My newest post is on dating and relationships (an epic, probably contraversial 1,400 word post that will piss off female readers, but so be it). I have written on blogging, politics, personal life, and whatever else the world should probably know about that is not finance related on that blog.

Topics:

 

What my bottle cap collection taught me about investing

Investing in yourself: How a Hike can Improve Your Workweek

Run the Gamut: What Music Notes and Investment Choices Have in Common

 

Make sense?  Throw in a little bit about you, but keep the overall topic something that relates to the general theme of your blog.  Personally, I like it when bloggers shed a little light into own lives.  Showing who you are is what divides journalism and blogging, and its the reason journalism continues to decline while blogging explodes.  People want information, but they want people, too.  

Budgeting in the Fun Stuff said:

I write what I think, edit out my naturally dirty language (sorry people, I was raised by some very dirty mouths, lol), and try to put as much of myself as I can into all of my posts (on my sites, but I tone myself down for most guest/staff writing posts since I am a guest).

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LOL.  My first drafts would force an MA badge on my site.

I write what I think, edit out my naturally dirty language (sorry people, I was raised by some very dirty mouths, lol), and try to put as much of myself as I can into all of my posts (on my sites, but I tone myself down for most guest/staff writing posts since I am a guest).

Good luck on finding your own perfect balance.  It's hard not to get lost sometimes...

Thanks for your thoughtful replies.  You two have got to be two of the most passionate bloggers I know!   I'm sure keeping your sites running takes a lot of your time, but perhaps making an eBook with all your wisdom would be helpful to others?  You guys both seem to be overflowing with knowledge, stories, and experiences.

Keep doing what you do!

Buck

I very rarely cover a topic just to cover a popular topic - my only exception is if I actually see a lot of questions on something so I decide to cover it.  I write what I think, edit out my naturally dirty language (sorry people, I was raised by some very dirty mouths, lol), and try to put as much of myself as I can into all of my posts (on my sites, but I tone myself down for most guest/staff writing posts since I am a guest).

If I wanted to run popular post sites, this would feel like a job.  I love it because it doesn't feel like work.  I can be myself, have a few laughs, and meet some great people without ever feeling like I'm hiding something or missing out on an oppotunity to connect to all of you. 

I do try to keep Budgeting in the Fun Stuff on personal finance topics, but that is pretty easy since that is such a HUGE part of my actual life (I love managing our money - I'm a pf addict).  Crystal Clear Thoughts is where I can share my other non-money personal goals and ideas.  Dogs Life for Me is just somewhere I can let out all my pet-related rantings, experiences, and it was my first real try for a niche site away from personal finance.  About Life Insurance dot org is my only non-blog site that I just want to be a resource for life insurance questions and grow into a solid Adsense generator on a long-term basis.

To stay motivated, I have to stay open.  If I ever start breaking away from the actual me, I will no longer love blogging.  So, for me, it's not a choice.  I have to write for passion and I do all the SEO stuff after that.  If I ever do just need a money-making popular topic site, I'd create something separate from my true baby, BFS.  I will never allow myself to let BFS feel like a job.

Good luck!

JT,

 

Thanks for the thoughtful and insightful reply.  That really helped!  Sounds like you've been around the block.  What other sites do you run or is that too personal?

 

Thanks again and enjoy the weekend!

Buck

I've considered how to move forward with the personal thing...half of me says go 100% transparent, the other half says doing so would severely cripple the topics/ideas I can discuss on my blog.  The thing about some of these blog topics I have planned is that it is easy to see some in a very mean/sick/generalizing way (I have a post planned tentatively titled "Putting a price on human life"  ) but they aren't meant to be taken that way at all; it has more to do with the fact that I just want to talk about efficiency, and actually the article talks about ways we could save more lives with less money.  

Anyway,  I don't want to run to a far-off tangent; the day will probably come that I go transparent, but I'll probably keep other sides of my ventures private.  If there is anything I've learned, it's that people have a very hard time disconnecting theoretical from reality, and thus assume that to engage in any theoretical thinking is to show underlying thoughts you have in your own head.  I don't know, people are weird...always assuming the worst in everyone!  What are your thoughts on anonymity?  I really don't want to have to run a perfectly PC blog...that's no fun at all!  I also don't want to have a run in between a client who disagrees with some non-business related thought I might post online, either.

As it stands, none of the sites I own myself are any trophy sites.  They do well, sure, but I own each for one of three reasons:

1) To extend reach and form relationships with new clients.  Buying out a small site, but one with top-level advertisers/customers is a great way to realize the potential of a site without actually doing anything with the site you purchased.  Ex. ABCblog has direct commitments with a Fortune 100 company for a small amount of adspend.  You can buy ABCBlog for...say, $5,000 with the assumption that you can leverage ABC's contracts into much larger, full-service advertising deals worth multiples the current contract value.  This is THE BEST way, I believe, to expand your horizons.  (The Fortune 100 thing was a bit of a stretch, but the point stands.)

2) To test SEO strategies and generate data on the efficacy of different keyword combinations, and linkbuilding opportunities.  

3) To consolidate competition, or to remove people from a segement where I believed someone was stealing MY adspend.  I've only one of this type.

The sites are secondary, the history, relationships, etc are what make each site valuable to me.  I don't care too much for adsense sites (though I own a few); I want sites that are businesses in that they have connections I can eventually up-sell. :)  Some say a site should sell for 10x monthly income, but I'd gladly pay $1000 for a site that makes $10 a month in revenues from a corporate giant.  Who knows to what degree I could leverage that relationship with a media agent into sales for other services, products, etc?  That opportunity is worth every dime of the $1000 gamble.

With that said, I do far better creating strategies for other webmasters, or for full-blown businesses than I do with my own sites.  I need some sort of routine that isn't routine, otherwise I'm likely to burn out and quit.  So, working with other businesses on their sites is far more fun since I can learn about a new business and the inner workings of the model, and there's always a new problem to be solved or a new strategy to be refined with each passing day.   I haven't burnt out yet!

There's the longest response in history to a very short question.  I guess the tl;dr version might be "maybe," "yes," "no," "uh..."

Thanks for the thoughtful and insightful reply.  That really helped!  Sounds like you've been around the block.  What other sites do you run or is that too personal?

Thanks again and enjoy the weekend!

Buck