Indexing Woes Continue
April was an up-and-down month.
I’m beginning to feel like I say that every month.
Our big victory in March was finally getting Google to index almost every page on our site.
Welp, in early April Google began un-indexing pages on our site.
I still have no idea why and to this point I haven’t been able to get Google to stop. It’s like we’re being erased.
I don’t really want to try and explain how disappointing this is and I’m not sure I could find the words to do so anyway.
If you’re reading this and thinking about starting a blog of your own, be sure you’re ready for this headache; especially in the personal finance space.
Web Search Decline
To add insult to injury, we’ve stopped showing up in search results almost entirely.
We were getting little to no exposure until March and then things picked up steadily through most of April until the algorithm decided not to like our site anymore.
It seems as though we’ve been placed in search engine purgatory again.
The good news is site visits are steady. The decline we saw in February and March has slowed a bit, but I’m growing impatient with the lack of growth.
It’s kind of challenging knowing Google basically has a monopoly on search traffic yet they give no feedback about why they do or don’t rank a specific site.
Some direction would be nice, but I guess that’s the reality of blogging.
Content
One positive has been our progress with content.
I’ve become quite efficient at finding topics, conducting research, and writing posts.
At the moment, we have 11 waiting in the wings and 96 on the site already.
We should hit post #100 on May 12th. I’m pretty happy with that because I expected it to come in June originally.
It’s bittersweet though because I assumed there would be more traffic on the site by the time we hit the century mark on posts.
The increase in pace is partially due to the fact that I’ve revised our focus a bit to be more SEO-friendly.
We’ve begun specifically writing to address questions that are commonly submitted to search engines by readers looking for personal finance information.
The hope is by focusing on a topic and specifically writing to address actual questions people are looking for answers to, our level of authority on these topics and our ability to rank for them will improve.
For the last couple of weeks, I’ve been writing completely about Roth IRAs and Financial Independence.
YouTube
And we’re building up a backlog so I can focus on YouTube more.
While we haven’t begun recording any specific videos yet, we will shortly.
My hope is to get a dozen or more recorded, edited, and published by the end of the summer which is around the site’s first birthday.
Hopefully, that process will smooth out most of my rough edges regarding video editing so we can settle into a systematic approach to balancing writing and recording.
That Other Project
And then there’s this whole other thing I’m working on.
I’m sorry to be mysterious, but I don’t really want to put much out there yet about this other…um… thing.
This is mostly due to the fact that I’m not sure I’ll see it through. I’m still investigating whether or not it’s really worth the time and monetary commitment to pursue, but I do think it will help us build some credibility for the site.
Wrap-Up
Whew. That’s kind of a gloomy update, but it’s honest.
Overall, despite the disappointing things we’ve run into, I’m still glad to be a part of this project.
While it doesn’t happen every day, I regularly see people I know who are enjoying the site. I cannot begin to tell you how encouraging comments like those are.
And, as I’ve said before, I’ve learned and grown so much through the process.
I still have faith that the Lord has a plan for all of this since he has also provided the passion and the endurance to see it through.
We’ll just keep trucking right along and see what comes next.
