Author Topic: Writing a blog on personal finance- Making no Money  (Read 9997 times)

epower

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Writing a blog on personal finance- Making no Money
« on: August 23, 2017, 03:07:12 AM »
My partner (but mainly me) and I have been writing a blog www.wisewealthandhealth.com for the last several months.

I've always wanted to start one partly for curiosity, being a bucket list item and as a way to potentially have a little side hustle going.

However, as I've looked into making a blog financially viable, it takes 20-30 hours per week, setting up Facebook and twitter accounts (I'm on neither) and doing advertising, affiliate links, commenting on other blogs, etc.

I'm wondering whether the endeavour is worthwhile or if it becomes a "job" just like everything else.

I pay $100-200 a year to have the .com name there so feel like we have to write to make the spend worthwhile.

I've recently got a promotion at work so have less time and our first child is only a year or two away (fingers crossed) so time isn't exactly free at the moment too.

Anyone else been in the same boat?

Feivel2000

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Re: Writing a blog on personal finance- Making no Money
« Reply #1 on: August 23, 2017, 03:39:11 AM »
Every blogger who "made it" and has some integrity will tell you the same thing: Don't blog for the money. You will need months before you make the first dollar and probably years before you can live from it, if ever.
 For
Blogging is THE BEST WAY to learn about survivorship bias, better than start ups. There are probably a thousand personal finance blogs out there, nobody had ever heard of.

You can either accept this and keep on trying or you accept it and give up.
If you continue, I think you should not see it as a business, see it as a hobby. Don't waste time to try to monetize it, invest that time in the content.
Especially if this part of blogging isn't fun for you.

neonlight

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Re: Writing a blog on personal finance- Making no Money
« Reply #2 on: August 23, 2017, 05:17:11 AM »
Out of curiosity, how many unique visitors do you have? And how do you plan to monetize when I don't see any ads in your blog.

Case

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Re: Writing a blog on personal finance- Making no Money
« Reply #3 on: August 23, 2017, 06:28:52 AM »
My partner (but mainly me) and I have been writing a blog www.wisewealthandhealth.com for the last several months.

I've always wanted to start one partly for curiosity, being a bucket list item and as a way to potentially have a little side hustle going.

However, as I've looked into making a blog financially viable, it takes 20-30 hours per week, setting up Facebook and twitter accounts (I'm on neither) and doing advertising, affiliate links, commenting on other blogs, etc.

I'm wondering whether the endeavour is worthwhile or if it becomes a "job" just like everything else.

I pay $100-200 a year to have the .com name there so feel like we have to write to make the spend worthwhile.

I've recently got a promotion at work so have less time and our first child is only a year or two away (fingers crossed) so time isn't exactly free at the moment too.

Anyone else been in the same boat?

There are so many personal finance blogs out there.  To make money, even enough to cover your maintenance costs, you have to get traffic.  To get traffic, you have to have people want to read your blog.  To get people to want to read your blog, it needs to be interesting, grab their attention, have something novel about it, be aesthetically inviting, and ideally have something unique about it.

To be brutally honest, from a brief look over your blog, it doesn't appear to be strong in any of these categories.  It just looks like the blog of yet another guy who wants to make money from blogging.  When I get this impression, I don't even really want to spend time reading the text, because I know the real purpose of the blog; to make money, not to entertain, or provide valuable insights, etc... (e.g. reasons I'd actually want to read a blog, without even getting into details).  All I want to do is close the page, and which I had back the 30 seconds I spent on the blog.

I agree with the others; don't write a blog for the purpose of making money.  It's a hollow existence and there are better ways to make money.

Write a blog if it is what you enjoy.  Consequently, a blog written for such reasons is more likely to make money.

MsSindy

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Re: Writing a blog on personal finance- Making no Money
« Reply #4 on: August 23, 2017, 07:28:40 AM »
Exactly what Case said above.

You picked probably the two most blogged-about topics there are (except maybe fashion and mommies?).  And there is nothing unique about your content - you've delivered the same wide-spread advice that has been handed out everywhere else.

If you want to blog, narrow your content and find a niche - and write with a little humor and personality.  You need to hook people into wanting more.

