Author Topic: Do you have a blog? Are you planning one?  (Read 19142 times)

Retired To Win

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Do you have a blog? Are you planning one?
« on: May 21, 2015, 06:33:53 AM »
I run my personal finance/retirement blog for the fun of it, since I've made no plans to monetize my blog.  I'm just getting a lot of satisfaction from writing for and running it.  And I'm curious how blogs have worked or are working out for other MMM forum participants.

I've been averaging one published post every 5 days (though my intent is to have a minimum of a new published one each week).  To generate that, I spend about 10 to 12 pretty enjoyable hours a week writing, editing, finding illustrations, setting up the posts and responding to comments.

If you have or are planning to have a blog, what's your "blogging story"?  Satisfactions, frustrations, time spent on it, intentions?

Moonwaves

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Re: Do you have a blog? Are you planning one?
« Reply #1 on: May 21, 2015, 07:09:19 AM »
I first discovered blogs about nine or ten years ago via reading a Gentle Living newsletter I came across online. I was a member of a few discussion forums at the time and somehow kept hearing this word "blog". So, obviously, I googled it to find out what a blog was and the first explanation I came across explained it as a kind of online diary. And that's exactly how I have always treated my blog. I read quite a few before I started my own and even vaguely kept to a theme for the first few posts (simple living) but it fairly quickly evolved into, quite literally, an online diary/journal. Having a place to write stuff down has helped me immeasurably (I can type way faster than I can write with a pen, which means sometimes I can even keep up with my thoughts) and discovering that there were thousands of people concerned about the kinds of things I was and living the kind of life I was interested in was just fantastic. Felt much less like a crazy person. :)

KMMK

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Re: Do you have a blog? Are you planning one?
« Reply #2 on: May 21, 2015, 07:14:55 AM »
Some of us were discussing this in this thread:
http://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/throw-down-the-gauntlet/blog-readership-from-4-visitors-to-100-visitors-per-day!!/

I love the look of your blog. It's very clean and nicely styled. I'm not good at visual stuff so that's my downfall with mine. I may need to outsource the work at some point but as I'm not trying to monetize it and have no income currently it's not a priority at the moment.

Retired To Win

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Re: Do you have a blog? Are you planning one?
« Reply #3 on: May 21, 2015, 10:09:08 AM »
... I love the look of your blog. It's very clean and nicely styled. I'm not good at visual stuff so that's my downfall with mine. I may need to outsource the work at some point but as I'm not trying to monetize it and have no income currently it's not a priority at the moment.

Thanks for the kind words.  I can take credit for conceptualizing how my blog is organized and looks, but I have to give credit to my virtual web designer for actually making it happen.  At $25 an hour, she doesn't cost that much and is very efficient at getting assignments done.  Just figure that I have spent less than $350 total (from my discretionary fun funds, of course) to get the blog from a no-frills skeleton to how it looks now.

I'm pretty happy with what she's done for me.

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Re: Do you have a blog? Are you planning one?
« Reply #4 on: May 21, 2015, 10:23:12 AM »
I'm planning one on submarine sandwiches and the art of sandwich making in general.   Why?   Everyone claims to make the best but they are often just terrible.   Who puts mustard and mayo on a Italian sub sandwich?!  Jeez!

« Last Edit: May 21, 2015, 10:24:51 AM by surfhb »

Syonyk

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Re: Do you have a blog? Are you planning one?
« Reply #5 on: May 21, 2015, 01:06:35 PM »
Yes. On ebike battery pack rebuilds, Chinese spot welders, and whatever else I think of going forward. See my sig.

It'll probably end up covering sustainability and other low energy/low tech stuff long term.

Milizard

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Re: Do you have a blog? Are you planning one?
« Reply #6 on: May 21, 2015, 01:27:02 PM »
I'm planning one on submarine sandwiches and the art of sandwich making in general.   Why?   Everyone claims to make the best but they are often just terrible.   Who puts mustard and mayo on a Italian sub sandwich?!  Jeez!

Hey, I'm an ex-sandwich artist and my favorite combination for the spicy italian included a mayo/mustard combination! :p
(That particular sub has to be made, and then sit in the fridge for an hour or 2.) 
((Okay, okay, Subway probably isn't authentic Italian.))


As to the OP, I just started a couple of blogs recently.  One is about sandwiches, but in the generational sense, not the food kind.


