Yep, this is right! On this date exactly a year ago, after weeks of agonising doubt, I published the first article on The Money Principle; which means that today, The Money Principle is one!
Many bloggers give the impression that starting their blog was akin to a military operation: they studied other blogs, knew exactly who is their target audience, had a year’s worth of content ready and had a pretty good idea how to monetise. I was different! I started The Money Principle a bit like I run marathons: thinking that ‘it can’t be that difficult’ and by the time it gets difficult it is usually too late to give up. I started from the beginning and wrote the first post, then the second and so on.
I would like to be able to tell you my statistics a year ago but I have absolutely no idea what they were; in fact I had no idea that one can measure these things. I didn’t know a ‘widget’ from a ‘wicket’, knew little about blogging and ‘knew’ only couple of bloggers. But I had three things: fascination with personal finance, open mindedness to learn and passion for writing.
This is how, a year later my widgets are my elfin helpers (I have long given up on understanding wickets), I can identify 23 types of blog posts and work with a mighty and honourable community: the Yakezie. I still have the three things that got me through the initial months.
Where are we today?
- We have up to a 100 people stopping by every day;
- We have published 199 posts and 125,000 words;
- To which you have commented over 1300 times;
- Our Alexa rank this morning is 102,560; and
- Our MozRank is 4.53.
What I figured out is the following:
- I am building The Money Principle to inform, educate and entertain in equal measures;
- I have set up The Money Principle as an ‘agora’, a place where people meet and chat;
- I want to build The Money Principle further with the love and respect you deserve.
Thanks for your support! It means so much to us!
“thinking that ‘it can’t be that difficult’ and by the time it gets difficult it is usually too late to give up.”
I think that’s a great way of doing things! Happy birthday!
I remember the weeks of wavering between the “shall I or shan’t I?” before you posted the first time. Looking back now I bet you wonder why you were so leery of taking the plunge. I for one am very glad you did.
And without provoking WW3 – widgets are way more interesting than wickets LOL
Well done on making it through your first year, it’s a great achievement. It should only get better from here on out as you have already put in all the hard work! Judging from those stats, you are already travelling along nicely.
Feliz Cumpleanos TMP. You guys deserve all the greatness from all the hard work and kindness you put into your blog. I am proud to have worked together. 😀
Congrats! How do you know how many words you’ve published? Or is that just an approximation. Just curious.. 🙂
Ha – we have a blog analyser on our server that can do all sorts of things working directly on the database – it’s not a plugin. The value is rounded and includes the few pages but not comments either here or elsewhere! 😛
That’s how I started WLGYL too – no idea how to blog or how to grow a blog or what anything was. Happy blogoversary!
If you look back, it is actually amazing how far you have come and what you all have learned in one year. It is almost impossible to imagine that a year ago you didn’t know all these things.Making progress and learning new things feels good I think. Congratulations.
Happy Birthday to the The Money Principle – Keep up the great work!!!
Very nice! Don’t forget to make a wish before you blow out the candles…
Happy Birthday and let there be many more!
Congratulations and happy b day
Happy bday. Congrats on sticking it out for a year already. That is awesome. I think you site is great and will get even better with time. Keep it up.
Thank you all for the birthday wishes and for the good words about The Money Principle.
Happy blogiversary!
Happy Birthday! It’s amazing how time flies. Keep up the great work. I am sure with your great content your Alexa ranking will be under 50,000 in no time.
@ShortRoad: Thanks for your kind words and wishes. Hope to get below 100k first – has been taking some time.
Congrats again on turning 1 year old. You are certainly accomplished a lot!
@Roshawn: Thanks and thank you for your support.
Great job, blogging is a lot of work, and you have to love what you do. You guys seem to have fun, and that’s obvious.
@Dr Dean: We are both having great time. Enjoying blogging in very different ways.
A belated happy birthday guys 🙂 That really is an impressive amount of content to put out in a year. You put us to shame! Or, maybe we put ourselves to shame and you’ve done really well. Congratulations 🙂
@Ash: Thanks, Ash. You know what I am going to say, don’t you? Quality is what matters – and quality you have in abundance. We just are older and our social life is carp.
Hello Maria,
Happy Birthday , 28th march mine birthday.
Thank you and happy birthday to you as well.
Maria and John,
happy birthday to the blog.
Looking forward to reading more great articles.
@Alexander: Thanks for your kind words.