There hasn’t been a post on the site for the last couple of days because OneMint has now moved from a shared web host to a VPS (Virtual Private Server) and I had to stop posting while that work was going on. This was triggered because of a notification from my web host about high email traffic that they were seeing.
They emailed me late Sunday to tell me that 1,882 emails were sent out within the last hour and that this high number shows spam. They sent me a few sample emails and I quickly realized what’s going on. About 144 people are subscribed to the notification that is sent out on the Suggest a Topic page, and if there are 1o comments on that post then 1,440 emails will be sent out due to just that post.
The site has grown quite a bit in the last couple of years and I thought I’d do a post with some numbers that I found interesting while looking at the stats during the last couple of days.
Email Subscribers
First, a number that is regularly visible to everyone – the number of email and feed subscribers – the site has a total of 8,512 subscribers as I write this and while this is visible to everyone, what’s probably not so apparent is that this number could have easily been in excess of 20,000 by now.
For a brief time, I used a plugin that blacks out the screen when someone visits the site for the first time and shows them a subscription box. That plugin is really very effective in capturing subscribers and gives you a massive bump in subscribers. I used it for some time and based on the amount of visits and conversions – there would’ve been more than 20,000 subscribers on the site today.
However, it just didn’t feel right to use that plugin because of the way it captures subscribers. How can a first time visitor really give you their email address because they really don’t know about the quality of the site and whether it is a good fit for them or not. They are just doing it because they want to get to the content and I’ve always had mixed feelings about it, and one day my wife complained about it and I said enough – get rid of this thing.
I’d not recommend anyone else to get rid of it – that thing really works, and it doesn’t harm any other statistic of the site so if you go by numbers you should definitely use that plugin. You need to keep a balance between your site’s needs as well as reader’s needs and I don’t think using this plugin is so bad for readers that you should get rid of it. After all, it’s just shown to first time readers, and people can always unsubscribe or report you to spam if they don’t like the content.
Total Posts
There are a total 1,237 posts on this site (including this one) – and that’s one number that really amazes me when I think about it.
Total Comments
OneMint has one of the most engaged, smart reader base about Indian personal finance that’s to be found anywhere on the web. The quality of the comments is such that in many posts the comment threads are a lot more useful than the post itself and at 14,355 comments – the total number of comments is pretty decent as well.
Most Comments On a Single Post
There are a few posts with over 100 comments, but the most comments by far is on the Suggest a Topic page. The topic suggestions here have been overwhelming for me and I’ve not been able to write about everything that’s suggested but it’s pretty amazing how many people have commented there and the range and diversity of the topics. At 664 comments, that page has the maximum comments.
Most Facebook Likes on a Single Post
At 1,953 Likes – the post on Sachin’s centuries and India’s losses has the maximum Facebook likes. This was an amazing post that I really enjoyed researching, creating and then getting feedback on. In fact, I was at a party recently, and people were quoting numbers from this post without knowing that I had written it – I was truly amazed by that.
Most Pageviews in a Month
The biggest traffic month for the site was January of this year when the site clocked 391,553 page – views. It was crossing 300,000 for quite a few months before that but had never been so close to 400,000 before. I think that’s a fairly size-able number for any blog, and I won’t be surprised if OneMint’s traffic is among the top 3 of any Indian personal finance blog, and as someone told me last year it is by far the biggest by someone who is not in the business.
I’m not sure how many of you would’ve guessed these numbers about OneMint, and I’ve always felt that people don’t realize how much traffic the site gets or it may just be that my idea of big traffic is different from most other people.
After all, these numbers are probably just a hundredth of what Economic Times gets. Or it could be because the posts are not as high a quality as other websites and as someone commented once, sometimes they are a repetition of what can be sourced elsewhere on the web.
Regardless, the one big thing I’ve learned about blogging is that you don’t write because you like to write, you write because you like being read.
If there weren’t as many comments, and discussions on the site as there are today, I would’ve probably quit a long time ago. I hope you find value out of OneMint, and thank you very much for reading and leaving all these wonderful comments!
i have been on this site several times and had a intuition that its pretty popular. But your numbers are just wow 🙂
Congratulations and all the best!
Thanks Amit and all the best with your site as well.
Hi Manshu
To be among Top Personal Finance Websites in India is a great achievement and that too from somebody, who is not present here in India, is really commendable. Readers love visiting OneMint for its variety of clutter-free informative posts. 1,237 posts in such a short time is really amazing stuff and that shows your commitment to provide quality & variety here.
You’ve done a really Great job!! 🙂
Thanks Shiv for all your comments and other help you’ve provided readers. One of my goals is also to create a platform for professionals who are honest and sincere since right now it is hard to find such professionals and the ecosystem is somewhat loaded against them (at least that’s what I feel, don’t know if others agree).
I think to some extent OneMint does bridge that gap but I would like that role to be much broader in the future.