ETA:  Dammit!  Now I have a craving for a Spicy Italian sub!

Remben

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Re: Do you have a blog? Are you planning one?
« Reply #7 on: May 21, 2015, 02:03:15 PM »
I like writing and the satisfaction of helping other people, so having a blog was a logical step for me. Unfortunately I soon realized it's very time consuming, so I had to freeze the first blog until I manage to get some money that will allow me to spend guilt-free time writing.

Nevertheless a blog is for me a fantastic way how to sort thoughts, learn something new when doing so, help others and on top of that open myself to new opportunities.

oinkette

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Re: Do you have a blog? Are you planning one?
« Reply #8 on: May 21, 2015, 02:28:22 PM »
In another lifetime I had a blog and it was popular.  Completely not financially related, but I had fun with it.  I'm very into FIRE but I can't seem to get into writing blogs about it.  I'm not an expert and I don't give a damn about the minutiae (asset allocation, ACA, 4% withdrawl, etc).  At least not enough to write a competent post about it.  Now that my little snowball of a Net Worth has started to roll I enjoy writing monthly updates about what I've done here in the forums in my journal (see my signature below).

I've read a million financial blogs and they mostly repeat the same stuff.  The people who already are Early Retired are somewhat interesting, mostly when they delve more into lifestyle rather than money posts. 

Zikoris

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Re: Do you have a blog? Are you planning one?
« Reply #9 on: May 21, 2015, 03:07:43 PM »
Yup, just for fun! I write about saving money in Vancouver, general efficiency, cool places I travel to, and monthly net worth and spending updates. Like a journal I guess. I figure it'll give a pretty nice picture of the entire FI journey one day.

Erica/NWEdible

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Re: Do you have a blog? Are you planning one?
« Reply #10 on: May 21, 2015, 03:21:58 PM »
Yup. Fairly popular one.  It's a huge part of my life. Tryng to figure out how to optimize it for long term satisfaction and helpfulness. It's one of my biggest mental struggles actually.

Jon_Snow

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Re: Do you have a blog? Are you planning one?
« Reply #11 on: May 21, 2015, 03:28:09 PM »
I've been thinking of starting one for a while. It's probably a better place to detail my somewhat unique life than in my Journal. i need to get on this.

Le Poisson

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Re: Do you have a blog? Are you planning one?
« Reply #12 on: May 21, 2015, 04:02:28 PM »
I've had a blog for years.

It started when SWMBO put one up about our rural lifestyle and the kids - just for family. She would take a photo and then everyone in the family would giggle at the kids playing with the chickens.

Then I started mine about our boat and sailing as a friendly competition to see who would get the most followers/readers/comments.

Then we moved and sold the boat, so we started a new family blog. Eventually we merged the three blogs together, and now we have this mess of stuff going back years that no one reads. ( www.frosthaus.blogspot.com ) Lemme check real quick... yup 5 hits today, 3 of which are from links I placed in response to a question here.

At first it was exciting to see how many people had read the posts and to see what feedback we got, but now its snoozeville. No one reads and our lives have turned out to be pretty boring and normal. I've also come to the realization that my writing and photography is about a million notches below amazeballs - which is what it takes to get readership. So blogging has turned out to be a pretty brutal fail for us. At least it cost us nothing. It is a good way to document when we got that new dishwasher, or how we installed the hardwood floor for warranty purposes though, so I guess there is that.

FWIW the most read post on my blog is about dryer vents. Go figure.

StockBeard

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Re: Do you have a blog? Are you planning one?
« Reply #13 on: May 21, 2015, 06:56:46 PM »
Started one about 6 months ago (link in my sig) when I decided to become serious about early retirement. Not sure where it will lead, but it's fun to blog about my choices, my progress, etc...
Hopefully one day I'll retire, and then I can pretend I know what I'm talking about. For now it's just about my struggles, but I hope it will turn into something inspirational for others, once I reach the other side of the tunnel!

Cezil

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Re: Do you have a blog? Are you planning one?
« Reply #14 on: May 22, 2015, 07:19:39 AM »
I started one about a year and a half ago after reading personal finance blogs saying how if you are interested in personal finance, you should start a blog about it.  Soon after, I realized that whatever I had to say had already been said so many other times and more eloquently that I didn't want to re-hash the same thing....again.  I felt like I didn't have much more to contribute on the subject, and I wasn't interested in becoming an expert or get too far into details or anything (like someone else here mentioned).  So it dropped off.  Every once in a while, I'll do a monthly summary or update, because something might give me a spark of what to next focus on.  Lifestyle perhaps?  We've got some pretty interesting goals and ideas that people might be interested in hearing about as we try to get there.  Maybe?  So I hardly count this one.

