Hello and welcome to my brand new “Crochet Business” project…
If it’s your first time on the blog, I started crocheting and selling my finished items in the real world two years ago (you can learn more on my About page), and on Feb 2019, my father advised me to start a blog and create my own patterns.
I then registered my domain (after a looong brainstorming session that lasted several days, but I think it was worth it). I then learned how to create a blog with WordPress, and how to drive traffic to my blog with social media and SEO.
This is how my Soukaina Collections brand was born.
Today (a few months later), I managed to drive a few thousand visitors to my blog and I’m really happy. I’m also happy to announce that I decided to start a new “Crochet Blogging Tips” section on the blog.
Why I’m posting this income report?
Income reports are well known in the blogosphere, and I’m doing this for several reasons.
First, that was suggested by my father, and he knows what he is doing when it comes to market an online business.
Secondly, the purpose of these reports is to teach my viewers, customers, and friends what I learn while marketing my crochet handmade business online.
Lastly, I strongly believe that putting my results and progress online will motivate me even more because I actually have to put some numbers for you to see. Plus it may increase traffic to the blog a little bit as well (I’m wondering if people are still reading those income reports? Will see…)
Ok, so I plan to publish a new income report here every month for at least 6 months.
What can you expect to see here?
- My results, failures, and progress.
- Insights, experiments, and strategies that may help you to create or grow your own crochet, knitting or craft DIY Handmade business.
Before you read further, I think you’d want to know how I’m going to start making some money.
I plan to make money on my blog with affiliate marketing (Amazon and other affiliates), Ads (I may try Adsense, or I may just wait until I reach 25000 sessions and apply with Mediavine), and as you probably guessed: selling patterns on Etsy, Ravelry, Lovecraft and anywhere I can.
I will add MailerLite email software soon because email marketing is really, really important.
This is my plan.
Oh, and I want to stress out that there is no There is no “one size fits all” way of marketing your online business. You can choose to go with paid traffic, or you can decide to go the “free” (it’s not really free because your time has a cost) route, with SEO and Social media. You can decide to focus on selling paid patterns or giving them from free and make money from advertising and affiliate marketing or do a mix of both.
Also, the first Income report will be for the month of September. Metrics are almost the same for August, and since we are already in October, I think that starting from last month is ok.
I am still selling my finished handmade items offline, however, I see it as a separate business, so I won’t put offline sales in these reports. I’ll talk about the income I make from the blog.
Time to see that number now.
Income: $0
Humm, not exactly what you and I want to see, but it’s the way it is. Although I started the blog eight months ago, I only started to promote it seriously in July. Besides the BIG $0 above, I’m pretty happy with other results (below).
Expenses:
- Etsy Seller Fees: $1.40
- Siteground Hosting: Free
That’s all for expenses for now.
Profit: -$1.50
Traffic:
Important Growth Metrics (Sessions):
- Google: 365
- Facebook: 226
- All Free Crochet: 294
- Pinterest: 106
- Ravelry: 18
- Instagram: 0
- Twitter: 2
- Other: 10
I’ve been spending some time in a few Facebook groups, and I must say I’m really surprised because I really thought I’d see way more traffic from Pinterest. The truth is that I can’t pin that much because my blog doesn’t have that many posts, so I don’t want to post the same pins dozens of times. But I realized that Pinterest in 2019 is really different than what it used to be in 2016-17 and before.
Goals (for next month):
Increase overall traffic:
- Publish 10 new blog posts.
- Reach 1500 sessions.
- Make my first dollar (Update: I’ve made my first dollar online & my first commission here).
- Make my first affiliate commission.
- Get an email marketing automation software (I’m really late on this one, should have added it from day one actually.)
If you have any questions or comments, just leave me a comment below.
Thank you for reading.
Save it to Pinterest!
