Rich As Chocolate - New finance blog

[mcfroggin]

My name is Jared and I have designed Rich As Chocolate to be a personal finance blog. I'm a physician, private pilot, ordained minister, and relatively recently a finance blogger. As I enjoy helping others in everything else I do, I thought - why not help others with personal finance as well? My most recent post is on Home Office Deductions. I plan on posting another within the next 24 hours. Please visit, subscribe, and comment. Constructive criticism is always appreciated.

Is this the kind of thing that is posted in this section of the forum? Nothing is really in this subsection...... and it is called Personal Finance Blogs.

[Slug]

Hi. I too have noticed this area is largely vacant. It may be related to the fact that Saving Advice already has its own section of blogs. It may not, but there seems to be some kind of inherent conflict associated with directing people to blogs outside of Saving Advice. That said, Saving Advice has always seemed open about that sort of thing with self-links allowed when relevant and html signatures linked out as well.

Your blog is your own. I'm not here to criticize your style or content. Do whatcha like.

I do suggest you choose and audience, if readership is a goal (i.e. you're not writing just for yourself). In some posts you're speaking to more sophisticated investors about individual stocks while in others you are simply covering the basics of an IRA. The same person who appreciates one of these would likely have no use for the other. I fall prey to this issue as well. Most of the time I'm trying to draw in sophisticated readers, but occasionally I slip into something too basic. The key to building readership is to find an audience niche and own that niche. Don't stray too far or you risk losing an audience.

Some small things:

You need a better disclaimer. What you have now does not necessarily protect you from a liability perspective. Read a few PF blog disclaimers and borrow liberally from them to create your own. They're all basically saying the same thing.

Charts and graphics are nice things that draw a reader in. Try one besides the mullet.

Incorporate Twitter and Facebook subscriptions. This is easy to automate so that you don't have to manually post them. You're missing out on a whole world of PF bloggers who occasionally re-Tweet or comment on your posts.

If a comment is good enough for you to greenlight on your site, it's also good enough for you to reply, even if just to say thank you.

Oh, and if you have any thoughts about my blog, I'm happy to receive feedback as well.

Good luck.

[mcfroggin]

Hi. I too have noticed this area is largely vacant. It may be related to the fact that Saving Advice already has its own section of blogs. It may not, but there seems to be some kind of inherent conflict associated with directing people to blogs outside of Saving Advice. That said, Saving Advice has always seemed open about that sort of thing with self-links allowed when relevant and html signatures linked out as well.

Your blog is your own. I'm not here to criticize your style or content. Do whatcha like.

I do suggest you choose and audience, if readership is a goal (i.e. you're not writing just for yourself). In some posts you're speaking to more sophisticated investors about individual stocks while in others you are simply covering the basics of an IRA. The same person who appreciates one of these would likely have no use for the other. I fall prey to this issue as well. Most of the time I'm trying to draw in sophisticated readers, but occasionally I slip into something too basic. The key to building readership is to find an audience niche and own that niche. Don't stray too far or you risk losing an audience.

Some small things:

You need a better disclaimer. What you have now does not necessarily protect you from a liability perspective. Read a few PF blog disclaimers and borrow liberally from them to create your own. They're all basically saying the same thing.

Charts and graphics are nice things that draw a reader in. Try one besides the mullet.

Incorporate Twitter and Facebook subscriptions. This is easy to automate so that you don't have to manually post them. You're missing out on a whole world of PF bloggers who occasionally re-Tweet or comment on your posts.

If a comment is good enough for you to greenlight on your site, it's also good enough for you to reply, even if just to say thank you.

Oh, and if you have any thoughts about my blog, I'm happy to receive feedback as well.

Good luck.

I appreciate the advice. I've changed my disclaimer, and updated the site a bit. I am still working on the Twitter thing.

Your site has quite a few ads. Does it not turn off readers with so many ads? Thanks again for the help.

[DKAS]

I'm very new to blogging as well so can only speak from reader's perspective on your blog. I enjoyed reading a couple of articles you shared. One thing was the long google Ad on the left hand was taking too much attention away from the content I thought. Good luck

[mcfroggin]

I appreciate the help. I like the font of the title on your blog and the slender ad below it. I might have to try that myself eventually.

[DKAS]

Thank you, like I said I'm quite new to blogging as well so appreciate any feedback, good or bad. We just have to learn on the go, maybe we can provide each other useful tips here as we learn them.

[Slug]

I appreciate the advice. I've changed my disclaimer, and updated the site a bit. I am still working on the Twitter thing.

Your site has quite a few ads. Does it not turn off readers with so many ads? Thanks again for the help.

Well, I've never had a reader complain about an ad. Most of my ads are vetted. Everything in the right sidebar (Prosper, PerkStreet, and ING) are well-known entities I've either use or have reviewed ad nauseum. The 2nd column has Amazon books I recommend and a Google ad I can't control. Ads at the article footers are also Google ads I can't control. This is definitely less than optimal, but it sustains the site. Ideally, I would love to ditch Adsense altogether, but that's not going to happen unless I can attract advertisers willing to pay for custom ads.

My biggest issue appears to be with Google Pagerank despite my SEO efforts.

[Slug]

I appreciate the help. I like the font of the title on your blog and the slender ad below it. I might have to try that myself eventually.

You should reconsider whether a story title and image is enough of a teaser to click to read more. It doesn't really draw me in.

Also, you need to format the left sidebar Google ad. It does not mesh well with your site's color scheme. You might want to consider larger image ads there anyway since you have the space. I've found image ads to be more lucrative than text.