The boyfriend and I have been tossing an idea around for over a year to start a blog on something that we think might be of interest to others.  He once did a huge project and had to make it up as he went because there were so few resources for him to use; then one day we're like, "Why shouldn't we be the ones to write that guide?".  It's been a year though and I think we struggle with whether people would actually find it useful enough for us to make money off it (the blog would eventually be monetized).  We asked ourselves: Do we do a website, or write a book, or make up a course?  The first seems easiest to reach people but might result in hardly any income, the second seems like we can do that instead of the website and actually have a chance to make consistent money, and the third seems like too much work for us newbies at the whole thing.  Very recently, it struck me that there are plenty of websites that have their website, and also wrote a book(s) on the subject that they promote.  We could do that too, but then, what would the book cover that the website wouldn't?  The info would all be "free" on the site so why would anyone pay money for a book that presents the same material?  The plan is that the website would become more or less static after some time when the project was all out there and explained..

So we're still trying to wrap our heads around this whole concept.  I'd like to think we'll jump in the next few months..I'm just not sure to where.

Edit: Making words work together, better.
« Last Edit: May 22, 2015, 07:29:02 AM by Cezilous »

StockBeard

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Re: Do you have a blog? Are you planning one?
« Reply #15 on: May 22, 2015, 09:10:10 AM »
We could do that too, but then, what would the book cover that the website wouldn't?  The info would all be "free" on the site so why would anyone pay money for a book that presents the same material? 

I've been told numerous time that people are willing to pay for a book, even if the same information can be found for free on the website. Some people just want a way to say "thank you" for your great information, and purchasing the book is their way to do that. Others are impressed by the content, and want to spread the word, purchase the book and give it to friends as a present. Others find it easier to have the information available in an ebook (on their kindle, etc...) rather than having to browse the blog. Others don't even know about the blog, and found the book through other means (Amazon, etc...)

Bottom line is, in theory you can have the same content in a book and on a website, you'll still make sales.

Retired To Win

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Re: Do you have a blog? Are you planning one?
« Reply #16 on: May 22, 2015, 04:07:21 PM »
I've had a blog for years... now we have this mess of stuff going back years that no one reads. ( www.frosthaus.blogspot.com ) Lemme check real quick... yup 5 hits today, 3 of which are from links I placed in response to a question here... So blogging has turned out to be a pretty brutal fail for us...

So... here's a question for everyone it may apply to: how many views per day, per week, per month, whatever, would it take for you to consider your blog NOT a fail??

NearlyThere

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Re: Do you have a blog? Are you planning one?
« Reply #17 on: May 22, 2015, 04:09:49 PM »
I started one on the back of this forum. I use it as a personal journal more than anything else.

I honestly don't care if its read, but look forward to reading back at it over the years. I think that the key of blogging. Make your purpose suitable and it won't ever be a failure

La Bibliotecaria Feroz

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Re: Do you have a blog? Are you planning one?
« Reply #18 on: May 22, 2015, 04:51:58 PM »
I have one. I don't get a lot of page views, but enough (say two or three dozen a day, or even 80 on a really good day) that I don't feel like I'm shouting in a well. I have very little time to invest in it, but the Leapforce article has paid for the hosting at least :-). (I get a bonus every time someone becomes a Leapforce agent through my blog and completes a certain number of hours--only happened a couple times, but hey, I'll take it!)

Erica/NWEdible

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Re: Do you have a blog? Are you planning one?
« Reply #19 on: May 22, 2015, 05:01:37 PM »
I've had a blog for years... now we have this mess of stuff going back years that no one reads. ( www.frosthaus.blogspot.com ) Lemme check real quick... yup 5 hits today, 3 of which are from links I placed in response to a question here... So blogging has turned out to be a pretty brutal fail for us...

So... here's a question for everyone it may apply to: how many views per day, per week, per month, whatever, would it take for you to consider your blog NOT a fail??
Just twice the highest it's ever been. :)

Le Poisson

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Re: Do you have a blog? Are you planning one?
« Reply #20 on: May 22, 2015, 05:08:13 PM »
I've had a blog for years... now we have this mess of stuff going back years that no one reads. ( www.frosthaus.blogspot.com ) Lemme check real quick... yup 5 hits today, 3 of which are from links I placed in response to a question here... So blogging has turned out to be a pretty brutal fail for us...