Personally, I would focus more in on your current job and family, you'll get a better "return" on your time - if you want to side-hustle, you could probably even do manual labor or evening child care for $15 - $30 an hour, which would provide a lot more $$ than blogging.  Maybe try to do something related to your hobbies - like leading interesting hikes in your area (provide transportation from hotels, healthy picnic lunch, learn the history of the area, etc.)

slappy

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Re: Writing a blog on personal finance- Making no Money
« Reply #5 on: August 23, 2017, 08:32:32 AM »
I agree with what the others have said, but as a side note, "Making no Money" seems like a good name for a blog.  :)

I agree with what you have determined, in that it does actually take a lot of work to run a profitable blog.  My understanding is that successful bloggers are passionate enough about it to put the effort in even before it becomes profitable. That way they build up a good inventory of solid content as their readership grows. Personally, I would love to start a blog, but I know I don't have the time to put into it right now.

Cwadda

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Re: Writing a blog on personal finance- Making no Money
« Reply #6 on: August 23, 2017, 08:36:51 AM »
My partner (but mainly me) and I have been writing a blog www.wisewealthandhealth.com for the last several months.

I've always wanted to start one partly for curiosity, being a bucket list item and as a way to potentially have a little side hustle going.

However, as I've looked into making a blog financially viable, it takes 20-30 hours per week, setting up Facebook and twitter accounts (I'm on neither) and doing advertising, affiliate links, commenting on other blogs, etc.

I'm wondering whether the endeavour is worthwhile or if it becomes a "job" just like everything else.

I pay $100-200 a year to have the .com name there so feel like we have to write to make the spend worthwhile.

I've recently got a promotion at work so have less time and our first child is only a year or two away (fingers crossed) so time isn't exactly free at the moment too.

Anyone else been in the same boat?

There are so many personal finance blogs out there.  To make money, even enough to cover your maintenance costs, you have to get traffic.  To get traffic, you have to have people want to read your blog.  To get people to want to read your blog, it needs to be interesting, grab their attention, have something novel about it, be aesthetically inviting, and ideally have something unique about it.

To be brutally honest, from a brief look over your blog, it doesn't appear to be strong in any of these categories.  It just looks like the blog of yet another guy who wants to make money from blogging.  When I get this impression, I don't even really want to spend time reading the text, because I know the real purpose of the blog; to make money, not to entertain, or provide valuable insights, etc... (e.g. reasons I'd actually want to read a blog, without even getting into details).  All I want to do is close the page, and which I had back the 30 seconds I spent on the blog.

I agree with the others; don't write a blog for the purpose of making money.  It's a hollow existence and there are better ways to make money.

Write a blog if it is what you enjoy.  Consequently, a blog written for such reasons is more likely to make money.

Case hit the nail on the head. In the past year, all kinds of personal finance have come up because of Mr. Money Mustache.

I'm a red panda

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Re: Writing a blog on personal finance- Making no Money
« Reply #7 on: August 23, 2017, 08:41:24 AM »
Most people don't make money from blogging. Those who do often end up with blogging as a nearly full time job. 

If you enjoy writing, write.  But unless you are willing to approach it as a business (do you have a business plan to monetize your blog?) don't expect to make a profit.

I blogged for about 10 years on a topic I loved.  I got about $200 in random free products people sent me to test. That was it.

TartanTallulah

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Re: Writing a blog on personal finance- Making no Money
« Reply #8 on: August 23, 2017, 09:14:45 AM »
I get the impression that you have made some effort to carve out a USP on your blog and distinguish it from other PF blogs with your personal research into career possibilities. This is a good thing. And you and your partner have clearly invested considerable effort in composing your blog entries.

However, I agree with the consensus that it's very challenging to get a PF blog into the major league nowadays, and a lot of the most widely read PF blogs are not monetised because the bloggers are primarily motivated by a desire to entertain, share, and educate. The main factor about the most successful blogs is that they're very readably written by people who clearly enjoy "performing" in public using the written word as their medium, and that they engage the reader in such a way that we really, really come to care about what happens in the blogger's life, wonder what that person would do in a particular situation, and pounce upon each instalment of their narrative as soon as it hits the blogosphere. And they all have a different focus and present a near-unique aspect of personal finance.

