See all the 25 Ideas

Here is a unique way to increase traffic to your blog. It is called Entrecard. It is defined as an advertising platform for blog owners that are offered for free.

Bloggers and Entrecard users place advertisement of the Entrecard ad on any blog within the Entrecard network that is good for a certain number of days. The Entrecard ad placements on any blog as paid through Entrecard credits of the blogger or website owners who make the ad placement. We can treat this Entrecard credits as some form of a currency used for ad placement within the Entrecard network.

Bloggers place their ads by dropping off their cards at their selected blogs through the Entrecard widget. This Entrecard widget appears on every Entrecard member blog in the network.

Does this new craze deserve the attention that it is getting from a lot of people? Probably, the answer is yes. Entrecard is considered as an effective tool especially for the new and beginning bloggers in generating more traffic to their blogs.

In an apparent sales pitch for Entrecard, the following are declared benefits for those who join the Entrecard network:

• Another way to Earn Money
  Bloggers who come to drop off cards may click the ads on your blog, which translates to additional money earned. Besides monetizing from the traffic via Entrecard network, Entrecard recently announced a credit-buy-back program where you can sell your credits back to Entrecard.
• Build your followers
  Entrecard is one great way of bringing more traffic to your blog. Once they visit your blog to drop off their cards, they might see something that might be of interest to them and become a regular follower of your blog.
• Maximize word-of-mouth Marketing
  You gain warm body endorsers once you get positive feedback from Entrecard members who visit your blog to drop off their cards. It is essential that you keep your blog as interesting as possible to visitors.
• Improved Google, Alexa and search ranking
  As more and more visit your blog to drop off their cards, this translates to more page views that can boost the ranking of your blog in search engines. This would in turn bring in more targeted traffic to your blog.
• Increased traffic to your blog will easily attract more direct advertising opportunities. As you experience increased traffic as a direct result of being a member of the Entrecard network, your blog will become more attractive for paying advertisers. This would mean extra dollars to fill your pockets.

With these benefits of Entrecard, it is essential that you are knowledgeable of the nooks and crannies of the network to derive maximum benefit from it. Here are some practical tips to set you off as a new Entrecard member:

Click here to read the Top 10 Tips

I am happy to see that some of my themes have been certified by ThemesPreview.com. To add to my excitement, some of my themes are awarded GOLD status!!

Some of you might not have heard about Themes Preview. Let me briefly describe what this site is doing. ThemesPreview is a Wordpress theme directory listing some of the best themes with FREE downloads. If it is just a free Wordpress theme directory, what is so great about this site when there are so many theme directories around? Let me get into some of the details.

Firstly, it is not that easy to get a theme listed on ThemesPreview. A theme must fulfill the following basic criteria to get a free listing:
- it must be able to get installed on the latest Wordpress version
- it must have quality graphic
- it must be widget ready

Needless to say, my themes fulfill those basic criteria.

Secondly, the editor will test each and every theme against several criteria. Most of the tested criteria are code-related. This section is to test how well the designers code the theme. If the theme passes a criteria, points will be given. The editor will then compare the passed score with the tested score to come out with the total score of the theme.

Now, to be awarded Bronze status, out of 100%, the theme has to score within 60-74%. To be awarded Silver status, the theme has to score within 75-89%. To get a Gold status, the theme has to score above 90%.

I have done some statistic about the number of awarded themes out of all the themes listed on ThemesPreview. As of this writing, there are a total of 296 themes listed on that site. Out of which, 62 themes are awarded Bronze status. 26 themes are awarded Silver status. Only 8 themes are awarded Gold status. In other words, only 32% of all themes listed on ThemesPreview are getting Bronze status at least.

Another thing you can tell from the statistic above is that a theme needs to have VERY clean coding to be awarded Gold status. Less than 3% of all themes are good enough to be awarded the status.

Out of the 8 Gold themes currently listed on ThemesPreview, 4 of which are designed by Templatelite.com. This shows how much effort I put in to create my “babies”

My principle is: Creating Wordpress themes with high standard for FREE downloads!

Latest Version: 1.01
Updated on: 2009/05/11

One of my popular themes, Photo Frame allows you to customize the photos in the middle frame. This time, I made a similar theme where you are not placing your photo in the standard frame. Instead, your photos/portraits are positioned inside an open torn paper with some depth.

I used grey as the main color to make the photo stand out in this theme. Hope you like the Rustic Portrait theme

This theme is free to download and you are granted unlimited usage. Please support this site by subscribing via RSS or email.

More info about this theme…