A win win for all

I started Retirement Investing Today with a vision of both holding myself accountable and developing a small community of like minded individuals.  This has been achieved however in the last couple of months as readership has risen by some 60% from the previous peak it has brought with it a lot of new Comments from readers.  These are from people who both share experiences along similar lines to the road that I am travelling and importantly also bring alternative views for consideration.  These Comments are clearly bringing great benefits including:

• I get to read about different ideas and thoughts, which then encourages me to read and understand more, which then helps me with my own strategy.  If that strategy works then I can share it with you and even if it doesn’t I can share that also.
• You get to read about ideas and thoughts which hopefully encourage you to do more research on various topics resulting in new learning.
• By getting differing opinions we all avoid confirmation bias.
• One that I never even considered is that we are even starting to get some debate between readers within the comments which brings even more knowledge to the table.

Let’s look at some recent examples:

• The Greater Fool UK House Price Index post brought a comment from A1 that in naming the index, The Greater Fool Index, I was bringing an inherent bias to the table.  Thinking it through A1 was of course right.  This site is about mechanical, non-emotional investing and so in future posts this Index will be renamed.  A1 also brought to the table some alternate ideas for what may be causing the vast differences between asking prices and buying prices which I hope A1 and other readers will help develop in the coming months.
• The Extreme Early Retirement vs Early Retirement vs Typical Retirement post brought a series of Anonymous comments challenging my methodology of not having (or minimising) borrowing as a necessity to allow the accumulation of wealth.  Up until that point I had always thought that to get Early Retirement I needed to avoid all debt except possibly a mortgage, and when I took that mortgage I was going to pay it off as soon as soon possible.  Anonymous challenged that methodology and gave me and hopefully some other readers some good food for thought.
• The Protectng Your Portfolio from Inflation post brought an Anonymous suggestion that instead of looking at just UK Government Index Linked Gilts and NS&I Index Linked Savings Certificates that Index Linked Corporate Bonds could be worth a look.  In this same post Passive Investor also highlighted that the strategy presented could help protect against run away high inflation tail risk.
• The Miracle of Compound Interest post brought a thought that much like the option of buying a share instead of an equity fund to secure partial ownership of a company, that I could buy UK government debt direct which would then help reduce fees and hence maximise return.
• Even short posts are bringing benefit.  The last FTSE CAPE post had Tony provide a great link to a snapshot in time PE10 list for many countries.  It’s nowhere as detailed as my analysis but it brings data from many more places than I focus.

This great development has now prompted me to want grow the readership of Retirement Investing Today in an attempt to further develop these benefits.  The problem is that I am an investor and not a website analsyst so am not really sure what brought on the 60% increase in readership in the first instance.  I am aware that in August 2012 Cision ranked this site as one of the UK’s Top 10 Personal Finance Blogs  which I know certainly increased readership but I don’t think it was the only contributor.

In an attempt to increase readership I have developed some ideas which I have already implemented and some that I will continue to do going forward.  In addition I hope that you as readers can also help to grow the readership.  Some of these ideas might even make life easier for your while making it trivial for you to help.  These ideas are:

• I plan to continue to write high quality posts which demonstrate continued learning including that learnt from readers.
• I’m now on facebook and at the top of the right hand side bar I have implemented a get updates on your facebook news feed button.  This will enable you to see whenever I have a new post rather than having to guess but also if you read anything like or agree with it would be appreciated if you would like it on your facebook page which hopefully might bring some of your friends this way.
• I’m also now on Twitter and in the same place you will see a Twitter link.  In a similar light please do follow the site and if you like anything you see then a retweet would be appreciated.
• In the same place you will also now see a small envelope which provides you with the opportunity to sign up to receive an email which advises you of a new post.  Again if you like what you see a forward to some like minded people might help grow readership.
• A lot of ranking sites use the Alexa Traffic Rank system to highlight the top blogs.  It is logical to expect that the higher you rank in these sites the more readership you will develop.  Unfortunately to get a better Alexa Traffic Rank readers need to have the free Alexa Toolbar installed.  It takes a couple of minutes to install but a small act of generosity like this could have a big effect on readership which might help all of us long term.

Finally, I have proven that I am a terrible trader.  I’m proving that I’m a pretty good investor.  Unfortunately I’ve also proven that I should stay with my day job as I am not a web designer nor fantastic social networker.  Therefore if you do try to help with any of the above ideas and it doesn’t work do please let me know so that I can endeavour to fix it.

Thanks to all those that choose help in advance,
RIT