The other consideration is that it's a mutually supportive community and they cross-link and reference one another's blogs all the time.

I note your location and wonder whether there's a niche for a PF blogger with a local/national slant, in the way that Simple Living in Suffolk, although very widely read, particularly appeals to people in the UK outside London.

JoJo

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Re: Writing a blog on personal finance- Making no Money
« Reply #9 on: August 23, 2017, 09:25:24 AM »
Here's the info I shared with someone on this forum recently about travel blogging to make money.  In most cases you can just substitute "travel blogger" for "finance blogger"...

Another travel blogger here.  Officially launched in February.  I've spent in the vicinity of $2000 - hosting, domain, etc.  Plus I needed a new computer and camera.  I attended a travel blogger convention in May, but that was a good chance to learn a ton, meet some others that are now following me, and get to see a part of the USA I wouldn't have visited otherwise.  In addition to being educational it was so much fun.  To date, I've earned $1.44 in income from Amazon Affliates.  I work at least 25 hours per month to write new content (1x a week) and put links on the internet to drive traffic.  I'm getting about 1,000 page views a month... I know some strategies to increase this but it will take alot of work. 

There are lots of dirty little secrets in travel blogging.  here are some things off the top of my head that I wish I knew before I started.
* Instagram is so frustrating, and twitter less so.  Some people use automation to follow/unfollow to grow their following.  Others pay someone in a 3rd world country $3 an hour to do it for them.  I decided to not worry about these platforms, passively post once every 2 days or so, and to not follow anyone that has a high ratio of followers to the number they follow... 100% they will unfollow you within a week or so
* Some people drive most of their business from searches/SEO but most of them are early bloggers.  Newer bloggers really need to use pinterest to grow, and that takes a big time commitment
* There are 1000's of new travel bloggers every year so it's a tight space.  I would guess most of them drop out once they need to renew their blogs.  I'm at bluehost and after my 3 years at a lower rate end, my domain & hosting will be over $200 per year.
* and that's just the minimal cost, there are lots of ways travel bloggers spend money - upgrades in canva for pinterest, consulting from other bloggers, website redesign (it looks nice but will likely cost $700+), facebook promotions... "pay $10 and reach up to 1,300 people"
* Most travel bloggers make no money.  They can get a bunch of free stuff but unless you are a top blogger, you need to constantly be asking for free stuff (free hotel rooms, meals, tours, etc).
* Before you get any free stuff, you will likely need to travel on your own dime to build up content and followers
* I get concerned that my constant promotion (on my personal facebook, etc) will turn some friends away.
* A niche is good - I don't think my niche is niche-y enough (middle aged, female, slightly adventurous, world travel).  There are many, many female bloggers but it's interesting that most of the top 100 bloggers are male.  One great niche is becoming the definitive guide to a single location but most of us travel bloggers don't have the patience to stay in the same place that long.
* some of the most successful bloggers have more than 1 site.  Many of those are early and rank very high in searches.
* There is a ton to learn, but resources to do so.  This can be both good and bad.  I have made alot of mistakes.
* Keep this in mind: some of the highest earning travel bloggers make much of their money from consulting and marketing to other travel bloggers.   Added: on of the more egregious ones I've seen recently is a facebook ad from a travel blogger saying how great it is with a direct link to bluehost where he gets a nice commission for every new blogger that signs up.
« Last Edit: August 23, 2017, 09:27:30 AM by JoJo »

I'm a red panda

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Re: Writing a blog on personal finance- Making no Money
« Reply #10 on: August 23, 2017, 09:39:27 AM »
JoJo- would you mind sharing more about using pinterest to grow? 

I HATE pinterest with a passion, but am trying to grow my youtube following. 

Do you just add pins of everything you post?  Or do you have to do a lot of following/commenting etc?  I'm interested to know what the strategy to use pinterest is. 

But man, I hate that site.

