I’ve been blogging for over 3 years now. It has been difficult at times coming up with topics and other times it has been very easy. The funny thing is that there is a direct correlation between the difficulty in coming up with blog post ideas and how much I’ve challenged myself in real estate investing.
When I start something new or push myself to progress to the next level, I find that there are no shortage of new and interesting topics to write about. The exact opposite is true as well, when I’ve fallen gotten completely comfortable with what I’m doing and no longer pushing myself I find it very hard to come up with new post topics. It makes perfect sense!
For the past two weeks I’ve been struggling to come up with topics to write about that I haven’t written about before. I then had the above mentioned revelation! Sometimes it’s tough to tell you’ve fallen into a rut because it happens quickly, randomly and with out warning.
How’s My Real Estate Investing Blog Doing?
Having a blog has so many benefits and even today I’m discovering new ways it’s helpful. When I read other people’s blogs I find some of the most interesting posts to be about the blog itself. Pat Flynn, from smart passive income blog, recaps his earnings once a month and it’s great to see how he is doing.
At this point it’s hard to judge my blog on my real estate income, but what I do like to measure is how I’m doing in terms of visitors to my site. The amount of visitors is a great indication of how I’m progressing because nobody is going to want to read my blog if I’m not progressing.
So lets get to it…
Traffic
Being able to measure how much traffic you get to a blog is a must if you are serious. I use Google Analytics to keep track of things like Pageviews, Unique visitors, referring sites and search engine traffic. The chart below shows my growth over the past year on a per month basis. As you can see I’m getting about 500 more unique visitors to my site this year as I was last year at the same time.
Traffic Sources
Besides measure how much traffic I’m getting, I like to know where that traffic is coming from. The best area to increase visitor traffic to a website is through Search Engines. If I can get to the first page of google for some popular key words like “Real Estate Investing” my traffic will SKY ROCKET!! The competition is extremely fierce for terms like that so it’ll take me a big longer before I see that happening.
Referring Sites
Another major traffic source for me are from other sites who have linked to StrugglingInvestor.com. Posting comments on other blogs is a great way to help people find your site. This past year I have really slipped on my commenting because I really wanted to concentrate on my Lead Manager software. Even still I get some decent traffic through referral links.
Here are the top 10 sites that drive readers to my blog (my good friends Shae, Steph and Patrick are always in the top 10)…
Income
Another way I use my blog is to earn some spending money (actually bill paying money). You’ll see on this site two ways I can earn some extra money, the first being adds and the second being referral links to products that I have used and endorse.
Ad Network – Adsense
All the banner ads you see on my site are through an ad network called Goolge Adsense. If you are interested in learning about using adsense for your blog it’s a good way to get a few extra bucks. Below is how much I’ve made in the last year broken down on a monthly basis. September was a record month for me and I give full credit to the interview I did with Steph Davis about my first deal.
Affiliate Links
I have a few affiliate links on my site from amazon products that I have ordered and recommend like books and direct mail tools to real estate investor courses. I don’t actively promote any of these products on my site, I just have a few areas where I put a link. I probably could make more if I pushed these products but I don’t enjoy when other people do that and I’m no hypocrite so I won’t do that myself.
Nothing huge here as you can see, but it all helps.
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Comments 13
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Cool post, Scott! It’s nice to see your blog and it’s progress through the years. One thing I won’t forget is the old days, it used to be much simpler back then. But, I guess new technology is here to help us bloggers – that’s for sure!!
It’s interesting to see your traffic sources overview. I too, believe that Google will eventually find you the more you blog. It seems that the most tenured and continued blogs are the ones that come up first in the search results. I’ve found YouTube to be another good source of traffic as well.
Keep up the good work, thanks for sharing! 🙂
Author
I’ve actually not spread into Youtube much at all. I host my video’s on that site but just so I can show them on my blog. Do you have any tips for getting more traffic from YouTube?
Sure thing, Scott! Regarding YouTube, it’s best to try to tag your videos with keywords based on your target audience and what they are looking for. Also, if anything that you do is associated with/or in the same field as someone with higher authority – it also helps to tag the video that way. For what I do, it’s kind of obvious. You may want to do a test search on YouTube and you’ll see that I come up using certain key words. Hope that helps! 🙂
p.s. One last thing about video, not everyone likes to be on camera. There are many who teach others what they do just by doing Screencasts. I think it’s an effective and interactive tool. Each person’s comfort level is different.
Author
I really appreciate the tips Rachel. Much like facebook, I’ve never really jumped into using youtube. I know I’m missing out on a lot of traffic, but I just can’t seem to find the consistent time needed to leverage those two sites.
For the videos I do put up on YouTube, I do put tags on them. I however don’t put to much thought into what tags I use though. That is my laziness at work right there!
Some interesting info, Scott. I’m still in the beginning stages of blogging, so I’m kind of learning as I go. I have a bunch of ideas for topics, but for me the big thing is making the time to update the blog. I definitely have to get better at that.
The good thing for you is that the statistics show your number of visitors steadily improving over time! Keep it up!
Author
The hardest part is definitely taking the time each week to write posts. I tend to update 2 or 3 times a week and I try to make each post about one topic in particular. This keeps the posts from getting to long. Getting traffic takes a very long time and requires constant effort. If you are inconsistent with when and how often you post, people will lose interest most of the time. There are exceptions to that rule however.
If you have problems finding consistent time to write posts, a good alternative is to write multiple posts at one sitting and then schedule them to be released at a later date. My short attention span doesn’t allow me to do that, but it could work for you.
Is commercial real estate investing a better investment than investing in residential properties? Now, we all know that real estate in general is a great investment vehicle and both residential and commercial properties can be good investments. Either avenue can have a tremendous effect on your net worth, but most people think only of residential property when they think about investing in real estate. While this is certainly the most viable route for most people, commercial property can offer additional benefits the residential model cannot offer.
I must say your an inspiration and I appreciate the transparancy in sharing your information. I have a stupid question under your adwords earinings why oes it say estimated earnings? I would think the number would be exact since it already happened.
on another note, in the beggining you use to have themes for some of your post that I used to enjoy. you used to have one talking about what you learned that week. and so on. I use to enjoy those
Keep up the good work, keep blogging, keep doing your thing.
Author
Hi Art,
It seems like Google does some type of audit to your earnings before it makes everything official. I’ve never really kept track of how much my earnings have changed, but it probably hasn’t been much at all or I would have noticed. Also just to keep things straight, what I have on my site is Google Adsense, not Adwords. Adsense is used for placing Adwords advertising on your website. You get paid for using Adsense, but you have to pay to advertise using Adwords.
I also appreciate you letting me know what “post series” you liked in the past. I’ll see if I can incorporate more of the “what I learned” type of posts in the future.
Scott,
Thanks for your transparency and teaching. As a new blogger, I really appreciate the opportunity to learn from you. Thanks man!
Author
Any time Al. I really enjoy when people can learn and be motivated by my actions. If you ever need any help feel free to ask
Scott- looks like your real estate blog is doing very well! I appreciate the additional tips you’ve given in this post.