With this post the 100th article has been published on TradingforFuture.com – another milestone for this just one year old blog. While the first months of 2021 were mainly used for the conception and development of the website with all its hurdles around the business registration, the design of the logo or the difficulties of the DSGVO and cookie guidelines, the first content articles went online in July. However, we celebrated the official kick-off only on August 15 with a multi-part article series on the German pension system. The first year was thus completed. Time to take another look behind the scenes.
Fewer articles, fewer readers
To feed the search engine algorithms, we stepped on the gas quite a bit in the first few months. Until July, and thus for almost a whole year, we published two articles per week, always going online on Sundays and Wednesdays at 09:00. After a four-week summer break in August, during which not a single article was published, we finally switched to a shorter rhythm. Since September, only one contribution per week is planned, which always appears on Sunday morning. The reason: deceleration.
In recent months, some of our articles have been very long and required a lot of research. We are thinking in particular of our extensive article on bitcoin, inflation and the wealth tax, which was still being discussed at the time. The time required for this, in addition to our main job as a technology journalist, but also our daily day trading on the futures markets as well as our honorary posts, became too great for us.
This change has probably led to a decline in readership. However, this may also be due to the fact that the numbers are significantly lower in the summer than during the cold winter days and the free Christmas vacations. While in mid-November of last year we had a peak of 161 visitors a day, the daily number of readers then leveled off at almost 55. Over the summer days, this figure dropped to around 30 to 40. 48 visitors a day have been the average since the beginning of the year. In total, we have delivered a traffic of almost 65.5 GB since the website was launched.
Lots of exciting content
There were minor shifts in the most clicked articles within the top 10. The most frequently accessed article remains the article on the 100,000 euros at 30 years. Newcomers are the articles on the cryptocurrency exchange Crypto.com or the article in which we showed how the state and the system make it difficult to save for retirement.
Of course, there was much more to read on our pages. We would like to highlight our series of articles on the German pension system, the disclosure of our own investment strategy, the explanation why a wealth tax is not so good after all, or why investment advice is only recommended on a fee basis for all sides. We also showed the negative effects of inflation, made clear why the head is the biggest obstacle in trading, and showed why Bitcoin could eliminate many of our current problems.
We had also published supposedly off-topic content such as our Lego Depot or the article on non-cash dividends in the last twelve months. The stages of financial freedom were just as much a topic as savings tricks for everyday life or share savings plans. For the currently prevailing, rather difficult stock market times, we gave valuable advice, but also showed how to get even more out of your savings rate.
Not all articles turned out to be clever
However, there were also articles whose content course didn’t exactly turn out well. In one article, we introduced the TerraLUNA ecosystem and showed how it was possible to get up to 20% returns from a supposed stablecoin. However, after a short attack, it lost its dollar peg and became almost worthless, dragging even bitcoin, the leading cryptocurrency, down with it. The crypto market remains volatile and, above all, fast-moving. Returns always go hand in hand with risk. Thanks to diversification, individual losses are justifiable.
Otherwise, we published a number of book recommendations and free audiobooks on Spotify and introduced one or the other checking account that we use ourselves in everyday life. We recently published an article on the Norwegian sovereign wealth fund, which we think Germany should definitely take as a model.
Break-even point soon to be reached
Monetarily, on the other hand, little has changed. Due to inflation, our monthly costs have also increased, but we are now able to finance them through our advertising revenue. At the beginning of September, we received our first payment from Google. The initial development costs have almost been recouped, and we will probably reach “breakeven” status in the course of the next few months.
Then only our time has to pay off – but until then, the blog remains a hobby project. Anyone who we can motivate with our content to take his investment into his own hands and thus improve his own life, is a win for all of us!