So... here's a question for everyone it may apply to: how many views per day, per week, per month, whatever, would it take for you to consider your blog NOT a fail??

There are two metrics I care about - repeat viewers and comments. I measure success in growth, not net numbers. For me to feel the blog was a success I would need to see constant growth with commenting and feedback to engage my readers. Sadly, even when I was actively publishing to the blog, I only hit around 30 views on a good day, and virtually no feedback. I wasn't engaging my audience enough for them to care about what I was doing, or to say what my articles evoked. Maybe I needed more cat pictures.

seattlecyclone

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Re: Do you have a blog? Are you planning one?
« Reply #21 on: May 23, 2015, 02:12:45 PM »
I started one a couple of months ago (see signature for the link) and have a grand total of two posts so far. I'll probably keep posting sporadically when I find something new to say, but I'm not going to commit to writing enough to build up a huge readership and following like MMM or anyone like that. Several people have said nice things about the two posts and shared the links, and it's great that people like what I have to say. That's my real reason for doing it. I put one Google ad in the sidebar, and I'll be thrilled if the thing pays for our web hosting account (that we already have for professional portfolios, domain registration, etc.).

Thegoblinchief

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Re: Do you have a blog? Are you planning one?
« Reply #22 on: May 23, 2015, 03:37:42 PM »
Yup. Fairly popular one.  It's a huge part of my life. Tryng to figure out how to optimize it for long term satisfaction and helpfulness. It's one of my biggest mental struggles actually.

Your blog is my favorite place on the whole Internet.

---

I have a blog. A few people seem to like it (anywhere from 50-800 hits/day, but average is low enough that monetization isn't worth it). I write when I feel like it and it's almost always more to process things for myself than to update for my audience. I'm a big believer in not writing unless you're fine writing for an audience of one. The passion has to come from within, not from being seen by x number of eyeballs.

Erica/NWEdible

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Re: Do you have a blog? Are you planning one?
« Reply #23 on: May 23, 2015, 06:30:25 PM »
Yup. Fairly popular one.  It's a huge part of my life. Tryng to figure out how to optimize it for long term satisfaction and helpfulness. It's one of my biggest mental struggles actually.
Your blog is my favorite place on the whole Internet.
Dude. You don't even know how much this made my day. Thank you.

vivek440

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Re: Do you have a blog? Are you planning one?
« Reply #24 on: May 24, 2015, 07:43:52 AM »
I along with my wife have been maintaining a blog. We don't plan to make any money out of the blog. We are already FI and I would soon be leaving the full time corporate job to do lot of unconventional things (Home schooling my kid, staying 6 months in US and 6 months in India/other countries etc.)

Through the blog we want to share our experiences with the world, motive people to become FI (In India, hardly anybody know/think about FI) and collaborate with like minded folks!!!

Currently my blog stats are very poor :-) I have even started a thread on MMM forum to share things happening in my blog, keep myself motivated to make the blog big and share my learning related to blogging with everybody!

@Retired To Win - How big is your blog? How many visits do you get?

Insanity

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Re: Do you have a blog? Are you planning one?
« Reply #25 on: May 24, 2015, 08:27:54 AM »
If you are tracking stats, you need to be providing quality content on a consistent basis.

I had started a software assurance program blog which dealt with the process and organizational relationship issues. 

I was seeing no growth initially (even with tweeting, linkedin posts) when randomly posting.  When I started posting weekly, it started to pick up.  Course than shit happened and I have not posted in months.

Moonwaves

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Re: Do you have a blog? Are you planning one?
« Reply #26 on: May 24, 2015, 02:03:29 PM »
I honestly don't care if its read, but look forward to reading back at it over the years. I think that the key of blogging. Make your purpose suitable and it won't ever be a failure
This is my view, as well. As long as I keep writing and as long as writing keeps helping me (by helping me sort out thoughts as well as by giving me a great place to keep a record of things) then my blog is a success.

