7) - Monetize Blog with AdSense III

In the last post we generated ad code for your blog. Now, it is time to add this code on your pages. From Google AdSense Program Policies you know, that you can add up to 3 ads on each page.

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You can do it in 2 manners:

• Straight to blog post With this approach you will add ad, while you are writing new post. Advantage of this manner is, that ad is better inserted into existing text, and can be on the hottest place of blog, as you can see on the heat map from previous post. You can also change position of ads in various posts. Disadvantage of this approach is, that you must know basics of HTML, and your post will be worse editable in Blogger. Next disadvantage is that visitors don't like ads composed in text, and can reconsider, if they return back to your pages in the future. You also must check number of ads for each blog page.
• Update template of blog Second manner is to add your code to template, and it will be shown on each page of blog. Advantage is that you must do it only once. When you add code to header of your page, there are still on good place. In your posts will be only text and not ad code. Disadvantage is, that you will gain probable less clicks like with first approach. If you want to add more ads in template, you must find next places for them in template. It means, that you must know basics of Blogger template code and HTML.

I prefer second approach and in this post I will show you how to insert ad into header of page, what is one from the best places on page.

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To find right place in blog template is not easy. Various templates can have various template code, but there is possibility of Preview and it will help you a lot.
Go to Blogger.com pages and login there. Select your blog, and click on link Template. You will see simple editor with your template. There, you have to find right place for your ad code. Template is divided to more parts. On top is usually CSS styles code.
HTML code with body of your page starts with text <body>. You must add your code somewhere between this tag and </body> tag.
To find header of your blog in template, try find something like:

<div id="main">
...
<Blogger>

If you will you find it, then with high probability you have right place for your code. It will be placed between these 2 tags.
If not, find only:

<Blogger>

and try ad your code bellow above this tag.

Insert on this place code:

<div class='adsense' style='text-align:center; padding: 3px 3px 3px 3px;'>
Your ad code here
</div>

Then press button Preview. In new window you will see your blogger with changed template. On place where you can see text
Your ad code here
will be your ad. If you think there is not right place, try to change code above, until you are not satisfied, with place of your ad. When you will be satisfied replace text Your ad code here with your code from AdSense. Then press button Save Template Changes. Your changes will be saved. If you are noticed that you must republish your blog, do it by clicking on the link for republishing.

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I hope, that you found right place for your ad code with help of this post. If you want to add more ads on your pages, do it similar and carefully choose right place for them. Pages filled with many ads are not very interesting for visitors, and you can harm your blog. Less is sometimes more. After ads publishing you can check your AdSense reports in next days. Time shows you, if you choose right ad formats and places. If not, you know how to change them now.

Make Money Online (part 6) - Monetize Blog with AdSense II

On last post you learned how to register in Google AdSense, I hope that your registration was successful. If yes, you can read this post, and you will learn how to create your first ad for your blog. This it the simplest way, how to do it yourself.

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Login to your Google Account and click on AdSense service. Ther you choose tab AdSense Setup. On first page you can choose from more AdSense format. Choose AdSense for Content ads. you have more possibilities, but it is the most used format and you can earn more money from this format than from others.

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I recommend you to choose on this page option Ad Unit with Text ads only. Then press button Continue >>.

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On next page you have to choose size of your ad and their colors. Size of your ad is related on place when you want to add your ad in your blog. It exists some heat map where it is good to place your ad on page. The colors fade from dark orange (strongest performance) to light yellow (weakest performance). As you can see the best place is above your primary content. That means to choose format with width equal or near to size of your main content area. Usually it is 486*80 Banner Format or some others horizontal formats. Choose one from them. Now you must do second important thing. Try to hide your ad on your page. This method is called blending. It means try to choose colors that are similar to colors of your primary content. There is also possibility to save chosen color to your own color palette. And also choose corner style like is used in your template. I read good advice, that people like to click on blue colored links. It is good to choose this color for links in your add and also for your template for blog. Press button Continue >>.

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Now it is time to create channel where you can see your stats for created ad. Press link Add new channel and choose name for you channel. Then press link add >> on right side of your created channel. It will move to right list. Press button Continue >>.

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Now only choose name for your ad. Later you can change features of your ad from menu Manage Ads. Press button Submit and Get Code.

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You are on last page now, and you can see your ad code. Select this code in clipboard.

How to place this code in your blog, I will show you in next post. You need to change your template, to show ad on your pages. This way is good, because you will see ad on all pages of your blog.

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Used terms and abbreviations
Blending
To synchronize ad format with other content on your page. Usually it means set the same color for ads like they are used in other content.