2013 was a great year for My Own Advisor thanks to every reader and visitor. Today’s blogpost will highlight a few milestones for the site and share some reflections as part of this 2013 blog year in review.
Site Traffic
2013 was my second full year running this self-hosted site after moving my blog from Blogger to WordPress platform. In the summer, the site was also redesigned thanks to Dividend Ninja’s creative and technical expertise. In 2013:
- Pageviews increased to over 30,000 per month compared to 21,000-24,000 per month in 2012.
- Almost 50% of all site traffic remains courtesy of new visitors, and I hope you keep coming back!
- The average time on my site is about 2 minutes, keep browsing folks and contact me if you can’t find what you are looking for or you want to see a particular post about something.
- 80% of my traffic is from Canada, 12% from the U.S. The site also got a few thousand hits from the U.K. in 2013.
- There is almost a 50-50 split between male and female visitors.
Site Reflections
Visiting other blogs, attending personal finance conferences and more, inspired my content this year and I’m sure the same will hold true in 2014. I’ve got lots of ideas for new material in the New Year. Until that time comes, here were some of my favourite articles from 2013 by month:
January 2013 – I have no problem with price matching (in fact I do it myself from time to time). However, if you’re going to price match please consider these things…
February 2013 – I’m a fan of the Registered Retirement Savings Plan (RRSP) and Tax Free Savings Account (TFSA), I use both accounts, but I believe if you don’t do this, the TFSA is by far the better choice every time…
March 2013 – I wrote about how to plow through $10-million bucks courtesy of this lottery winner…
April 2013 – I had some fun with reasons why folks didn’t file their tax return yet…
May 2013 – I shared how I became a DIY investor…
June 2013 – We all know saving money is not always easy but I found 20 ways to save more cash here…
July 2013 – We learned Detroit was bankrupt this past summer and I took this opportunity to share some personal finance lessons from this disaster…
August 2013 – Friends of My Own Advisor know I don’t like debt, which makes having my fat mortgage more than annoying. Even so, I wondered if investing more would be better than paying down debt and asked readers if I should change my tune here…
September 2013 – I wrote why mortgage insurance doesn’t work for everyone, far from it actually…
October 2013 – I was fortunate to cross a significant dividend income milestone this month…
November 2013 – You can learn all about TFSAs here and RRSPs here…
December 2013 – With Christmas and the holidays, the end of the year is here. It’s also a good time to get your financial affairs in order. Here are some year-end financial planning tips…
All my Archives can be found here.
Looking Ahead
Last year I wrote I had no idea what was in store for My Own Advisor. I’ve started to think about some personal finance and investing goals for 2014 but that’s about it. I intend to share those goals in January. I suppose for the site, these would be some great milestones if they were achieved:
- Average 40,000 pageviews per month (an increase of about 30%) – lofty goal.
- Start a mailing list for fans.
- Consider writing an ebook – eventually.
What do you think of those blogging goals?
I’ve got more reflections to share in the weeks to come, including how close my financial predictions were for 2013 but that will do it for today’s post. Again, thanks for the support in 2013 folks. Lastly, in case I don’t get around to some new material sooner than later, I want to wish you all a very Happy New Year!
“After all these years, I am still involved in the process of self-discovery. It’s better to explore life and make mistakes than to play it safe. Mistakes are part of the dues one pays for a full life.” – Sophia Loren
Mark, your blog has gone from great to even better! Keep up the good work! Even though I rarely reply to your posts, I still read everyone of them.
Happy and prosperous 2014 to you and your family!
Thanks Elemag! It’s so great to read that kinda stuff. I hope 2014 is a great year for all of us personal finance fanatics 🙂
Take good care and best wishes to you.
Thanks Daisy. It’s good to see the site grow. Good luck to you and best wishes for your site in 2014!
Mark
You had a really good year, Mark. Good job. I’m sure you’re blog will continue to grow in 2014. I don’t think your goals are lofty, considering that you achieved so much growth in the past year.
Thanks so much for the informative blog, Mark. This is one of my go-to sources for Canadian dividend stocks and inspiration. Thanks to you and other like you who’ve served as an example, I’ve earned over $1100 in dividends this year and am very pleased!
Thanks for following along Dee. I’m confident my dividend investing and indexing approach will provide both income and growth as I march towards retirement rergardless of what the market does.
Happy investing in 2014!
Mark
Thanks for the summary of this year and your blogging goals, would love to have just a tenth of your pageloads, but will keep posting as its great to get comments from visitors to my blog.
Look forward to your thoughts on 2014 from an investing point of view.
Thanks
FI UK
You’re most welcome and hope to see you around the site more in 2014.
Thanx for the mention Mark! The site looks great on my new computer screen and loads fast too!
30k+ page views per month is pretty impressive.
Keep up the good work! 🙂
Cheers
Avrom
Yes…nice to see some growth Ninja! Thanks for all your help in 2013!
Happy New Year.
Mark
Looks like 2013 treated you quite well both financially and blog wise. I’ve got a few ideas in store for my own blog for 2014. I might be taking my talents to WordPress. Have a great last few days of 2013!
Yeah, it was a good year JC. I think you’ll love WordPress when you make the move.
Happy Investing in 2014 and I’ll be over to your site this year to check out your progress.
Mark
Congrats on a successful year for you blog. It remains one of my favs.
cheers
R2R
Great to know. Hope to see you around the site often in 2014!
Mark
Awesome to hear! Good luck on your journey in 2014 yourself. Hopefully a great one for all Ottawa-area bloggers 🙂
Hi Mark,
You’ve had a good year. Thanks for the mention. I actually changed my URL a while back to http://www.michaeljamesonmoney.com/
I’d appreciate it if you could update your links (in this post and in your blogroll).
Thanks,
Michael
Thanks for letting me know about the links, sorry about that! Done and done. Happy New Year.
Mark