As for stats, I only started looking at them after blogger introduced that function a few years ago - was never interested, for example, in paying for analytics - and don't check all the time. I usually have about 50 hits a day or so and it is interesting to see what search terms and links bring people to the blog. But again, not interesting enough that I'd bother spending time or money on trying to do any kind of optimisation in that regard. As someone else has commented, I do think that regular readers and comments are a slightly different thing than the pure numbers of readers. I have 23 followers but I'd say really, I have about six or seven regulars - people who I've gotten to know well over the years. Works for me.

Retired To Win

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Re: Do you have a blog? Are you planning one?
« Reply #27 on: May 24, 2015, 04:47:14 PM »

@Retired To Win - How big is your blog? How many visits do you get?

I'm not sure what you mean by "big".  How would you measure "big"?

I only started seriously "working" my blog 3 months ago.  Since then my views per month have been sequentially: 6261 in Feb, 14,094 in March and 15,507 in April.  For the 6 months prior to that, I averaged around 1000 views per month.

vivek440

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Re: Do you have a blog? Are you planning one?
« Reply #28 on: May 24, 2015, 09:51:14 PM »
I only started seriously "working" my blog 3 months ago.  Since then my views per month have been sequentially: 6261 in Feb, 14,094 in March and 15,507 in April.  For the 6 months prior to that, I averaged around 1000 views per month.

This is exactly what I was asking! Just wanted to understand the scale of your blog!

Your blog's stats have made me curious :-) What different did you do in the month of Feb and March to get such a big jump in the monthly views?

Cressida

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Re: Do you have a blog? Are you planning one?
« Reply #29 on: May 24, 2015, 10:16:04 PM »
Yup. Fairly popular one.  It's a huge part of my life. Tryng to figure out how to optimize it for long term satisfaction and helpfulness. It's one of my biggest mental struggles actually.
Your blog is my favorite place on the whole Internet.
Dude. You don't even know how much this made my day. Thank you.
I love your blog too - it's one of the ones that's set up in my feed with a "read" tag instead of a "read when you have time" tag. And I'm looking forward to your book arriving in the mail.

Of course, it's mostly only aspirational at this point, since I have a full-time job and no yard. Someday!

milesdividendmd

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Re: Do you have a blog? Are you planning one?
« Reply #30 on: May 24, 2015, 11:01:02 PM »
I blog and love it. It turns out I love writing. Who new?

I dealt for a long time with very mixed feelings about monetizing my site. 

On one hand, money is great, and sometimes commercial traffic has the potential to build readership further.

But on the other hand having a commercial stake affects both your credibility as a voice and to some extent  your very motivations.

In the end I decided never to monetize my site and to start an online travel hacking course with my friend Brad from Richmond Savers.

I have really enjoyed the entrepreneurial aspect of starting the course and of focusing on offering a valuable (free) experience to my students.

At the same time my blog has become much more personal (if less frequently published.... There are only so many hours in the day,) and I am still so happy to have an avenue for my uncensored thoughts.

(My average readership is about 100-175 readers/day, so pretty small potatoes. )

Insanity

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Re: Do you have a blog? Are you planning one?
« Reply #31 on: May 25, 2015, 05:14:51 AM »
What tools do you guys use to track readership?

Le Poisson

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Re: Do you have a blog? Are you planning one?
« Reply #32 on: May 25, 2015, 05:21:43 AM »
What tools do you guys use to track readership?

Statcounter.com

vivek440

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Re: Do you have a blog? Are you planning one?
« Reply #33 on: May 25, 2015, 05:42:10 AM »
What tools do you guys use to track readership?

My blog is hosted on wordpress and currently I am using the default statistics page that wordpress provides, though it is not powerful and provides very basic details. As soon as I get some time, I plan to explore other options available in the market!

cerebus

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Re: Do you have a blog? Are you planning one?
« Reply #34 on: May 25, 2015, 05:52:21 AM »
We are very private people. I don't like the idea of opening up so much of our lives, dull as they are, to the public. The only thing I do in fact is share a daily log of my cooking, when I cook, to another forum.

gaja

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Re: Do you have a blog? Are you planning one?
« Reply #35 on: May 25, 2015, 06:31:53 AM »
I started the travelelectric blog so I could easily update family and friends on our travels. Then it turned out that the topic also was of interest to EV enthusiasts and a few other random strangers on the internet. So I decided to put a little bit more effort into it.