Optimiser

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Re: Writing a blog on personal finance- Making no Money
« Reply #11 on: August 23, 2017, 09:45:04 AM »
There are so many personal finance blogs out there.

Here is a listing of some of the many personal finance blogs to demonstrate what you are up against. http://directory.rockstarfinance.com/personal-finance-blogs/ Not saying you can't produce a great blog and stand out from the crowd. But, it will definitely take some hard work. If you're only in it for the money, you probably won't make it.

JoJo

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Re: Writing a blog on personal finance- Making no Money
« Reply #12 on: August 23, 2017, 10:34:00 AM »
JoJo- would you mind sharing more about using pinterest to grow? 

I HATE pinterest with a passion, but am trying to grow my youtube following. 

Do you just add pins of everything you post?  Or do you have to do a lot of following/commenting etc?  I'm interested to know what the strategy to use pinterest is. 

But man, I hate that site.

Honestly, I haven't made alot of inroads yet but it seems that you need to get into various groups that share pin for pin so that pinterest notices your pin is popular and it starts ranking higher when someone searches on that topic and then hope they are interested to actually click through to your site.

Anecdotally, someone in a blogger facebook group spoke of her experience.  She worked on pinterest with all her free time in a month and was generating 400 monthly page views to her website from pinterest.  I did minimal work (a few hours) over the last month and have gotten about 8 page views from pinterest so far.  It's crickets over there. 

As for what I've done, I've created about 20 historical pins from interesting trips in the past.  I'm also creating a new pin for every new blog post and putting a copy of the pin at the end of my article.  I think I have some cool looking pins, but they're not getting any traffic because I'm not participating in these pinning groups.  My username is "thehotflashpacker" if you have an account.  Would love any feedback and would follow you back.
« Last Edit: August 23, 2017, 10:36:16 AM by JoJo »

limeandpepper

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Re: Writing a blog on personal finance- Making no Money
« Reply #13 on: August 23, 2017, 11:06:55 AM »
These days, there are so many blogs out there. If you're not prepared to treat it as if you're running a business, don't expect to make any money. Gone are the days when the blogging space isn't as crowded, and social media wasn't a big thing yet, and good content on its own can take you very far. These days, you have to do lots of marketing through all sorts of social media accounts to remind people you exist, and even then, remember they're also inundated by other things in their daily feed and may not notice you. Doing this kind of stuff is cool if you love marketing, but if not, it feels like a real chore.

When I first started blogging, I made a bit more of an effort with everything. These days I don't really do much anymore, I just can't be bothered. I still blog because I personally find my blog to be useful as an easily accessible online reference (e.g. I occasionally look up my own recipes and refresh my memory on certain travel destinations). Also I get quite a few hits from search engines so it is nice to think that my blog might be helpful for people looking for information on certain things.

epower

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Re: Writing a blog on personal finance- Making no Money
« Reply #14 on: August 23, 2017, 02:59:38 PM »
Out of curiosity, how many unique visitors do you have? And how do you plan to monetize when I don't see any ads in your blog.

I only really figured out how to put it on Google searches a couple of weeks ago. We have around 20-30 visitors a day, really small time.

I'm looking into affiliate links, but as various comments above and below have said, maybe best to keep it a hobby and not get too hung up on the advertising.

epower

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Re: Writing a blog on personal finance- Making no Money
« Reply #15 on: August 23, 2017, 03:02:22 PM »
To be brutally honest, from a brief look over your blog, it doesn't appear to be strong in any of these categories.  It just looks like the blog of yet another guy who wants to make money from blogging.  When I get this impression, I don't even really want to spend time reading the text, because I know the real purpose of the blog; to make money, not to entertain, or provide valuable insights, etc... (e.g. reasons I'd actually want to read a blog, without even getting into details).  All I want to do is close the page, and which I had back the 30 seconds I spent on the blog.

I agree with the others; don't write a blog for the purpose of making money.  It's a hollow existence and there are better ways to make money.

Write a blog if it is what you enjoy.  Consequently, a blog written for such reasons is more likely to make money.

