Today’s post is a marker of commitment. I have posted three posts every week for 100 straight posts. The blog started at the very end of November 2017. Today’s post will break away a little bit from our typical content covering wealth building, financial independence, and wellness topics to follow the progress of this site. It’ll be fun to look back a few years from now and see where we were at this point. We will discuss traffic, my most popular posts, and much more.
Let’s dig in.
A top 15 Physician Finance Blog
As of the day I wrote this post – July 7th – we have had a little more than 35,000 page views on this site. You can see this in the image below. We have averaged around 6,000-6500 views over the past four months. My goal by the end of the year is for this number to be around 10,000 page views per month.
Monthly page views can be found on the bar graph with total views listed on the bottom.
You can also see from above that we have had over 650 comments in this same time period. So, I am either saying some really contentious and offensive stuff – or people are actually engaging in what they feel are interesting topics written on this site.
Probably even cooler is the direction the site is heading. White Coat Investor published a list of all 52 physician finance blogs where I ranked 19 out of 52. This data likely came from a couple of months ago as WCI likes to stay far ahead of his post schedule.
Well, the guys over at Dads Making Cents put together a newer list using more recent Alexa data (google data on websites) where I am now up to number 15 out of 52.
New Goal: More than 10,000 page views per month and number 10 in the physician finance blog world by 12/31/2018.
I really appreciate everyone taking the time to say what they think!
Most Popular Posts
The most popular posts on this website include both topics covered on this website: Obtaining wealth (with a financial independence slant) and not forgetting why we try to get there, which is to live a life well lived (i.e. wellness).
Here are the the top five posts from the 100 that have been written:
- Step by Step Tutorial for FIRST Backdoor Roth (Vanguard): Most of my traffic for this post comes from search engines. People are clearly very interested in learning how to actually perform their first backdoor Roth IRA conversion.
- Physician, Know Thyself: A Self-Identity Crisis: I always point people to this post as one of the most important that I have written. It’s extremely hard for those of us in medicine – and I suspect many people outside of it – not to lose our identity in our job. That topic apparently resonated with people.
- Moderately Frugal: Wealth Without Wellness. This was one of the first posts that I wrote on this site. Though my writing style has changed drastically – and I’ll probably go back and update this post because of that – the reason for the massive number of views was from getting mentioned on Physician on Fire’s Sunday Best.
- The Power of Saying No: What Barry Sanders Taught Me. Come learn the same lesson that I did when I was passed up for a position that I really wanted. Would I fold or would it give me incentive to work even harder towards financial independence?
- How to make a $22,000 Backdoor Roth Conversion in One year! Apparently I should just write every post on backdoor Roths. Search engines are exploding with this stuff. Unfortunately for my page views, this isn’t the only thing I like to write about.
My Favorite Guest Posts
As a way to reach more readers and provide content to other sites, I have written multiple guest posts. My favorite guest posts that I have written are the following:
- 3 Ways Financial Independence May Save The Practice of Medicine. This one is my favorite, by far. Honestly, this post almost perfectly captures why I started this site. Physician finance falls under the topic of physician wellness in my view, and the ability to obtain financial independence impacts both doctors and patients.
- Opportunity Cost and ROI of Fellowships. My first – of hopefully many – guest posts on White Coat Investor was on the cost and return on investment from pursuing a fellowship. I even created a calculator to help people figure out the math.
- Got Student Loans? Alter your Asset Allocation. This guest post was published over at Physician on Fire. While I wrote it a bit to spark some debate, I still stand behind a lot of the principle idea: paying down student loans is a guaranteed return. So, while we are young in our career and imploding with student loans, we can stand to be more aggressive in our investing philosophy. 90% stocks and 10% bonds is probably more reasonable, though, if I am being honest.
If you don’t know the sites listed above, you should definitely check them out. They are obviously solid sources of information and blogs that I frequently visit myself.
Traffic
The goal of any blog is always to “get more traffic.” As part of this, I find it interesting to see exactly where my traffic is coming from and who it represents.
Here are my top five traffic referral sources:
- Search Engine Traffic: 3,475 page views
- Physician on Fire: 2,911 page views
- Twitter: 1,829 page views
- Student Doctor Network: 746 page views
- Rockstar Finance: 522
Search engine traffic – mainly going to my backdoor Roth posts – is my main source of traffic. Outside of that, POF has definitely been the current physician blogger that has helped me the most. He has always been more than happy to lend a helping hand and to mention this site in his Sunday Best even in my earliest days.
I owe POF a cold hard beer – or two – when I see him at Fin Con in September. Maybe he will even give me one of his cool koozies?
The other source to point out from above is Rockstar Finance. This site curates the entire internet and provides three to four top quality articles for you to read every single day. So, if you want a source for great personal finance articles each day, look no further. And I’ll be curating it myself sometime in September.
Rockstar Finance also helps bloggers through their VIB program. First, I joined the Bronze VIB program with some moderate success and then recently joined the Silver VIB program. I am really looking forward to growing my site and learning more about reaching readers through this program.