I have a few other blogs that I haven't done anything with lately. The most visited one is in Norwegian, about earning money on online stuff, mainly microstock photography. This one still gets visitors, even though I haven't written anything in years: http://gajasworld.blogspot.no/


EarlyRetirementGuy

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Re: Do you have a blog? Are you planning one?
« Reply #36 on: May 25, 2015, 12:23:50 PM »
I've been blogging for about a year now. Primarily I do it so I can have an online record of monthly income/expenses while speaking with similar minded individuals.

It's still very small and I only update it a few times a month. I'm very wary of publishing posts just for the sake of publishing them. As someone earlier remarked; most of what there is to say about personal finance has already been said 100x elsewhere.

As for pageviews, typically around 5000+ a month. It's more the comments/emails that I'm interested in though as it's always great to hear back from the people following you along.

TheContinentalOp

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Re: Do you have a blog? Are you planning one?
« Reply #37 on: May 25, 2015, 12:54:03 PM »
I've had a niche blog for 11 years now. I'll pull in about U$5300 this year in advertising, plus a couple of hundred in amazon gcs for referrals.

I plow most of the money back into the blog and blog related activities (camera equipment and travel) so it becomes a cost free hobby.

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Re: Do you have a blog? Are you planning one?
« Reply #38 on: May 25, 2015, 01:05:00 PM »
I've had a neighborhood blog for a long time now. I get about 50,000 page views a month, and make a tiny bit of money, but other than inserting some Google Ads haven't really felt like putting in the effort to hunt down advertisers to monetize it in a way that could really bring in some bucks. (Though doing that would also make it a much more pressure-filled gig and less of a hobby.)

It wasn't anything I ever imagined growing into something like this, but it's now probably my legacy. :-)

forummm

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Re: Do you have a blog? Are you planning one?
« Reply #39 on: May 25, 2015, 01:17:15 PM »
I don't think blogging is for me. This is the only place I write anything online.

Erica/NWEdible

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Re: Do you have a blog? Are you planning one?
« Reply #40 on: May 25, 2015, 03:00:55 PM »
What tools do you guys use to track readership?
GA

Erica/NWEdible

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Re: Do you have a blog? Are you planning one?
« Reply #41 on: May 25, 2015, 03:02:31 PM »
I love your blog too - it's one of the ones that's set up in my feed with a "read" tag instead of a "read when you have time" tag. And I'm looking forward to your book arriving in the mail.

Of course, it's mostly only aspirational at this point, since I have a full-time job and no yard. Someday!
Thank you so much! <3 Nothing wrong with a tomato plant in a pot on the porch. ;)

Retired To Win

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Re: Do you have a blog? Are you planning one?
« Reply #42 on: May 28, 2015, 06:12:09 AM »
I've had a neighborhood blog for a long time now. I get about 50,000 page views a month, and make a tiny bit of money...

What is a "neighborhood blog"?

rubybeth

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Re: Do you have a blog? Are you planning one?
« Reply #43 on: May 28, 2015, 08:03:22 AM »
I have a blog now, and I have had multiple blogs before. I actually started "blogging" in 1998, before the word "blog" existed. I enjoy writing, but my current blog is mainly for me to keep track of thoughts on finances, not necessarily get readers, so I don't post very often.

RoadLessTravelled

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Re: Do you have a blog? Are you planning one?
« Reply #44 on: May 28, 2015, 08:57:33 AM »
I've never understood the motivation behind blogs.  If it's to make money, that I can understand.  But otherwise, it just seems like a hey, look at me kind of thing.  Can anyone explain the motivation to me? 

For example, your blog seems to talk about many of the same topics as you would find in this forum Retired To Win.  So why re-invent the wheel?

I'm also suprised to read that a blog can fail.  If it is written for the enjoyment of the writer, then failure would seem to me to be impossible.  The enjoyment was in the writing, not in how many people choose to read it.  So I question the stated reasons for doing it if the writers then worry about how many hits it attracted.  Again, unless it is intended to make money.

I have similar questions about social media where people post selfies or pretty much anything that anyone writes on Facebook etc.  What is the motivation?  I don't buy the share with friends family excuse either.  If that were the motivation, then you wouldn't see people counting how many Facebook friends they have as somehow a measure of something.  They aren't really friends so what is it really a measure of? 

KMMK

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Re: Do you have a blog? Are you planning one?
« Reply #45 on: May 28, 2015, 09:15:24 AM »
I've never understood the motivation behind blogs.  If it's to make money, that I can understand.  But otherwise, it just seems like a hey, look at me kind of thing.  Can anyone explain the motivation to me? 