How would I go about changing it to provide entertainment or valuable insights instead?

neo von retorch

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Re: Writing a blog on personal finance- Making no Money
« Reply #16 on: August 23, 2017, 03:31:21 PM »
How would I go about changing it to provide entertainment or valuable insights instead?

This was touched on in earlier replies, but I'll give it a shot.

 - tell personal stories that reveal your character, your struggles and challenges, and how you're overcoming them
 - include unexpected events and results, twists, drama and humor
 - draw them in with unanswered questions and teases, follow through with big reveals, and integrate useful information into the story
 - make information that isn't commonly known (because there are a lot of financial bloggers, you may need to find a niche or find an audience that isn't being catered to) interesting to read about and learn
 - compare and contrast; explore the financial advise out there, do the legwork of researching it extensively, help the reader decipher the masses of information out there by presenting it in a concise, readable format that supports the suggestions and opinions about what choices to make

Optimiser

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Re: Writing a blog on personal finance- Making no Money
« Reply #17 on: August 23, 2017, 03:50:22 PM »
How would I go about changing it to provide entertainment or valuable insights instead?

This was touched on in earlier replies, but I'll give it a shot.

 - tell personal stories that reveal your character, your struggles and challenges, and how you're overcoming them
 - include unexpected events and results, twists, drama and humor
 - draw them in with unanswered questions and teases, follow through with big reveals, and integrate useful information into the story
 - make information that isn't commonly known (because there are a lot of financial bloggers, you may need to find a niche or find an audience that isn't being catered to) interesting to read about and learn
 - compare and contrast; explore the financial advise out there, do the legwork of researching it extensively, help the reader decipher the masses of information out there by presenting it in a concise, readable format that supports the suggestions and opinions about what choices to make

I'd agree with this. I looked through your blog really quick and almost all of the posts looked very generic, with titles that seemed almost like click-bait. I don't read a lot of personal finance blogs, but the ones that I like have a personal touch to them. For example I recently read a bunch of posts from Frugalwoods. I quickly determined that they were similar in age, and life stage than me, but they were further along on their FIRE path. Because of the personal and financial details they shared I was able to draw some comparisons to my own life and see areas I could be doing better on. For me that was a lot more valuable than another post on why index funds are a good choice.

epower

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Re: Writing a blog on personal finance- Making no Money
« Reply #18 on: August 23, 2017, 04:01:45 PM »
so it is nice to think that my blog might be helpful for people looking for information on certain things.

I've always wanted to share my knowledge back to the community. I started the blog as a way to do this. However connections online don't quite seem the same as doing it in person.

epower

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Re: Writing a blog on personal finance- Making no Money
« Reply #19 on: August 23, 2017, 04:04:25 PM »
Quote
I'd agree with this. I looked through your blog really quick and almost all of the posts looked very generic, with titles that seemed almost like click-bait. I don't read a lot of personal finance blogs, but the ones that I like have a personal touch to them. For example I recently read a bunch of posts from Frugalwoods. I quickly determined that they were similar in age, and life stage than me, but they were further along on their FIRE path. Because of the personal and financial details they shared I was able to draw some comparisons to my own life and see areas I could be doing better on. For me that was a lot more valuable than another post on why index funds are a good choice.

That's the thing. I don't know if I'm comfortable sharing our net worth, our monthly spending, etc with complete strangers (or if work colleagues happened to find out we want to pursue early retirement for example).

undercover

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Re: Writing a blog on personal finance- Making no Money
« Reply #20 on: August 24, 2017, 04:36:44 AM »
What can you write about (in regards to personal finance) that you can't already Google and find out? Probably nothing. And that's the reality of making money with a blog. As others have said, it has to be unique. The only way for it to be unique is to be an extension of you. All of the generic money advice has already been written about one hundred times over. You have to be able to stand out to make money. Again: this shouldn't be your primary concern, simply a secondary thought.

Even MMM's own blog is a clear extension of himself. He's shared most of his financials in addition to providing insightful generic advice (clearly with his own twist). It is a personal finance blog after all. Some go farther than others.

Blog because you enjoy writing and it helps your own understanding/urge to share, not because you want to make money.

limeandpepper

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Re: Writing a blog on personal finance- Making no Money
« Reply #21 on: August 24, 2017, 04:47:40 AM »
so it is nice to think that my blog might be helpful for people looking for information on certain things.

