I want to start off by saying that I have Man-Flu – The worst possible kind of flu that one can have. Ladies, this blows any sort of menstrual pain out the water by a factor of 100. It like all the cramps and pains added up which we don’t get each month, rather they all come at once.
I hope you took that better than Mrs Scot did. I told her that Manflu was like PP but much worse. She replied that I had no idea how bad PP was, but I assured her I did – like Manflu but not quite as bad! It went on 😛
I had my tonsils out as a kid, so rarely get colds but when I do – they hit me! I don’t like taking medicine and I don’t like taking days off work. Basically I am stubborn. I actually continued my routine to the point that I still went on a 6k run yesterday – ok maybe in hindsight that wasn’t the best idea.
So today marks the day that Savvyscot.com reaches 5000 visitors. To me this is a terrific milestone from when I first started this blog less than 4 months ago. I have a google pagerank scoring of ‘2‘ – which I think is quite good (it’s better than 1) – but if anyone knows if this is good – lemme know 😉 At time of writing my Alexa ranking is 332,153 – getting closer to that 200k mark 🙂
I am averaging around 100 visitors a day, which I consider to great! While I have some subscribers (this is something I need to work on) and some great friends who like to retweet my posts (Jeremy at Modest Money and also From Shopping to Saving in particular) A lot of my traffic comes from search engines – let’s look at yesterday for example:
‘purpose’ has been a big hit since I wrote my post ‘Defining Purpose and the Importance of Moderation‘ I have been getting around 20 hits a day from search engines on this term. I guess nobody understands fully the secrets of google’s algorithms!
The thing that has truly surprised me since starting this blog is the number of messages I receive from people/companies asking to do guest posts. Some of which have offered to pay me / include me in commission schemes. Can you guess what these are advertising?
Pay Day Loans
What an absolute joke. I do not want to be a part of ripping some poor person off. I started this blog to share my insights into being savvy with money and maximising your potential. Any blogger who preaches about saving money and being frugal, yet hosts adverts and sponsored posts from the enemy is a hypocrite!
These letters vary from being extremely badly written, right through to very professional. Here is an example from yesterday:
Hi Scot,
Hope you are doing great.
I work for [I have removed the link and name so that I don’t add any traffic to their site!!] a fairly new website that provides news and information on personal finance. We also help consumers find personal loans through a nationwide network of lenders.
I was reviewing the content on your website and feel that the services offered by [X] would be of great value to your visitors. I’d be really thankful if you consider linking to our website from http://www.savvyscott.com
Of course we would be linking back to you as well.
Below is the suggested link info. Feel free to change it as you deem fit.
Link Text: Payday Loans Online
Link URL: [X]
Link Description: [X] provides news and information on personal finance and helps people apply for personal loans.
We also write guest posts in the finance area. If you’re open right now to any contributions we’d be happy to send you an article. If you choose to publish it all we ask in return is for a link to be included in the byline.
I look forward to hearing from you. Let me know if you have any questions.
Thanks for your time.
Regards,
Sam Burgoon
For a start, if Sam actually took the time to read my blog properly, he would realise that my name is not Scot, rather it refers to being Scottish. There are many, many others.
Rest assured, for those of you who like reading my blog and actually like taking away advice that I offer, it will always be 100% me. I will never accept money in return for a post or advertise something that I don’t believe in. While I can’t control the adsense content directly, I can influence what is shown by what I write about!
Rant Over.
If anyone is interested, I have made £0.74 this month so far – you guys are going to make me rich one day 😉
Presenting with Impact
I was on a presenting / speaking course for 2 days this week (before the dreaded manflu begun) and learned a lot of cool things – will mention this in my next post 🙂
Mrs Scot’s dresser arrives next weekend (the very expensive one that we controversially bought with a credit card)
This weekend we are surprising my Dad for his 50th birthday. He thinks he is going away for the weekend with his partner but will return home to a house full of friends and family on Saturday – Cannot wait to see his face 🙂
What would make this blog more exciting? Why do people come to SavvyScot.com?