As for the origin of my visitors to this site, I think the following map is the best way of showing that. We are making good progress painting this entire thing yellow in the first 7 months!
Africa, we are coming for you next!
Email Subscribers
As of the time of this writing, we have a little more than 170 email subscribers. Honestly, this is the best way to keep up with the behind the scenes action on this site. These are also my most loyal readers, and I give them free access to me to help with anything that they might need.
In addition to this, when people sign up they get access to a free student loan debt destroyer course, which is optional to sign up to receive.
When new projects come up (like the new book I am working on), these people are the first to hear about them and many will often receive a free copy of what I am working on before it goes live. In the case of the book, which I plan to sell, many – if not all – of my email subscribers will get it for free.
So, to these most loyal readers, I must say thank you!
As always, let me know if there are topics that you would like me to cover. Tell me what you like, what you hate, and what you wish I did differently. I am always open to suggestions. Leave a comment below.
TPP
Looking very solid! 10,000 page views is a great goal, one I just reached in April. It’s tough, but can be done (especially with a great story and tailwinds from other Physician bloggers 🙂 )
Keep it up!
Thanks, Eric! Just gotta keep hustlin’ I suppose. Great work on getting there yourself!
Congratulations on 100 posts! Your diligence in adhering to your posting schedule is an inspiration.
Here’s to a 100 more,
Mouse
P.S. You can look up that Alexa ranking anytime you want, but for me it’s just more navel gazing when I should be working on other things!
Yeah it’s just a vanity metric. Sometimes they get you up and sometimes they put you down.
I am all about just sticking to the grind. It’ll pay off eventually. I know my message will resonate with my target audience if I can just get it in front of them.
Congrats on #100 — a great milestone. Best of luck in reaching your goals — keep creating great content and you’re sure to get there.
Cheers!
-PoF
Thanks, POF. I appreciate the encouragement, as always!
Congrats on the success.
I’m interested in more of your thoughts on the Rockstar Finance programs you subscribed to. I’ve thought about doing the same myself but decide not to. What are your thoughts?
I thought at the bronze level I wasn’t getting a whole lot out of it honestly. Get some tweets each month and placement on sites and top of the directory. But just wasn’t getting a ton of traffic out of it.
The silver VIB group, on the other hand, has been great. I have access to a private forum where I can ask questions and get really helpful replies and suggestions. That by itself is probably worth the money. I also get a guaranteed spot in the rockstar rumble and some better promotion.
I view my blog like any other business. Have to put money into it to expect to get money out. It’s an investment and I think the Silver VIB group will give me more than an adequate ROI.
Congratulations on #100! Here’s to 100 more.
Thanks, Liz!
Congrats! sticking to a system can be tough but you are a perfect example that it pays off.
p.s. I agree that the alexa metric is pure vanity but you got dropped down to 16 with the addition of Military Millions (I doubt you will complain about give up your spot to a blog supporting our troops)
Spot on, Dr. Linus. Spot on.
I am the first one son in multiple generations not to serve. Have a massive respect for those who do. I’ve always felt indebted.
Congratulations on post #100! Amazing how quickly that number arrives when you post regularly 🙂
Isn’t that the truth! I sumltaneously feel like I started this journey yesterday, but have already grown so much!
Thanks for the comment 🙂
I always enjoy reading these stat posts, keep up the activity and your digital footprint will grow
Thanks for the encouragement!
Congrats on reaching 100 posts. Good luck with reaching your goal of 10k page views per month. You are on track to hit that goal. You are in with a good group.
Thanks, Dave. I sure hope so. I’ve had a lot of help along the way.
Great work on your site TPP! Keep it up and I’m sure you’ll exceed all of your goals! 😀
I appreciate it Dr. McF! Certainly hoping to
Your making great progress and I appreciate your regular posts and the high quality. Keep up the great work. Can’t wait to learn from you at FinCon!
Congratulations TPP! 100 posts is definitely an achievement as many bloggers find out exactly what kind of time commitment this activity does and their blogs fall quickly by the wayside.
I hope I can make it to 100 posts (still haven’t even written that many (I think I’m at 67 total, though only 25 published so far), so I know exactly what kind of milestone that is.
You just gave a wonderful blueprint how to celebrate my 100th post (again hopefully hit that milestone).
Great goals to aim for and hopefully you surpass them. For me I just want simple world domination with my blog (is that too much to ask?!?!?).
I’m excited about the VIB program as we both joined very close to one another.
Are you the brain and I am pinky? Or is it the other way around? Taking over the world one post at a time 🙂
100 posts is a huge milestone. Three posts a week every week is a constant grind. That’s likely 6+ hours a week for a full time physician, spouse and parent. Kudos on sticking to your plan. I can’t wait to read the next 100 posts!
Thanks, SHS! It definitely is a grind. Particularly given that my wife just started a new full-time job. This might be a bit of a game changer. Things should get better as school starts (she is in education), but its definitely going to force me to be more efficient!