I've always wanted to share my knowledge back to the community. I started the blog as a way to do this. However connections online don't quite seem the same as doing it in person.

Yep, the other thing is that often people don't reach out to you to say that your blog has been helpful to them. I really appreciate it when people leave a comment saying they tried my recipe and loved it, or that my travel post has gotten them interested in a destination. But most of the time people don't say anything, they just read and leave and they might actually have liked my post enough to share it in Pinterest, or mention it on Twitter, or whatever, but for some reason they don't tag me or leave a comment on my blog - I've observed this quite a bit. It's a bit of a wistful situation but I'm glad that people find my content worth sharing, even if they don't tell me!

JoJo

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Re: Writing a blog on personal finance- Making no Money
« Reply #22 on: August 24, 2017, 12:21:04 PM »
Ha, I actually wrote a post about this exact topic to address my perspective on it and why I want to blog at all: http://financeswithpurpose.com/blog-aims-make-0-ever/.  You'll observe that the title is "Why this blog aims to make $0...ever." 

I'd do this for kicks even if it never makes a dime.  (And to date, we're kicking ass on that goal: Amazon says I have a whopping $0.97 from a book recommendation.)  It would be nice if one day it pays for its own hosting, so it can get off my books, but beyond that, I'm not too concerned about it.

I've "made" $2.40 from links to buy eclipse glasses.  Thank goodness they were the compliant type.

I'm now spending more time on SEO... starting to get more consistent google search driving to my site (been about 5 a day for the last few days).   Need to go back and give keywords for my old posts and work on optimizing language.  I also need to hook into AWIN in addition to amazon affiliates.

dycker1978

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Re: Writing a blog on personal finance- Making no Money
« Reply #23 on: August 24, 2017, 01:07:38 PM »
My partner (but mainly me) and I have been writing a blog www.wisewealthandhealth.com for the last several months.

I've always wanted to start one partly for curiosity, being a bucket list item and as a way to potentially have a little side hustle going.

However, as I've looked into making a blog financially viable, it takes 20-30 hours per week, setting up Facebook and twitter accounts (I'm on neither) and doing advertising, affiliate links, commenting on other blogs, etc.

I'm wondering whether the endeavour is worthwhile or if it becomes a "job" just like everything else.

I pay $100-200 a year to have the .com name there so feel like we have to write to make the spend worthwhile.

I've recently got a promotion at work so have less time and our first child is only a year or two away (fingers crossed) so time isn't exactly free at the moment too.

Anyone else been in the same boat?

$100 - $200?  I spend 49.95 for 5 years for mine?  Wow

neo von retorch

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Re: Writing a blog on personal finance- Making no Money
« Reply #24 on: August 24, 2017, 01:43:41 PM »
$100 - $200?  I spend 49.95 for 5 years for mine?  Wow

Same here; I've never paid more than $10-11 per year for a domain name. The only reason to buy a $100+ annual cost domain name is after you've proven it's a viable, profitable internet property deserving of the fancy name.



So I didn't spend much time on the actual web site, but I have some constructive feedback:

- the entire content "above the fold" appears to be relatively meaningless. What I mean is: 1) you have your site name, and then a motto that repeats the name, 2) you have a low resolution photo that does not look good on a desktop browser taking up a great deal of space, and it's not clear what the picture has to do with wealth or health, 3) then there's another photo awkwardly overlapping, and it looks like it's a sales brochure for rich people looking to buy expensive beach front property (OK I guess that ties into wealth, but most people buying there either have excessive wealth... or excessive debt), and there's an email sign up, before anyone has had a chance to be sold on your content being valuable. Suggestion: Slim down the lead in imagery and get people hooked on content. Ironically, MMM's site is similar. Lots of space for navigation, email sign up and finally a "featured article." But keep in mind this is an update from the original layout, designed long after the blog was already popular.
 - the site is littered with awkward/missing punctuation, random changes between capitalized and lowercase letters and massive white-space rather than content. Suggestion: Take the time to edit this to look and feel like professional journalism. I don't mean take away your voice. Your disclaimer is tongue-in-cheek fun and interesting.
 - your "About Us" doesn't talk about you, who you are, what you do, what you care about, etc. Suggestion: Put a real "About Us" at the top of your home page, making it personal.

