2011 State of the Blog Report and Resolutions for 2012

By Harry Sit

A new year is just around the corner. To borrow something from Car Talk, that means you wasted another year reading my blog. To my long-time readers, thank you for your indulgence. To my new readers, welcome, I hope you will stay around.

It’s also time for me to look back and review how the blog did this year. This is my once-a-year State of the Blog report.

The state of the blog is, well, a mixed-bag.

I wrote slightly over 100 articles. There were about 1,400 comments including my replies to readers’ comments. The number of subscribers stands at about 2,100, up from 1,900 at this time last year. The numbers of visits and pageviews are up 13-14%. My book, Explore TIPS, sold 370 copies, down 1/3 from 2010 when it was first published. Total income from the blog was disastrous: down 60%.

In 2012, I will continue to write quality content on this blog. If I don’t have something interesting to say, I’d rather not waste your time and mine. I will continue to take the investigative approach, sharing with you what I would do personally in each situation and why.

In 2012, I will update my Explore TIPS book and also publish a Kindle edition.

Although the blog readership is up, the blog as a business did very badly. Total income is down 60% from 2010, primarily as a result of collateral damage from Google’s adjustments in its search ranking algorithm (the so-called "Panda" updates). For more details on blog economics, please read my post last year: Blog Economics: A Look From Inside. Suffice it to say, relative to the content I’m producing here, the blog is very much under-monetized.

In 2012, if you see some revenue-enhancing initiatives, please understand. They won’t be targeted at you, the regular readers. If you subscribe to the blog via RSS feed or email, you won’t see much difference. I will try to keep the feed as full text, not requiring an extra click to the site to read the full articles. I may experiment with inserting a small ad into the feed only if it pays really well. If it doesn’t, I won’t bother you with it.

Being an introvert, I have done a very poor job in networking. I erroneously believed that quality content will find its own audience. Actually my small voice is being drowned out in the vast Internet. People won’t appreciate the quality if they don’t find the content in the first place.

In 2012, I’m joining the Yakezie Challenge. The challenge is about extending the reach of a blog through selflessly promoting others. There are many blogs out there. I need to get out of my little cocoon and network more.

In 2012, I will read at least one new money blog every week and make it my Blog of the Week. By the end of the year, I will have read at least 50 new blogs. If you read some like-minded blogs, please introduce them to me. I’m looking for blogs like Oblivious Investor and Matthew Amster-Burton’s column on Mint Life. If you also have a money blog, please introduce yourself. I will add yours to my list first.

In 2012, I will open my blog for guest posts. If you have something to share but you don’t want to bother with setting up a blog of your own, I will welcome your guest posts. I did this a few years ago with Austin Frakt. After posting on my blog for three months, he got hooked on blogging. I helped him set up his own blog, and the rest is history. Now he and several contributors are sponsored by The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation blogging at The Incidental Economist. Who knows, maybe you will get hooked too.

Thank you for your continued support. Happy Holidays!

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Posted on December 21, 2011 under News. Keywords: .

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Comments

9 Comments on 2011 State of the Blog Report and Resolutions for 2012

  1. thad on December 21, 2011
     

    TFB, thanks for another solid year.

    IMHO, I find your blog to be one of the best on personal finance that I read – several others I follow publish way to frequently with little or no content. A few other blogs have been bought out by big companies (kudos to the blogger for making the big payday), but you can already see the changes to content and promoted offers as a result. I like that if you post a review of a bank/credit union/whatever, it’s going to be based on your actual experience and opinions, not just for a referral fee.

    I’ve been following your blog for years, and have always been a big fan. Keep up the good work.

    Cheers,
    Thad

  2. Jason on December 21, 2011
     

    TFB has been in my RSS for a year or so. I skim all posts, and read at least half in detail. You have a great balance of depth and range. I learn something from you at least once a week.

    Keep it up.

  3. Mike Piper on December 21, 2011
     

    Yikes. I’m sorry to see that the income has dropped that way. I wish you success with improved revenue-generation efforts. (And as I hope you know, I’m always happy to provide any information that I have on that front.)

    And thank you for another educational and entertaining year. I read more posts on your blog than on any other.

  4. enonymous on December 21, 2011
     

    sorry your revenue is way down

    it is a great blog – even if I disagree with you sometimes :)

    IMHO your biggest issue is ‘not feeding the monster’ enough
    quality content is great, but unless there is frequent new content, readership will not grow/ it will decline

    not sure how you maintain quality and still ‘feed the monster’ though I admit I sometimes forget to surf on over since sometimes days go by without any new posts

    I prefer no RSS as my email is already at >200 messages/day between work and personal…

  5. White Coat Investor on December 22, 2011
     

    It’s a great blog, and very inspirational for me in helping me decide to take the jump myself. Personally, the thing I like best about your blog is the quality of the content. You don’t post as frequently as many bloggers, but nearly every post is solid gold.

    Hopefully the revenue drop is temporary. I also find making a few bucks blogging is very encouraging. Heaven knows you deserve the cash, especially since most of it doesn’t come from your regular readers.

    And I’ll take you up on a guest post or two in 2012.

  6. anil on December 22, 2011
     

    Thank you for the time and effort on this blog. This is THE blog I refer people, to know the inside of finance. Keep it up.

  7. nickel on December 22, 2011
     

    Interesting. While I know that many have suffered thanks to the Panda update(s), it appears that your traffic — in terms of pageviews — is actually up. And yet, revenue is down. So you have gained traffic overall, but at the same time you lost traffic to high value pages — is that right?

    Anyway, I just want to encourage you to keep up the good work over here. Yours is one of a handful of blogs that I really enjoy reading. And I’m old school, so I access it by typing the address into the url bar (not even a bookmark, auto-complete is my friend). In other words, you at least have one more regular reader than your subscription numbers indicate. :-)

  8. dd on December 23, 2011
     

    Yours is not a typical blog, as the articles are well thought out, well written, and do not repeat what everyone else is writing or saying. I am a recent reader, yet cannot remember how I found the blog. Please keep up the great work and best wishes for a more prosperous 2012.

  9. Mr.Ven on February 13, 2012
     

    Hi TFB,
    Good that you have sold 300 copies of your ebook. It is really true that networking is must for a blog to grow faster, no one will come to appreciate us, we have to find people to appreciate !

    Thanks

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