Hello Friends!
Finishing up with my mail, Tom dropped me a line yesterday with a few questions and thoughts about writing a blog on investing. He wrote:
Hi,
I was thinking of starting a stock picking blog. I am wondering when
you
started, how many visitors you get, do you make money from it, etc or
any
advice you have? I hope to hear from you, thanks!
Tom
First of all, I am quite frankly a bit weak on the number of visitors! I don't ask people to sign in, and I get a rough idea from the few stats I do have. My main website, Bob's Advice for Stocks, gets only about 6 to 10 visitors each day. This number has been slowly increasing...but is not the main part of my website.
I do get some reports from Lycos on the Blog, Stock Picks Bob's Advice, where this particular post is located (!). For instance, in the month of October, I have received 104,697 "requests" which I believe count each "link" on a page as a request, but only 1,555 "page requests". Thus, I figure I get about 50 page views/day on the Blog. This is up from about 938 page views and only 14,672 "requests" in March, 2004. Clearly, I am growing my audience but it isn't like it is a spectacular number of page views like some major websites. I am happy there are people like you who read what I write and are motivated to actually write in and comment.
Furthermore, you asked about making money. I think it would be easier and more profitable to work at minimum wage at McDonald's then to make money doing blogs! Now that might be a bit cynical, but I wouldn't get into writing for the profit aspect. Currently, I have two possible profit sources; one, I list some links to Amazon on my main page, and have also linked to the Elliot Wave website. Thus far, I haven't made any money on either!
Should you start a website? Or a blog? Why not? If you have something to say, and want to improve your writing and analytic skills, then by all means go ahead and write. You should also visit similar weblogs (like you are apparently doing) and enter into the discussions on those sites and mention you have a blog! It might just work! Also be sure to search out the "blog search engines" and make sure you register your site with those services.
What would I like to do? As many of you realize, I have a "day job" outside of the investment world and enjoy this as a hobby. Could this ever grow to something more? It all depends on the work I put into it, and whether the things I write even make sense. When you put it out into cyberspace, well you leave a record and it is a better way, if you like to pick stocks, to demonstrate to yourself and others that you might have some ideas worth considering. I guess that is what it is all about.
Thanks so much for taking the time to write. Let me know if you set up a blog, and I would be happy to drop by and let you know what I think!
Regards...and if you have any other comments, or questions, please feel free to email me at bobsadviceforstocks@lycos.com
Bob