Darwin’s Finance – Page Rank Leaps by 3 and Traffic Update
A few months ago, I made the switch over to WordPress and started a new blog, Darwin's Finance: Financial Evolution. If you only subscribe to Everyday Finance, you're missing some unique content that's worth checking out - I have a different focus for each blog, so there's very little overlap; you can add it to your reader or have articles emailed to you by clicking here. Anyway, Google just completed its most recent Page Rank Update, which they only do a few times per year. Within the time that I launched earlier in the year and this first Page Rank Update, Darwin's Finance went from zero to 3. Additionally, traffic's been building at a rate of several thousand additional page views per month as evidenced by the chart below. This is great news for the blog, and is a testament to the momentum that's building there.
Why am I sharing this? Well, for one, I'd like readers here to experience and follow both blogs, not just for my benefit, but for the interaction, collaboration and other benefits inured by the content at both sites. For instance, in my recent March Madness - Top 32 Posts of 2009, I shared some content from both sites and I'm sure there will be at least a couple of interest/utility to readers and fellow bloggers. Why else am I sharing this?...
For you BlogSpot Bloggers out There
As you may know, Everyday Finance is a Google Blogger-hosted domain. Some of the benefits of using Blogger are easy/quick startup, easy to manipulate and update the template/widgets etc. and of course, it's Free. However, the tradeoff is that there's a ".blogspot" in the url, it isn't self-hosted (at one point, Google took down all my blogs for no apparent reason for a week and then reinstated them; that doesn't happen on your own self-hosted blog), and the Search Engine Optimization leaves something to be desired - the simple fact that the url is so long doesn't help, plus the fact that WordPress has various plugins and settings with can help your search rankings.
Easier than I Thought to Start on WordPress
I was initially intimidated by the loss of the "what you see is what you get" format in Blogger, which required no coding background, etc. I had also purchased the WordPress for Dummies book (which I don't recommend) and was again intimidated by a massive set of steps required in setting up SQL databases and jumping around with FTP and all this other crazy stuff (to me at least, initially). Then, I read a bit more in there and in ProBlogger: Secrets for Blogging Your Way to a Six-Figure Income (which I do recommend) and saw that I could simply do a 1 click install with one of the most popular services out there, DreamHost. They get rave reviews for both setup and service as well as pricing and I can confirm that it was pretty easy to set up and start blogging on WordPress after just coming up with a new domain name and clicking on the 1 step install button. Check it out. If you do sign up and want some perspective/ideas on making the leap to WordPress, just comment here or send me an email and I'd be glad to help.
Oh, and EverydayFinance isn't going anywhere. I have quite a bit of history here, plenty of subscribers, traffic and advertising commitments. so I intend on running this blog the same way I always have; I just have the time to do both now that I finished my MBA and I've become a bit more efficient. So, don't interpret this as the death-knell of EverydayFinance, but rather, a success that I owe to my initial start here.
...And if you enjoy Everyday Finance, you'll love my new blog,Darwin's Finance: Financial Evolution .
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Darwin's Finance - Page Rank Leaps by 3 and Traffic Update