Blog Statistics Update May June 2014

So here’s the deal.  I’m not sticking to the posting schedule I wanted to for the spring/summer (obviously).  I’m setting my defense date for the end of summer so I’m working as hard as I ever have in my life and for a longer amount of time than I’ve ever sustained before.  It is what it is, and I’m looking forward to being back full-steam (and more) on the blog after my defense.

 

This month, I only posted five times – yikes!  I wrote two articles on our personal finances – high spending to celebrate Kyle’s defense and our net worth topping $100,000 – in addition to last month’s blog stats post, our monthly spending review for May, and one post promoting other goings-on in the blogosphere.

 

I considered shuttering the blog for a while, but I wanted to leave the option open of throwing up a quick post every now and again, and I think I will do the blog stats and monthly spending reports still because they don’t take much time.  I’m also trying to convince Kyle to write a post or two and take over the responsibilities of posting the guest posts you guys offered last month (thanks again!).  So there may be a few signs of life, or there might not.  I won’t be commenting around the blogosphere or sharing your great articles, either.  I hope I’ll be able to catch up on everyone’s summer post-defense!

 

 

Analytics Data from June 15, 2014

 

People who listen to us, as of June 15, 2014:

RSS subscribers: 197 (too many fluctuations to bother recording change)

Twitter followers: 903 (+28)

Facebook fans: 56 (no change)

 

Rankings:

Alexa: 115,725 101,801 ()

Google PR: 3 (no change)

MozRank: 5.09 (+0.17)

 

Some Google Analytics statistics:

 

It looks like the free fall is over!  Thinks are nearly unchanged this month.

 

mayjun2014stats

 

 

Popular Posts

 

Interestingly, the two real articles I wrote this month both made it on the most viewed posts list.  I thought our base traffic would be largely from search, so this is not what I expected – maybe the search traffic is spread out over too many posts.

 

Most viewed posts:

1) What Do You Consider a Good Salary?

2) Earned Income: The Bane of the Graduate Student’s Roth IRA

3) Celebratory Spending

4) Average Clothes Spending and Pattern

5) Becoming Hundred Thousandaires

 

Most Commented Posts:

Becoming Hundred Thousandaires

Celebratory Spending

 

Top Blogs Referring to EPF

 

1) Budget Blonde

2) Grumpy Rumblings of the Formerly Untenured

3) Our Freaking Budget

4) Mo’ Money Mo’ Houses

5) My Family Finances

 

 

Blog Balance Sheet

 

Again, no income this month, same expenses.

 

Income

 

Adsense: $0

affiliate income: $0

 

Expenses

 

hosting: $10.95

 

 

Search Terms from Real People

 

“how porn sites are maintained financially” – woah, woah woah woah. how in the world did you get here??

 

“christian early retirement”, “top christian blogs early retirement” – I actually would love to chat with these people. This isn’t an ER blog and it’s not a super overtly Christian blog, but I hope they found my post on why I don’t want to retire early (which had a couple Christian-related points) thought-provoking.

 

“living cheaply and maximizing savings” – That’s a great sentiment, but don’t swing that pendulum too far!

 

“how to calculate estimated taxes for hairdressers for 2014” – Basically the same way everyone else files estimated tax payments.

 

 

What do you think when blogs go dark, and what percentage of bloggers really come back?  What has been your lowest-posting month so far?

 

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13 Responses to "Blog Statistics Update May June 2014"

  1. I miss reading your posts, but I completely understand the push to get your defense done. Just write like a mad-woman!

    I went away for a week and a half and didn’t post anything. It’s hard to get my regular traffic back a little bit, which is mostly reciprocity commenting :). I am only getting about half of my regular people back. Hopefully it will get better next week. If not, it is what it is!
    Alicia @ Financial Diffraction recently posted..Trip Round-up: The Financials.

    1. Emily says:

      The traffic thing really is a puzzle!

  2. Good luck and keep chugging! It’ll feel great to be done. (Well, and then you’ll probably feel depressed for no reason and sleep for a week if you have that option, but after you recover it’ll be back to feeling great.) 🙂
    nicoleandmaggie recently posted..Where can you tap if you come up short?

    1. Emily says:

      I guess anything’s possible with my emotional state post-defense! I’ve already surprised myself. I set my defense date yesterday but I think I’m not going to tell anyone what it is specifically (aside from Kyle, committee members, labmates, obviously). If it doesn’t go well I think I’ll want some time/space to figure out how to tell people about that and I don’t want people asking me about it in person or on FB. I’d rather do a “oh by the way I defended” after the fact than having people anticipating it with me. Anyway, this is totally weird because I made Kyle to be way more out there and social about his defense than he would have preferred, and I thought I would have a more celebratory attitude.

      1. Unless you’ve heard of past examples in your lab to the contrary, it is highly unlikely that they will let you go to your defense if they don’t think you have an extremely high probability of passing.
        nicoleandmaggie recently posted..The first time I met you

        1. Emily says:

          What can I say – I’m a worrier. 🙂 I haven’t heard of anyone failing recently in my department and definitely not in my lab. However, this is slightly weird situation as I’m being rushed to defend because my advisor is leaving our university. My advisor has given me the impression that I’m a marginal case.

          I do think failure is unlikely. Still, I can imagine the defense not going well but still resulting in a “pass,” like my committee members withholding their approval of my dissertation pending more experiments that I’ll have to rush to complete as we’re packing up the lab.

          And just in general, even if I shouldn’t be worried about passing, it’s a stressful time made more so by people asking about it! I should start carrying around the “Don’t ask me about my dissertation” mug I gave Kyle last fall.

  3. Break a leg on your defense! I think that is a totally understandable reason why you are not blogging as much. I think everyone has their ebbs and flows with blogging, as life changes. Those search terms are hilarious!
    Melanie @ My Alternate Life recently posted..The 5 Stages of Running and Debt

    1. Emily says:

      I don’t like ebbs and flows. 🙁 I had over two years of posting a new article every MWF. But this is a hobby so I have to put it in perspective.

  4. Congrats on being so close to defense! The final run-up is pretty exhausting but you’ll feel pretty good when it’s over 🙂
    Cecilia@thesingledollar recently posted..Getting to July

    1. Emily says:

      Thank you for the encouragement!

  5. I wouldn’t worry about losing visitors when you have such important things to take care of.

    Now, honestly with my 2 blogs I haven’t had a break or any kind of real hiatus longer than 2 weeks in the last 4 years. Thus, admittedly I don’t have a case study to share.

    However, I’m also a blog reader too 🙂 And I can say that I don’t forget blogs that I’ve been reading if the owner needs to take a break for whatever reason. Unless it’s many months AND the blog owner just disappeared with no explanation, in which case I’d lose interest. You’ve explained things, so the question of “is the blog finished” shouldn’t enter anyone’s mind.

    Best of luck with the defense!
    Tie the Money Knot recently posted..Money Mistakes Couples Make When Dating

    1. Emily says:

      I’m not worried about losing visitors temporarily. I don’t really have a choice so why worry? I’ve just seen a lot of bloggers “take a break” and never return. I usually keep them in my feed for a few months and then drop them and figure I’ll find out through comments or Twitter if they return. I’m glad I have a hard deadline on my life circumstances and I can return after my defense!

  6. […] @ Evolving Personal Finance writes Blog Statistics Update May June 2014 – We had a very high-spending month that would have overdrawn us if we were still using our […]

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