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My Financial Independence Journey » Blog Update » Blog Update: February 2013

Blog Update: February 2013

With two months of blogging behind me, it’s time to review the blog’s progress.  February was a great month for this blog, with some nice increases in traffic. As usual, I’ll try to make this blog update post short, so that I can focus my time on writing actual content.

History

February was an amazing month for blogging.

Over the course of February I kept up my goal of publishing at 3 solid posts every week, with Monday’s post being a dividend stock analysis.  I also started a weekly link roundup series on Saturday.

The next big February event was joining the Yakezie challenge.  With some hard work and luck I’ll have an Alexa score below 200,000 within six months and be accepted into the network, thus completing the challenge.

And I wrapped up February by moving the site to it’s own dedicated web server and installing a really nice looking theme.

The New Look

I recently moved the site from WordPress.com to its own web server.  I also installed a brand new theme, which helps make the site look professional and better matches the quality of the content that I’m trying to write. Along with the new theme comes a slew of new options and features, which I am slowly learning about and setting up.  All with the intent of making this blog a bit better every day.

Unfortunately, the move had a few side effects.  I’m not sure if my RSS, email, or WordPress.com followers are still receiving updates.  And there was about 12 hours of downtime, where the site was up, but very messy looking as I attempted to figure things out.  For this, I apologize, but I hope that the new look and new features make up for the inconvenience.

Help Me Crush the Alexa Challenge

As I mentioned before, one major part of the Yakezie challenge is to get this blog’s Alexa rank below 200,000.  To do that, I need your help.  By doing any (or all) of the following, you will help me reach my goal.

  • Install the Alexa toolbar in your browser.
  • Follow the blog with Facebook, Twitter, RSS, or email.
  • Comment regularly (I try to reply to as many comments as I can).
  • Tell your friends, family, neighbors, and pets about the blog.  Spread the word of Financial Independence!

 

Become an MFIJ Follower

There are plenty of ways for you to follow the blog if you like what you see here: RSS, eMail, Twitter, and Facebook.  Pick one and go for it.

Also, if you are enjoying the blog let your friends know.  More visitors and commenters will help this blog thrive and grow.

Stats

By eyeballing my WordPress stats, it looks like I’m averaging around 100 unique visitors a day at the end of February.  But I lost my old stats records when I switched.  Now I’m using Google Analytics, so it will be interesting to see if it reports figures at all in line with the old ones from WordPress.

February Page Views: Over 6,000.  After I switched hosts, my page views got reset.  So I don’t have a more solid number for February.

Alexa Ranking: This blog has gone from 1,183,344 to 397,753.  Lower is better, by the way.  So I’m making progress!

MozRank: 4.2/10 (higher is better)

PageRank: 0/10 (higher is better)

I remain clueless if these stats are good or bad for two months of blogging, but I’m really happy that I’m making progress.

Expenses and Income

 

Expenses:

$-28.00,  The cost of the domain name registration.

$-133.65, The cost of hosting.

Total: $-161.65

Income:

$0.00

Now that the blog is hosted on my own server, I will actually make money off the ads.  Hopefully this will be enough to cover all the setup fees for the blog.

Readers:  If you like what you’ve seen so far, please follow the blog via RSS, email, or Twitter.  If you have something you’d like me to write about, I take suggestions.

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24 Responses to "Blog Update: February 2013"

  1. Congrats! That’s some amazing progress in just 2 months. I’m still well behind you and have a lot of work to do. I like the new layout/theme. Best wishes with the challenge!

    Reply
    1. MFIJ says:

      JC,

      Thanks! I don’t think I’m doing anything special. I just keep on writing posts on whatever interests me in the universe of financial independence. But it is a ton of work. It’s really like having a time consuming second job, on top of my time consuming main job.

      Reply
  2. 6k visitors within only a few months is really great progress! Congrats!

    Reply
    1. MFIJ says:

      Thanks, I’m just trying my best to work on the blog in some capacity a little bit each day. I’m really glad that people are enjoying it so far.

      Reply
  3. Mr. 1500 says:

    I also try to write 3 posts per week. I have to say that it’s not easy all the time.

    Congratulations on your growth! I enjoy your dividend information. Thanks!

    Reply
    1. MFIJ says:

      I agree,, writing 3x per week is hard. My only advice is to write a few posts ahead of time. That way, when you have a busy week, you’ll still have posts. If you can’t write 3x per week, cut back to 2. IMHO, it’s better to consistently deliver quality posts even if it’s only once or twice a week.

      Reply
  4. Michelle says:

    Your blog is definitely doing great. Congrats!

    Reply
    1. MFIJ says:

      Michelle,

      Thanks for the support!

      Reply
  5. Under 400,000? Woo! Good for you dude.

    Reply
    1. MFIJ says:

      Thanks for the support.

      Reply
  6. 6,000 views and under 400,000 in Alexa is actually fantastic for the amount of time you’ve put in so far. With that sort of start there’s no doubt you will get under 200,00 in no time.

    I wouldn’t worry too much about the PageRank for now. It’s not updated all that often and it can be a bit of a weird measure at times too. Pretty soon you will see it jump, most likely to a 2 or 3 would be my guess. Better to focus on Alexa than PR though since you are killing it right now on Alexa!

    Reply
    1. MFIJ says:

      Thanks. I’m just focusing on producing the best posts that I can. I figure that the rankings will all take care of themselves in time. But my inner nerd needs to quantify and track everything. It’s great to hear from other bloggers that I’m making good progress.

      Reply
  7. Integrator says:

    Nice going MyFi. You are killing the Alexa ranking. I just snuck under 400k today, but the ranking keeps moving every few days. I’ve managed to hit a PR of 3. I dont know how these get determined, but mine seems to have been stuck on 3 for a while. I’m sure your’s will go up pretty shortly.

    Reply
    1. MFIJ says:

      I understand the basics of PR. I took the Udacity class where we programmed a search engine that was essentially the original page rank system. That was a ton of fun. I wish I had the time to take more of those classes. But I have no idea how the current version of PR with all of the extras works.

      Reply
  8. Martin says:

    This is great progress on Yakezie challenge man. I hope I will be able to follow you. I am thrilled and scared at the same time.

    Reply
    1. MFIJ says:

      Martin,

      Thanks! I’m sure you’ll be able to follow me. Just keep writing. The truth is that I have almost no idea how this blogging thing works. I just try to do my best every day.

      Reply
  9. Good luck with the challenge. You have already did some amazing progress.

    You should be able to return your money in no time!

    Reply
    1. MFIJ says:

      Thanks. I’m just going to keep blogging the best that I can and we’ll see how things shake out from there.

      Reply
  10. Brick By Brick Investing | Marvin says:

    6000 visitors in 2 months time is awesome! Congratulations! The site does look much better I like it a lot, keep up the great work.

    Reply
    1. MFIJ says:

      Thanks for the support. I’m glad you like the new layout. It still needs some work. Hopefully, I’ll have some time later this month to keep on polishing it up.

      Reply
  11. Those are great numbers for two months. Consistency and interacting is the key. I think you’ll blow your expectations out of the water if you keep it up.

    Reply
    1. MFIJ says:

      Thanks. I’ve been putting in a lot of effort towards both consistent posting and interacting with as many other bloggers out there as I can.

      Reply
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