I share OneMint numbers with you from time to time, and usually I do that when the blog hits a milestone or some other small achievement like that.
However, today I’m going to share stats of perhaps the worst quarter OneMint has ever had. I track some numbers on OneMint quarterly, and since this is a financial blog, the last quarter of every financial year is usually the best as far as traffic is concerned.
OneMint was very close to hitting one million pageviews per quarter in 2012, and I was fairly confident that the one million a quarter mark will be hit in Q1 2013. However, this is what happened:
| Â | Â 2013 Jan – Mar | Growth / Decline (’12 Jan – Mar) |
| Pageviews | 447,520 | -53.67% |
| Unique Visitors | 287,693 | -41.78% |
| Visits | 336,772 | -43.34% |
| Pages / Visit | 1.42 | -12.88% |
| Avg Time on Site | 00:1:21 | -17.35% |
| Bounce Rate | 78.93% | 17.44% |
| New Visits | 82.11% | 3.48% |
As you can well imagine, I’m very disappointed with these numbers, and when a friend casually remarked that by next year OneMint won’t even be in existence, I got a small shock and thought that I should introspect and spend some time on why OneMint has done so badly in recent times.
I hope that writing this will also help other bloggers avoid some mistakes that I have committed.
With that in mind, here is what I think I did wrong that has led to OneMint’s recent decline.
1. Answered comments late:Â I have not been answering comments as regularly as I used to and this has definitely led to a decline in traffic. People don’t post as often, and the ones who were likely to post follow ups don’t do it when the comments are old, so not answering comments in a timely fashion has led to decline.
2. Did not post frequently enough:Â I don’t know of an easy way to calculate this but I’m pretty sure that I haven’t posted as much in 2012 as I did in 2011, and that definitely leads to decline in traffic – every new article results in traffic so it is natural that if you post less frequently your traffic will go down as well.
3. Did not strategize posts:Â Suggest a Topic has been a great page because of the discussion it generates but I usually don’t think about how popular that question is likely to be. Not every question interests a large segment of readers and many times I think that I haven’t used my time to the most optimal possible. Sometimes I write posts which are very narrow in scope and that takes away from writing about other things that are of interest to a wider audience and that is definitely a cause for lower traffic.
4. Did not update old posts:Â The main source of traffic for OneMint is Google Search, and older posts usually send more traffic. In the past I have updated older posts with more current data so that the posts still remain relevant and don’t lose their search engine rankings, but in the last year I haven’t been updating posts as regularly and as a result they are dropping out of search engine rankings, and losing their traffic.
5. Did not write difficult posts:Â Although I hate to admit it, I’ve been prone to write about topics that I already know about and that’s usually not good for traffic. You want to write about things that are difficult and explain them so that posts get shared, and do well in search rankings, writing easy stuff is easy but won’t generate traffic long term.
I can go on and on but I want to stop here, and hear from you on what you think might have been the reason for OneMint’s decline, and for those of you who also have blogs, I hope that you don’t commit the same mistakes that I have!
This is such a great post 🙂 Thanks so much for writing it. Its full of useful pointers for newbies like me. And I am already guilty of your 5th point about ‘not writing difficult posts’. Your post has inspired and helped me get on right track. Thanks a bunch for doing this analysis of One Mint.
Hi I believe you are doing your fair job. The problem is with the readers. As a reader we are fond of Tadakati bhadkati. We always have the flaovor of saas bahu serials. So my advise keep your simple advise continue. As an investor, people need be realistic and think like a patient who actually need a finacial doctor
Thanks Anmol! I’ve always felt that OneMint is different from others in the sense that it will never cater to sensationalism, and I will always preserve that. No shortcuts or stock tips will ever be handed out on OneMint.
Hey Manshu,
It is fine, man! You write good, it is learning curve. Things like this happen. Good that you are asking people and gauging your reader’s nerve. But, but just write what you think you should write. Don’t pay much attentions to criticisms. Many times, criticisms come from people who have never written a single line or can’t think anything but to criticize other work. Just follow your heart, man! You know what to do.
Hey Abhishek – Thanks for the encouragement, I feel that so far the criticism has been quite fair and is really useful for me. It is up to me to make it actionable, and do something about it.
I read all of my blogs I follow in my google reader and often don’t visit the actual websites. Is this something that could be reducing your numbers?
Another point is that people like following others who have goals and like you said, have a “strategic vision.” Ask yourself, what are you trying to achieve through blogging and how can it help others.
Best wishes moving forward.
Thanks for your feedback Patrick.
I find many comments here that readers use Onemint only for investment purposes.This is totally wrong. What is special about Onemint is the broad economic and finance info it talks about and the easy simple explanations of complex issues.. eg Printing money and Prosperity,Budget,GDP etc.I dont know whether there are any sites or blogs which are comparable. Let it not become a me too product.