Today marks the end of the first month for Root of Good.
I’m pretty happy with where the blog is today. I started a month ago with zero knowledge of blogging. Twitter and twitting or tweeting or whatever it is called was new to me (I’m 33, we just talked to each other when I was a young whippersnapper).
Now, one month in, I’m getting the hang of it. I still have a long to do list to tweak some things on Root of Good. And a long list of interesting topics to write about. Some topics might not garner me the most eyeballs or pageviews (the standard metric of blog success?). If there is an interesting or compelling story to tell or issue to analyze, I would rather write about that instead of a topic that has been rehashed a million times over where I could contribute no novel thoughts or new insights.
Blog Carnivals
I have recently discovered these things called “carnivals” in the blogosphere. Carnival is a fancy word for digest or compilation of blog posts from many different blogs. You submit your articles to the carnivals, and they compile your articles along with many others and publish a weekly “carnival” of blogs. It is a great way to expose your blog to new readers, and from reviewing my site traffic, I can tell it is effective.
I have been fortunate to be included in 11 blog carnivals in the last few weeks. I wanted to extend thanks to these carnivals and their hosts:
Week ending Sept 30, 2013:
Lifestyle Carnival hosted by Mom and Dad Money
Carnival of Financial Independence hosted by Evolving PF
Carnival of Financial Camaraderie hosted by Fat Guy, Skinny Wallet
Carnival of Wealth hosted by Control Your Cash
Carnival of Personal Finance hosted by Red Debted Stepchild
Finance Carnival For Young Adults hosted by The Skilled Investor
Week ending October 7, 2013:
Paula Beard’s Finance Roundup hosted by Paula Beard
Personal Finance Carnival hosted by Aspiring Blogger
Carnival of Retirement hosted by Frugal Rules
Carnival of Wealth hosted by Control Your Cash
October 8, 2013:
Festival of Frugality hosted by Debt Roundup
Root of Good Statistics:
Visitors: 3,200
Unique Visitors: 1,900
Pageviews: 9,100
Most popular pages:
Early Retirement at 33: An Overview – 1,400 pageviews
I Retired At 33! – 800 pageviews
Obamacare Makes Early Retirement Easier and More Secure – 400 pageviews
Demographics of visitors: Mostly English speaking countries (US, Canada, Australia, UK), with a few European and Asian countries rounding out the top 10 (hi Germany, Netherlands, Singapore, and Norway). 49 different countries in all.
Facebook subscribers: 23
Blog subscribers/followers: 8
Twitter followers: 58
Revenue: $32 (from Google Adsense) (that’s about a penny per visitor – leave your 2 cents and we’ll be almost even). I have a small amount of revenue sitting out there that may eventually turn into cashola in my pockets.
Notes
The stats make me smile. People are reading the blog, subscribing, and commenting. A number of people told me they have made positive financial after following my advice. Just as often they were reminded to do something they have been putting off for a while.
I’ve made a few “blogger friends” and hope to develop those relationships (they are interesting people).
I’ll be doing a blog swap next week. One of those bloggers with whom I identify closely, Nick at Pretired.org, will be guest posting here at Root of Good and I’ll be posting at Pretired.org. Nick has a lot of smart and engaged readers, and I look forward to dropping some wisdom bombs on them next week!
That’s all the blog related news, but I can’t close out the post without sharing a pic of this watermelon I grew in the dirt in my backyard. Can’t wait to carve it up for Halloween!
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Congrats! Those stats are pretty damn good my man. Even IF you knew about blogging! I think it took me 3 months to reach that in total, haha… Keep pouring your heart into it 🙂
Thanks, that means a lot! I spend a lot of time on content development. In researching “how to blog” I kept coming across the same advice – put up quality content, and the views will follow. We’ll see if it works out.
Great job! Your stat is awesome. It took me forever to reach that level. Keep it up. 🙂
You’ve been rocking it, man! You’re going to pass me by soon! (:
I’ve done the same thing where I mostly ignore the boring topics everyone else seems to write about and I forge my own path. So much more interesting that a bulleted list of “tips”.
Can’t wait to have you guest post on my site!
I’m looking forward to it. I have some research and writing to do this weekend for a piece focused on the question of “why don’t we all work less”.
I’m pretty excited about the traffic. Good to see some steady visitors and what looks like regular readers from the stats (though I can’t tell too much from the comments yet).
Awesome job!! As others have said, it took me months to reach the level of success you’ve hit. Keep up the awesome work and never lose site of your goals!
Thanks for sharing about the carnivals, never heard of the concept. Still working on turning drafts into posts…
Who hosts your site?
Rockaway Hosting (affiliate link – I’ll make a small commission). If you’re interested in signing up for hosting, there’s a 10% off coupon: ROCK10