Last week I posted some stats about OneMint, and how I was disappointed by the fall in traffic witnessed in the last year. It was amazing to see so many comments and emails on that post, and I thank all of you for your support.
I’ve been thinking about all the feedback I got, and I have put together a list of 5 items that I want to do in the future based on it. Â
1. Expand the scope of topics:Â Pattu posted the first comment on that post and it was about boredom – he was quite close to what I’ve been feeling over the past year or so and the reason for that is that almost all the content is now driven by what others have requested as opposed to the earlier years when I was writing about things that I stumbled upon and wanted to learn more on.
I need to get that mix going again and write about some non finance related topics that interest me and that I feel might be of interest to others. I think some articles explaining current events will be useful here too. For example, RBI has recently given a nod to create the country’s first mortgage guarantee company – why are they doing this? What does this mean for people, and how has other country’s experience with this been. This could also be lighter things like how does TIME decide that Aamir Khan or P. Chidambaram are influential enough to be in their list?
2. Answer comments within a day:Â No one mentioned this specifically, but I feel bad whenever it takes me more than a day to reply to a comment, and I’m going to try and respond to each and every comment within 24 hours. I get a fair bit of email as well and while I try to answer each and every email it is really hard to keep track of it. It’s a lot better to post a comment if you need a reply, and please don’t mind following up if I don’t respond to your email within a couple of days.
3. Add depth to the posts:Â There was criticism about posts being simple, and I’m going to try and address that by adding more content about difficult topics, and writing in more detail about simpler ones.
4. Â Maintain posting frequency: With all that I’ve got going – 6 posts in a week is the most I can manage, and I’m going to try and stick to that for the rest of the year.
5. Covering more investment products: Unfortunately, there aren’t many good products and many times I look over a name and pass writing about it because it doesn’t look interesting enough. I got some feedback on covering more investment products even if they aren’t good because even that is meaningful information for people who don’t know about them.
I’m really grateful for all your feedback last week. It was quite unexpected, and has really energized me to focus on OneMint and try to grow it once again.
Nothing is as motivating as knowing that people find value in what you are doing, and I’m really glad that so many of you feel that way.
I like many others may not give comments but we are regular readers of one mint for its simplicity, your humbleness and vast areas that you cover. You have been a big inspiration for small time bloggers like me.
Thank you Himanshu! I do think you need to be inspired by better and bigger bloggers than myself or you’ll remain small time like me! 🙂
The kind of spirit you put in the blog is simply incredible and I will always follow your blog which I hv been doing from several years. This is a temporary phase which your hardwork and knowledge will wash and correction is always healthier I guess 🙂
Mehnat karnay walo ki kabhi har nahin hoti
Cheers for your efforts
-DM
Thanks DM!
Your postings are good. I wish to know more details on different avenues on Investment, available in today’s market situation. Any new investment options is good to share with us along with its pros and cons.
I’m going to cover a lot more investment products than I have done earlier, and I hope that is useful to more people.
I’m fairly sure that like me, most of your readers get the pink papers and listen to Bloomberg or some other investment channel. So why subscribe to your blog? (I’ve been a subscriber since Nov 2010). In the past I found that the top USP of your blog was that much of the research I needed was already done by you – as an e.g. even during the plunge of gold prices, I went back to my archives and your posts on the best Gold ETF in India.
More recently your blog has moved towards the sensational and the “You wont believe it but it’s true”. While this may be fascinating to you, I can get all this and more from the pink pages and news channels.
I come, and I believe others like me, come to your blog for hard nosed research. Every frivolous post sets my teeth on edge, because I take time out of my busy workday to actually read what you write. OneMint still manages to delight once in a while, but more often than not, it seems that you are posting because you have a target in mind.
“CEO who interviewed Prime Meridian had excel errors in underwear”??? After all the feedback, is that the best you could come up with??
However, at the end of the day, it’s your blog, and you are entirely free to do with it what you want. I will be watching with interest to see if you are able to put this blog back on my list of recommendations.
Thanks for your feedback. In this particular case, I’m unable to accept that it’s valid.
There’s hardly anything here that can be categorized at sensational here. I try to make the title of the weekend links post nonsensical just for fun but I don’t know if even that is really sensational or anything.
You may already know of these blogs but I’d like to highlight tflguide.com jagoinvestor.com & capitalmind.com which are doing a great job talking about personal finance. Your time is perhaps better invested reading those instead.
You are definitely doing good work. The stats and feedback also show your inclination to do good work.
There is definitely a need for no-nonsense, clear and lucid and uncomplicated financial advice. The complex, one-sided and confusing material get many advertisements and avenues for display, while simple, clear ones do not.
The need is there for your good work. Keep it up. Good luck
Anand
Thanks Anand.