Today marks one year since I quit my full-time job, left the tech world, moved across the country, and seriously started pursuing my new investing career. It also marks one year that I’ve been writing this blog…
Since I’m so numbers-oriented in other parts of my business, I thought I would take a minute to review the numbers behind this blog — to see what kind of readership I’m getting, whether readership is increasing or decreasing, how broad the interest is, etc. As I spend a good bit of time writing here, it’s important for me to know that others are actually interested and gaining something from this blog and that I’m not just wasting my time…and more importantly, it’s just fun to see how many people are enjoying what I’m writing…
So, here’s what I found using various analytics resources (keep in mind that depending on how the data was determined, my conclusions may be not completely accurate…I’m not intended this to be scientific):
- First of all, this is my 259th post, in 365 days. That’s a daily post about 71% of the time, which is just short of my original goal of 75%.
- I’ve received 601 comments on the blog to-date, with 158 coming from me, and 443 coming from others. That’s about 1.7 comments per post, which indicates some reasonable interest the topics I’m choosing.
- I’ve received about 50 personal messages from readers over the past year, all with very kind things to about the blog.
- I’ve received nearly 82,000 page views (okay, 78,000 if you don’t include the pages looked at from my computer) this past year.
- I’m now receiving about 4000 page views per week, or nearly 16,000 page views per month, so the trend is definitely increasing.
- There were over 20,000 total visits, or an average of about 18 per day (though this is actually above 130 per day over the past month).
- Of those, I’ve had nearly 6300 unique readers (at least unique IP addresses).
- That’s about 4 pages per visit, and 12 pages per reader.
- And that means I’ve had nearly 14,000 visits from those who were here before.
- I’ve received visits from people in 84 countries.
- While most have been in the U.S. and Canada, I’ve received a good bit of traffic from Switzerland, Malaysia, the UK, and Germany.
- The average time on the site per reader is nearly 5 minutes!
- Even for those who find my site via a search engine, the average time on the site is over 4 minutes!
- The most viewed links are my Business Plan and my House Pictures.
- Nearly 7000 visits (of the 20,000) have been initiated to my site directly, as opposed to through a search engine or a link from another site.
- Nearly 4000 visits (of the 20,000) have been generated via search engines.
- That means that about 9000 visits have been generated by people following my links from other sites.
- The most common search terms have been “rei startup,” “reistartup” “what controls mortgage rates,” “house flipping and rehab spreadsheet,” and searches for my name.
- 50% of my readers use Internet Explorer. Considering I optimize for Firefox browsers, this is something I should think about.
I won’t bore you with any more ridiculous statistics about this blog. But, I will say that I very much appreciate my readers, and thank everyone for the awesome feedback and the continued participation in this blog!
And, since many have asked, I will be announcing something new in the coming weeks for those of you who are doing your own investing (or are planning to start). Stay tuned…
Congrats on the end of year 1!!!
Have you successfully replaced your “tech job” income with Real Estate at this point?
Cheers,
– Hakrjak
Congratulations! Are you not tracking any of your readers from RSS feeds? You may want to use FeedBurner if you aren’t so that you can see how many subscribers (like me) follow you mainly just from RSS readers.
Just a thought 🙂
I love the numbers J Scott! I’ve been watching my numbers slowly increase on my blog as well. I’ve also start a website called Rei-Links that I feature all the blogs I read and other helpfull Investor links. I’d like to put your blog on my frontpage features section. Could I get a use one of your pictures on my site? I’ll also send you an email.
Thanks guys!
Hak – Not yet, but I see the potential, possibly in year two. The key will be keeping the pipeline full, and ensuring that I have the financing in place to do as many deals as I think I have the ability to do.
Don – Great point! I’ve been meaning to do that for a couple months now, and it keeps slipping my mind.
Scott – Shoot me an email…I’d love to work with you…
Jason,
Hey dude. Just wanted to drop you a note and let you know how much I appreciate the time you take to keep this blog current. So much valuable info and insight, and I’m really enjoying following your success. I’ll have to send you an email soon.
Take it easy
Dave
Keep writing Jason!
miss ya,
Tracy
Great Blog!
Its no surprise that I enjoy your blog. I find it a big motivator as I push forward with my real estate deals. The info I especially enjoy is your numbers break downs. That is the info that cannot be found anywhere else. It allows for a more realistic approach to looking at deals.
Would you care sharing the income generated from the blog?
I know its not your intention for the blog, but I would be interested in the info for curiosity sake. Thanks again for keeping this blog going.
J Scott,
Congratulations on your successful 1st year and to many more in the future. I’ve been rehabbing quite some time, but I’ve learned a thing or two from your blog. Keep on writing and I’ll keep reading!
Jingle
I’ve compiled some statistics of my own:
– # of times I’ve visited your website: 215
– # of times I’ve made a comment: 21
_ # of times I’ve made a worthwile comment: 1/2
Thanks everyone for the nice comments! Not only do I plan to keep writing, but I’m hoping to announce some other cool stuff in the next couple weeks…
Bilge –
Honestly, I don’t make very much at all from advertising on the blog. I made some SEO optimizations a couple weeks ago, but I try very hard not to clutter the site with banners, ads, or anything else that might detract from the content.
That said, last I checked, I was making just under $1 per day from AdSense and Amazon combined.
Basically, it covers my hosting costs, plus a nice dinner a couple times a year…
🙂