For example, your blog seems to talk about many of the same topics as you would find in this forum Retired To Win.  So why re-invent the wheel?

I'm also suprised to read that a blog can fail.  If it is written for the enjoyment of the writer, then failure would seem to me to be impossible.  The enjoyment was in the writing, not in how many people choose to read it.  So I question the stated reasons for doing it if the writers then worry about how many hits it attracted.  Again, unless it is intended to make money.

I have similar questions about social media where people post selfies or pretty much anything that anyone writes on Facebook etc.  What is the motivation?  I don't buy the share with friends family excuse either.  If that were the motivation, then you wouldn't see people counting how many Facebook friends they have as somehow a measure of something.  They aren't really friends so what is it really a measure of?

There are a few different motivations.
- narcissism in varying degrees
- using writing to sort through one's thoughts
- record keeping
- self-motivation assistance
- to share with specific friends
- entertainment for self or others - when I post on Facebook I usually try to make it humorous or unexpected in some way

AJ

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Re: Do you have a blog? Are you planning one?
« Reply #46 on: May 28, 2015, 09:22:45 AM »
I've never understood the motivation behind blogs.  If it's to make money, that I can understand.  But otherwise, it just seems like a hey, look at me kind of thing.  Can anyone explain the motivation to me? 

I've always wanted to start a blog. I spend so much time thinking about PF topics, it sounds fun to write about them. I also like the idea of evangelizing people to the idea of FIRE. It also sounds like work, which is probably why I've never actually done it.

For example, your blog seems to talk about many of the same topics as you would find in this forum Retired To Win.  So why re-invent the wheel?

Blog posts can be more polished and enjoyable to read than forum threads. I follow a ton of blogs like RTW and I'm glad they keep coming out as old ones die. It is a different format. It's like asking why anyone writes non-fiction books when most of the information can be found on Reddit or Wikipedia. Yeah, you can find it elsewhere if you look, but it is more enjoyable to read in polished format.

I'm also suprised to read that a blog can fail.  If it is written for the enjoyment of the writer, then failure would seem to me to be impossible.  The enjoyment was in the writing, not in how many people choose to read it.  So I question the stated reasons for doing it if the writers then worry about how many hits it attracted.  Again, unless it is intended to make money.

Part of the enjoyment is building something of quality. If no one reads it, that can be a good sign it isn't quality writing or interesting topics. It's like art or music - people don't make much money at it, but making zero money would be bad. And blogs cost money to run, so they need to at least break even.

I have similar questions about social media where people post selfies or pretty much anything that anyone writes on Facebook etc.  What is the motivation?  I don't buy the share with friends family excuse either.  If that were the motivation, then you wouldn't see people counting how many Facebook friends they have as somehow a measure of something.  They aren't really friends so what is it really a measure of?

Most people do not watch their friend count as a measure of anything (other than perhaps, "who just unfriended me and why?") I think you're generalizing too broadly. Most people's motivation is to keep in touch with friends and family. I'm sure there is some narcissism out there, but I don't think it is the majority of people.

Insanity

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Re: Do you have a blog? Are you planning one?
« Reply #47 on: May 28, 2015, 09:42:07 AM »
blogs can be self marketing as well.  The blog might not make money, but it can provide validation if your experience in a field which can in turn make you more profitable.

It is a good way to market yourself without actually saying: I am awesome look what I have done. 

For instance:  in my field I write about relationship challenges within organizations and technical challenges of implementations.  None of that is look at what I am capable of.  But it does show I have a clue.

4n6

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Re: Do you have a blog? Are you planning one?
« Reply #48 on: May 28, 2015, 09:42:20 AM »
I have a blog and I enjoy writing the posts. I try to post at least 3 times a week. For the most part I have been successful. The only thing I wish I had more of were comments. I don't care about page views, but I want more of a conversation. I know that some people read the blog (I only average about 1000 page views a month and would like more) but I really want more comments. I guess then I would consider it "successful." Monetizing it would be nice, but I probably have to put some money into it and more time. Right now I just like posting.

googily

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Re: Do you have a blog? Are you planning one?
« Reply #49 on: May 28, 2015, 10:09:51 AM »
I've had a neighborhood blog for a long time now. I get about 50,000 page views a month, and make a tiny bit of money...

What is a "neighborhood blog"?

News and information about the neighborhood. As much a "hyperlocal" news source as a personal blog.