You say that you're not comfortable sharing your "details" with your readers. You may have to make a tough choice here. While you don't have to talk about your real names, real employers or real location, think about maybe sharing "pretty good" indicators of who you are as people. Use colorful language to talk about how you perceive the world and how your history affects your decision-making now. Are you the (not professional, but well-enough-educated) subject matter experts you want your readers to believe you are? Prove it. How do you know how to improve health and wealth? Why should we listen to you, let alone trust you and act on your suggestions? Were you in the place in our lives that we are? And now you're in a better place? Now we want to know how you made that journey!

JoJo

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Re: Writing a blog on personal finance- Making no Money
« Reply #25 on: August 24, 2017, 02:20:29 PM »
$100 - $200?  I spend 49.95 for 5 years for mine?  Wow

Same here; I've never paid more than $10-11 per year for a domain name. The only reason to buy a $100+ annual cost domain name is after you've proven it's a viable, profitable internet property deserving of the fancy name.





maybe he or she is also talking about hosting.  Mine will be about $150+ a year for domain & hosting with bluehost after my initial subscription is up.  I just renewed for my domain and it was about $25 for domain and hiding my personal info for the next year.  That was "free" in year 1.

avrex

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Re: Writing a blog on personal finance- Making no Money
« Reply #26 on: August 24, 2017, 03:14:26 PM »
Keep this in mind: some of the highest earning travel bloggers make much of their money from consulting and marketing to other travel bloggers.   Added: on of the more egregious ones I've seen recently is a facebook ad from a travel blogger saying how great it is with a direct link to bluehost where he gets a nice commission for every new blogger that signs up.

This.

The blogging world sometimes feels like MLM (Multi-level marketing) or pyramid selling.

You see these types of things...

"Click on my Bluehost link to start your own blog today."

"Buy my online course.  I'll show you how to be successful blogger, just like me."

ender

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Re: Writing a blog on personal finance- Making no Money
« Reply #27 on: August 25, 2017, 07:13:38 AM »
Write good, compelling copy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ROmwGMH_wFk

Most blogs don't do this well at all. Looking at yours, my first impressions:

  • Getting Wise About Your Wealth and Health -- you just repeat the headline, filling up space pointlessly
  • The "real estate" blog has no amount of making me engaged. "In part two of the chasing the dream job series I go find out if being a real estate agent is the career for me." I don't care if it's the career for you, I'm not reading your blog because I'm interested in you, I'm either bored/looking to learn something/etc. looking at it, it's really tl;dr  and the intro doesn't engage me at all
  • the facebook article title is 110% clickbait phrasing
  • the image at the top blocks most of the content on my laptop, so that the only non-title text is the "subscribe!" part

Sarah Saverdink

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Re: Writing a blog on personal finance- Making no Money
« Reply #28 on: August 25, 2017, 07:59:36 AM »
Quote
I'd agree with this. I looked through your blog really quick and almost all of the posts looked very generic, with titles that seemed almost like click-bait. I don't read a lot of personal finance blogs, but the ones that I like have a personal touch to them. For example I recently read a bunch of posts from Frugalwoods. I quickly determined that they were similar in age, and life stage than me, but they were further along on their FIRE path. Because of the personal and financial details they shared I was able to draw some comparisons to my own life and see areas I could be doing better on. For me that was a lot more valuable than another post on why index funds are a good choice.

That's the thing. I don't know if I'm comfortable sharing our net worth, our monthly spending, etc with complete strangers (or if work colleagues happened to find out we want to pursue early retirement for example).

That's a decision you'll need to make... I post our monthly/yearly spending and our general net worth (under a completely fake name - none of our actual friends/family know my blog exists) because people are curious how others spend their money and how they became so successful. It's intriguing. Plus people are looking for parallels to their own lives. I also feel like people are more interested in the success stories and those who have already achieved FIRE. My most popular post by far has been 'how we saved $1M by age 32' -- again, people love success stories and curious how you made it happen.