Thanks for the mention. Now you make me feel bad that I was originally referring to you as Scot too, although I didn’t really think it was your first name.
Sorry to hear that you are fighting the dreaded man-flu. I’m not surprised that the wife doesn’t sympathize with your comparison to PP lol.
By the way, glad you won’t be accepting any junk payday loan sponsored posts. It bugs me when so called financial blogs promote that stuff too. They’re obviously not concerned with helping their visitors at all.
Modest Money recently posted..3 Good Web Based Side Income Ideas For Smart Hustlers
I just like reading about personal finance! Also when I start reading someone’s blog, I like to know more about them. Sharing personal stories are my favorite. Most of the time I can identify with bloggers so I keep coming back. I think the key is to just be real!
I don’t make any money off of blogging as well. I just do it because I like to!
Thanks for the link up btw:)
Shopping to Saving recently posted..When a Recipe for Success Fails
BTW… I got irked when I read that manflu is so much more worse than PMS 😛 It’s NOT TRUE!!!! Hahah I get crazy cramps and I feel like dying every month. I have had a crazy flu too though where I lost my voice and I felt dead for 3 weeks…so maybe, I’ll let that one slide this time!
Shopping to Saving recently posted..When a Recipe for Success Fails
Hi SaavyScot!
Sorry to hear about your ManFlu. I agree with you though, it “MUST” be worth than PMS.
Good that you are showing man’s side of things.
Well, I do nothing to stop pay day loan ads from showing on my site. Although I have not seen any yet, I’m sure it is just a matter of time before they show up.
Anyway, hope you get better soon!
David recently posted..How I Failed With My First Rental Property And Turned It Into A Loser…
LOL – you’re on my shit list now for saving that any sort of flu is worse than PMS 🙂
Congrats on 5000 hits! Great job!
With regard to payday loans – looks like an advertiser. My stance with advertising for payday loans, is that if a reader from my blog goes and takes out a payday loan because of a link that I posted, they’re the dumb ones and they probably don’t understand the premise of my blog. If a payday loan company wants to advertise with me, that’s cool with me! I don’t expect they’d get much business though 😉
Daisy recently posted..How The ’90s Set Us Up to Fail Financially
You should be grateful for your £0.74, I’m on £0.02p for the month… still not sure what to spend it on, but whatever it is I’ll let you know so you can buy 37 of them.
Keep in there buddy 🙂
Congrats on 5000 visitors! Hope you’re feeling better. I might be the only woman who doesn’t mind you saying that the flu is worse than PMS – I’ve never experienced PMS so I can’t compare – I’m just lucky that way I guess.
I hate hate hate when the pay day loans ads show up on my site, and when I get an offer like the one you mentioned, I promptly tell them that I charge for guest posts, that usually scares them off.
Jordann @ My Alternate Life recently posted..Would You Work Any Job?
Thanks for the post 🙂
I told them exactly where to go! They keep coming and i keep telling 🙂
there was an interesting column in the evening standard about men being discriminated against and an accusation that that the term ‘man-flu’ is highly derogatory to us fellas! Not sure if it will wash though!!
I get three or four of those pay-day loan or sponsored guest post emails (where they insist on putting their dumb link in the content) every week. I did run a few guest posts from various big corps a year or two back but have since decided against running anymore (especially as the content is re-used on other guest posts) and would never consider a dodgy finance provider – well worth standing by your principles on that one.
[email protected] recently posted..Savings Toolkit: How To Choose A Savings Account To Fit Your Needs
Keep with it hon – I too refuse to do the whole “Payday Loan” and “PPI reclaim” links. At first I thought I was crazy – but now I get “nicer” requests that are more congruent with my ethos.
And when I get those poorly phrased emails offering guest posts I respond with a perky “I’d love to – here are my advertising rates” except I “accidently” added a zero onto the end of all of them LOL
Mind you I will be snookered one day when they actually go for it 😉
[email protected] recently posted..Simple Cushion covers