About Finance ViewPoint

Well, I have just completed over 6 months on Finance ViewPoint during which time I have learnt a lot about the world of blogging, on-line commerce and web page development. However, the best aspect has been the feedback I have got from readers, family/friends and other bloggers who read this blog. Thank You. A number of people I have talked have asked me various questions about this blog, why I blog, how did I start, how much do I make etc. So I thought I would take this opportunity to answer some of these questions in a FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) format.

Q: Why did you start this blog?

A: I started after reading about the "blogging" phenomenon in various articles that talked about the growth and potential in blogging. I also read a number of prominent blogs and thought this is something interesting and productive I could do in my spare time. If I was to select the top 2 reasons, among many, to start this particular blog they would be:

1. Living overseas, I wanted a way to keep in touch with the Australian share market and be more disciplined when investing. I figured if I had to write about why and where I would like to invest, I would be more structured and organized in my investing process. This blog also provided me with a channel to talk about various general economic and finance concepts and useful resources that I and hopefully my readers would be interested in. As time grew, I expanded my focus to also cover personal finance topics and financial aspects of other related areas in technology and entertainment.

2. Make money. Yes, greed played a factor. Reading some of the more popular blogs, I saw that the writers were making $5000 - $20,000 a month passive income and had given up their day jobs. This was very appealing as it would be great to do something I enjoyed and get paid for it. However once you start blogging, reality hits you soon and per my next point, the money ain't what it is cut out to be. I would say that only small number of blogs out there (less than 1%) make substantial amounts of money.

If you do want to start blogging, first read all about blogging at these two sites - Problogger, and Skelliewag. I think these are the top ones out there on the subject of blogging and can provide you with lots of useful tips and advice. Setting up a blog is free and simple at blogger.com (I use this platform) or wordpress.com. If you want to get serious about it sometime in the future, then register your own domain name as soon as possible.

Q: Do you make any money blogging? How much?

A : On average over the last 6 months I probably made about $40 to $50 per month. In my first month I made $2 and last month (February 2008), I made more than $150. Most of my blogging revenue comes from sponsored posts and ads on my site. I probably spend about 40 hrs a month on this blog, so that works out to about $1 per hour. As you can see, if I was doing this for money, I would have quit a few months ago. For disclosure I have a list of the main affiliate programs I participate in on the bottom left hand pane of my blog (under Affiliate links!). Ones that I recommend for new and smaller blogs are - Pay Per Post and Linkworth (for Sponsored posts) and Adbrite and Bidvertiser for site ads. Google Adsense is probably the main game out there in terms of on-line advertising, but this hasn't provided me with any significant income yet.

Q: Where do you find content to write about?

A: Surprisingly this is not a problem for me - I always seem have a lot of ideas. The key thing for me to keep in mind as this blog grows is to keep the content interesting and informative for my readers. The world of finance is dynamic and diverse so there is always something interesting going on and worth writing about. I also get good ideas from readers of this blog. My personal experiences also provide a lot of the source material. I try and write 3-4 posts a week and like to write and refine posts over a few days as and when I get the time.

Q: Are there any other good blogs out there?

A: Lots. According to the latest research there are 2.9 billion blogs out there. Probably only 25% of those have been around for 6 months or more, but there is no shortage of good blogs out there. In terms of finance blogs, I have for 2 recommended blogrolls - one for Australian focused blogs and one for US/Canadian blogs. These can be seen on the right hand pane of the site.

Q: Do you exchange links with other sites/blogs?

A: Sure. If I like the content, I am happy to add them to my Blogrolls. Just send me an email or leave a comment on this post. Apart from helping fellow bloggers out there, the more quality links you have coming into and out of your site, the more well ranked your site will be. Also, it is always fun to discover other like minded or well written blogs.

Q: How popular is your blog?

A: Very popular - I get a million visitors a day. I wish. In reality I have about 45 readers subscribed via RSS and get about 60 unique visitors a day on average. So I would still be classified as a "niche" blog. But, the good thing is that I am growing every week and a number of my articles are coming up on the first page of relevant Google searches. I seem to also be getting more requests for advertising etc, so I take this as a positive sign of visibility and growth. You can see all the statistics and readership for this blog at the bottom of the right pane on this blog.

Q: What don't you like about blogging?

A: Writing what I think is a good post and then realizing (based on page views) that not many people have read it. Ironically the most popular posts, based on page views and comments, are very rarely the ones that take the most effort. So it is important to find the right balance. Also, given I am not a web developer, I hate when there are bugs in the pages and I can't fix them and have to then spend hours on the web searching for a potential solution.

Another challenge is writing about Australian finance and not living there. However thanks to the information now available online, I think I am able to keep on top of most of the new developments. The only real issue has been writing stock reviews on smaller and/or emerging companies that don't get much exposure in the on-line media. Also, one thing I have found which makes writing content for this blog easier is that American finance issues and topics are easily transferable to an Australian context.


That's it for this round. There are a lot more questions/answers I could have added, but this post is getting too long. So I'll do another FAQ post in the next few months and if you have any feedback on the above, feel free to leave a comment and I'll get back to you. Once again, thanks for all your support and feel free to share this blog with others. If you are not a subscriber and enjoy reading this blog, click here to become one!