First milestones

I've reached the first serious milestone with the site. One month and 136 posts later, AccMan has had 1,722 visits with 3,805 page views. THANK YOU! Here are some factoids:

Page depth - the number of pages people clicked through to was 1.8 pages. Some who were coming to the site for the first time only paused before moving on and only viewed the landing page. This is a bit of a false impression because the landing page holds a number of posts. The readership is interesting and includes:

• 3 merchants banks
• 16 practices with more than 10 partners
• 5 practices with more than 25 partners
• 17 individuals deemed the stuff worthy enough to sign up for automatic receipt of postings (timed daily)
• EU Commission (they had a serious dig through!)
• HMRC (at least a couple of their people are looking at this site)
• Readers come from 11 countries (so the issues ain't so local after all!)
• 16% of readers in the US

Even more interesting:

• I've provided some general (free) guidance to a 9 partner firm looking to upgrade their current site. It may lead to a commercial arrangement. I'm not pushing because I take the view that if you like what you see, then you'll likely ask the question.
• A contact I'd lost touch with has renewed contact and we're discussing ways of undertaking joint projects in the US.
• A one-off client I had three years ago has re-engaged on a substantial project that will run through to the end of the year.
• I made three new domain expert contacts who helped me better understand the current state of play in certain areas.
• In collaboration with AccountingWEB, I was able to create a podcast that gave a good flavour of the recent SoftWorld in Accounting show. I've now produced three podcasts on topics as diverse as compliance, HMRC investigations and, of course, the show. I believe this will be a growing medium.
• The ELS/FBI furore has led to discussions about creating an ELS specific site as a focal point for discussion with HMRC.
• Sage want to give me a 'drains-up deep dive' into their technology, go to market and professional practice plans.

OK - I had an advantage. I've got media juice and without doubt, the relationship with AccountingWEB (we're separate but share personal relationships going back 7 years and editor John Stockdyk is interested in how my approach works - or not) gave the site a big kick in the first days.

Now I've got two problems:

• Keeping it going - I have to earn a real crust at some point and can't do two things at once!
• Figure out a monetizing model. I favour sponsorship. I don't want adverts as they distract from the message elements.

Comments

[grahamsalmon]

I feel it be remiss of me if I didn't acknowledge the excellent work and long hours put in to the Acc Man blog by your good self. I am so impressed that I've started blogging and I've now got 2 blogs going. One personal and 1 business. It's the future, as Peter Kay would say.I should also thank AccountingWeb for directing me to your blog. You'll be delighted to learn I hold some strong views on issues recently raised by you.And they ain't in support of the opposition.Keep going and I hope the right sponsorship comes along shortly.