I just started in April and have found that writing meaningful posts and poking around social media takes a lot more time than anticipated. I'm hoping once the weather turns colder and I'm not doing as many fun things outdoors, I'll have more time to work on it :)

neo von retorch

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Re: Writing a blog on personal finance- Making no Money
« Reply #29 on: August 25, 2017, 09:14:54 AM »
That's a decision you'll need to make... I post our monthly/yearly spending and our general net worth (under a completely fake name - none of our actual friends/family know my blog exists) ...

Your last name is not Saverdink??!??!

Sarah Saverdink

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Re: Writing a blog on personal finance- Making no Money
« Reply #30 on: August 25, 2017, 09:38:44 AM »
That's a decision you'll need to make... I post our monthly/yearly spending and our general net worth (under a completely fake name - none of our actual friends/family know my blog exists) ...

Your last name is not Saverdink??!??!

Shocking, I know!!! I thought it was a pretty clever pen name, lol.

Johnez

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Re: Writing a blog on personal finance- Making no Money
« Reply #31 on: August 26, 2017, 05:06:41 AM »


I'm viewing your blog on my phone, format looks good to me, very clean, minimal crap, and easy to click.

Your "about us," reads like a mission statement. It's all "why" with nothing to latch onto. I'd like to know WHO you guys are (careers, family folks or DINKs, country/city people?)

With regards to details, they don't need to be personal or reveal your identity. Personally, I find spending reports totally boring and skip even MMM's. The details that appeal to me are the useful ones that describe a thought process, a discovery, a mistake, a turning point, a reaction, etc. Writing is story telling. The golden rule in story telling is this: show, don't tell.





4n6

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Re: Writing a blog on personal finance- Making no Money
« Reply #32 on: August 26, 2017, 06:09:37 AM »
I have been blogging for almost 3 years and I have made little to no money. I have ads on my blog and some affiliate links, but the truth is I do it more for my own creative outlet. But I do feel pressure to continue to blog. I actually just had a jump in subscriptions b/c I had an article featured on Rockstar Finance (that was pretty cool). I would love to monetize it more, but I am ok spending the $100 per year. I might quit in the next year or so, but 3 years so far and I am still trucking.

channtheman

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Re: Writing a blog on personal finance- Making no Money
« Reply #33 on: August 27, 2017, 11:52:24 AM »
Without even looking at the blog, anything that touts "health and wealth" comes off incredibly click-baity to me.  All I can think of are stupid YouTube ads "The x secrets to health, wealth, and happiness."  Don't mean to crap on your domain name, just my 2 cents.

Michael in ABQ

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Re: Writing a blog on personal finance- Making no Money
« Reply #34 on: August 27, 2017, 02:17:53 PM »
Here's the info I shared with someone on this forum recently about travel blogging to make money.  In most cases you can just substitute "travel blogger" for "finance blogger"...

* Keep this in mind: some of the highest earning travel bloggers make much of their money from consulting and marketing to other travel bloggers.   Added: on of the more egregious ones I've seen recently is a facebook ad from a travel blogger saying how great it is with a direct link to bluehost where he gets a nice commission for every new blogger that signs up.

I mentioned something about Kosovo to my wife the other night (possible future deployment there) and she said she was curious what it looked like. I did an image search and one on the first results was from a travel blog. Sure enough there was a popup asking for my email and offering a discount on hosting (bluehost I believe) and a course on how to become a successful travel blogger. I thought of this post which I had just read the day before.

ltt

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Re: Writing a blog on personal finance- Making no Money
« Reply #35 on: August 28, 2017, 05:19:13 AM »
I was just reading a blog about this subject matter.  From what I understand, the internet is saturated now with people writing about personal finance matters.  I have two or three, at most, that I visit on a regular basis--that's it.  And, rarely, if ever, would I click on an ad within a person's blog.  I'm guessing that the vast majority of people who do visit financial/personal finance blogs are viewing blogs/forums that give very sound, constructive advice that is also somewhat focused on taxes..??