We are with you to achieve this goal, whichever ways possible… We cannot change the ecosystem in our favour but can definitely take steps to improve it.
Congratulations Manshu. This is only due to your hardwork. Your nature to dig into the details and then post it to help others is the true reason for success.
Keep up the good work as this is really beneficial.
Thanks Ams – it is great to see comments from so many people that have been reading the site for so long – it truly feels awesome to know that you guys have stuck around for so long.
Great numbers. Let the zero’s keep adding on the right side. 🙂
Thanks Shinu!
Oops and the stats themselves are great!
Thanks, and I’ve replied to your other email about moderation of comments. Let me know if you got it or not, and reply to it as well.
Excellent compilation of stats Manshu! Way to go!
Well done Manshu.
It’s great feeling see you progress.
You blog posts not only help investors, they are of even greater help to profeesional like us.
Your posts sincerely bring out finer points of various issues.
Thank you Furqan – I’m glad to have a small committed community of professionals on the site who answer many questions and enlighten people on issues that really affect them in their day to day decisions. Thanks to you for contributing to the site as well.
Congrats and keep up the good work. I have been following for over a year and you are doing a great job. Lot of members have been benefited by your blogs including me.
Congrats. thats pretty good numbers. I checked that VPS hosting is too costly. You might be paying $150+ per month for vps but i can’t figure how you are earning money through this blog?
No reply????
VPS is $50 not $150 and there are ads on this website.
Wow 400,000 views a month. So envious. Congrats.
Congratulations !!
Apart from the personal finance stuff that you put up, I generally look forward to your regular weekend post about articles of general interest from other websites. That has expanded my horizons quite a bit (especially the Psy-Fi blog ).
A big heartfelt THANK YOU for this blog.
Ashok
Psy Fi blog is pretty amazing, and there’s a lot I’ve learned there. I’ve not had the weekend links for long but will probably write something up today.
Thanks a lot Ashok!
I would say this would be the second time I tried to comment on your website and may be the first comment got rejected because it was sort of promotional and may be too tardy or aggressive:). My bad.
What OneMint has achieved above is every bloggers dream and a living proof of what persistence and patience can achieve. Most of us start with a bang but fail to be patient. You’ve have proved that patience pays and of course you need to create quality and engaging content. I am running a small blog myself and happy to see these numbers. Truly motivating for me. Thanks for sharing and wishing OneMint a great future ahead.
The one thing I’ve noticed about traffic of many sites and blogs is that the growth is not linear and there is one month where the jump is huge, and after that the traffic comes down a bit but it always is at a higher level than before. So you could have 11 months of low traffic, and then suddenly see a spike. So, because of that don’t lose heart if you don’t see a steady rise, these things just happen in fits and bursts.
Thank you for the tip. Much appreciated.
You’re welcome!
Congrats! Keep it up!
I feel the main reason why more and more people get attached to your blog has definitely to do with the preciseness and conciseness of the articles. The language is lucid, content is rich and the length of articles is right enough to make you want to read it without getting bored.
Thanks Prat – I try to keep it around 500 words, and that’s not only easy to read but a bit easier to write as well. Anything longer takes a bit more effort.
Hi manshu
Certainly because of your variety of articles, people love to read you.Your articles are not limited to personal finance topics only, it offers a perfect dish to its readers.
Great going!!
And because people like you leave quality answers to reader’s questions – thanks so much for all your comments Manikaran!
Many congratulations, pure hard work is speaking now..I will not be surprised when server guys will be complaining about hanged server where one mint is hosted. Great work Manshu Ji
haha i don’t think that day is going to come anytime soon – thanks Deepak and don’t add the ji! 🙂
Congratulations!
Badhiya!
🙂 thanks!
Hi Manshu,
Great to see this.Undoubtedly No 1 spot in blogging.Hats off to your great initiative and likes the quality of your posts.
Thank you very much!
Congrats Mansu, pretty impressive n
umbers. This just an intermediatry milestone and absolutely due to high quality of contents and consistency, Im sure site will scale new heights. If you don’t mind, can you share thoughts about earnings? from ads or any other methods you might be using. just curious about how much one can expect on average with such a popular site.
For earnings, I’d say that it is not much if your traffic is solely coming from India and if you want to make money from advertising then only this much traffic is not enough.
Hi Manshu,
These figures are mind-blowing and you are undoubtedly No.1 Personal Finance Blogger of India. (I am not only talking about the numbers but also the variety & quality that you give to your readers)
wow that’s really high praise and coming from you Hemant that means a lot! Thanks a lot. In my own mind I’d place you and Manish higher because you guys make a lot of difference in helping actually go through the steps they need to take to improve their money life, but then again you guys are a lot more than just bloggers 🙂
the stats arereally good moreover its high quality blogging .Keep it going.
Thanks Abhishek.
Great post. Thanks for your post.